Iran-backed militants entered Syria yesterday to bolster dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime against the Islamist rebels who seized Aleppo. Militias crossed into the war-torn country from neighbouring Iraq, following a lightning offensive against the Syrian army by rebel forces from the hardline Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Turkish rebel groups. Their seizure of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and swathes of territory in the north of the country has reignited the deadly civil war in Syria and shocked its allies in Russia and Iran. President Assad blamed the West for the ‘terrorist escalation’, and accused the US and its allies...