FOR the rebels fighting against President Bashar Assad, it was a huge victory. On March 28th a collection of Islamist fighters, including Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate, captured the city of Idleb. Long contested, it is only the second big one to fall to the rebels in four years of war. The first, Raqqa, was snatched by the jihadists of Islamic State (IS), who made it the capital of their caliphate. Only three days before the rebels won Idleb, they took Bosra, a town in southern Syria famous for its second-century Roman amphitheatre.

This opposition surge suggests that Mr Assad is weaker than he was, not that the rebels are stronger. He and his main allies, Iran and Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shias’ party-cum-militia, are struggling to hold their piece of the divided country, despite the West having turned its attention to fighting IS. Disputes within Mr Assad’s camp are growing, too. “Militarily and economically the regime is worse off today than a year ago,” says Noah Bonsey, who watches Syria for the International Crisis Group, a think-tank based in Brussels.

In Idleb the rain helped the rebels by stopping Mr Assad’s regime carrying out air strikes, which it relies on since it has long been short of soldiers on the ground. The embattled president increasingly banks on local and foreign militias. He has had to recruit more widely for the army, yet he cannot trust the conscripts drawn from Syria’s Sunni-majority population. It is said that Sunni pilots are not now allowed to fly aircraft. A well-connected man in Damascus says many are flown by Russians, whose government backs Mr Assad.