Syrian rebels have swept into towns north of the country’s third-largest city, Homs, crossing a highway that eventually leads to the capital Damascus, in a lightning offensive that has rocked the Middle East.
Fighters led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took control of the city of Hama on Thursday before moving south, quickly capturing two key towns along the way south of the city before arriving at al-Dar al-Kaberah, a town five miles from central Homs.
The Syrian government also lost control of the symbolic southern city of Deraa and most of the province of the same name that was the cradle of the country’s 2011 uprising, according to rebel sources and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Rebel fighters advanced on Deraa after reaching an agreement to provide safe passage for army personnel to the capital Damascus for the army’s orderly withdrawal.
The Russian embassy in Damascus has instructed Russian citizens to leave Syria in a rare display of alarm. Moscow remains a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including providing military support.
Video from the pro-opposition channel Aleppo Today showed airstrikes on Talbiseh on the road between Hama and Homs, shortly after it was captured by rebels. The Defense Ministry in Damascus said Russian and Syrian warplanes were responsible for the airstrikes in Hama province, while a strike attributed to forces from Moscow destroyed a bridge on the highway leading to Homs.
Speaking to reporters outside a mosque in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a message of support for the rebels. He previously offered to “discuss shaping the future of Syria” with Assad, he said, “but we didn’t get a response.”
“Idlib, Hama, Homs and then most likely Damascus … we hope this march in Syria will continue without any problems,” he said. The foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Russia are expected to meet tomorrow on the sidelines of a forum in Doha for an emergency meeting on Syria.
The city of Homs sits at a key junction near the Lebanese border, connecting the road to Damascus with a highway to coastal communities, Assad’s heartland and site of Russian naval bases. Homs witnessed some of the fiercest fighting during the earlier phases of Syria’s civil war more than a decade ago, with rebel forces engaged in years of street battles with the army and allied Syrian militia forces, as well as the Lebanese armed forces. Hezbollah group.
Rebels called on the people of Homs to rise up against the regime, telling them “your time has come” in a message shared online, as thousands fled south to Damascus or west to the coastal province of Latakia. Lebanese authorities said they had closed all but one of their border crossings with Syria, while Jordan also closed its one crossing point for travelers and people into Syrian territory.
Forces loyal to Damascus appear to be retreating across the country, and Assad is increasingly losing control of Syria’s major cities.
In the eastern provincial capital of Deir ez-Zor, Reuters and Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu reported that a US-backed coalition of Kurdish and local Arab forces had taken control of the city after Syrian government forces and Iran-backed militias withdrew. Video shows the coalition, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, driving military trucks through the center of Deir ez-Zor.
The Deir ez-Zor Military Council, an Arab-majority militia fighting the SDF, said its fighters had deployed to the city and west of the Euphrates River “to protect our people” from Islamic State fighters and backed by Turkey rebel forces operating in the area.
Unrest also gripped Suwayda province, which borders Deraa, with local media showing people climbing on top of tanks after Syrian army forces withdrew from a remote area north of the restive provincial capital.
Video from the city of Suwayda, where protests against Assad’s rule have grown in recent years, showed people smashing a poster with the president’s face and taking control of a local police station.
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The battle to capture Homs is expected to prove pivotal in the rebels’ efforts to push south towards the capital. After a little more than a week their advance saw them quickly take control of AleppoSyria’s second city, as well as full control of Hama after a rapid retreat by Syrian government forces. The unexpected advance marks the first time both cities have been fully under opposition control since a popular uprising against Assad in 2011, which then erupted into a bloody civil war.
In a rare late-night address, Syrian Defense Minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas called the withdrawal of his forces from Hama a “temporary tactical measure” and said his forces were “deployed to save lives.”
The battle for Homs has drawn signs of further intervention from Damascus’ longtime allies, particularly Tehran and its proxy forces. Two senior Lebanese security sources told Reuters that Hezbollah had sent a small number of “oversight forces” to prevent the rebels from taking over Homs. Israel said its forces blocked a border crossing between Lebanon and Syria on Friday, targeting a facility used to transfer arms to Hezbollah.
A senior Iranian official said that “Tehran will probably have to send military equipment, missiles and drones to Syria … Tehran has taken all necessary steps to increase the number of its military advisers in Syria and deploy forces.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held talks with his Iraqi and Syrian counterparts in Baghdad as Iraqi ministers feared the fighting in Syria could affect their country. While Iraq’s foreign minister pledged aid and increased diplomatic efforts, and Araghchi expressed “the message of support for the Syrian government and people” in confronting the rebels, the ministers offered little more than statements of support for Damascus.
The leader of HTS, known by his militant alias, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, sent a message to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani promising that the fighting in Syria “will not spill over into Iraq” and calling on al. – The government of Sudan to “distance itself from the situation in Syria”.
Speaking to CNN, al-Jolani said the rebels’ goal remains to topple the Assad regime in Damascus.
“When we talk about goals, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve this goal,” he said.
