People celebrate and ride motocycles in the Syrian southern city of Daraa on December 7, 2024, after the collapse of government forces. – Syria’s army said it was redeploying in two southern provinces on December 7
| Photo Credit: AFP

Syrian rebels announced they gained full control over the key city of Homs early on Sunday (December 8, 2024) after only a day of fighting, leaving President Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year rule dangling by a thread as insurgents marched on the capital, Damascus.

Thousands of Homs residents poured onto the streets after the army withdrew from the central city, dancing and chanting “Assad is gone, Homs is free” and “Long live Syria and down with Bashar al-Assad”.

FOLLOW MORE: Syria civil war LIVE updates: Syrian rebels announce full control over Homs; government forces withdraw

Rebels fired into the air in celebration, and youths tore down posters of the Syrian president, whose territorial control has collapsed in a dizzying week-long retreat by the military.

The fall of Homs gives the insurgents control over Syria’s strategic heartland and a key highway crossroads, severing Damascus from the coastal region that is the stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect and where his Russian allies have a naval base and air base.

Homs’ capture is also a powerful symbol of the rebel movement’s dramatic comeback in the 13-year-old conflict. Swathes of Homs were destroyed by gruelling siege warfare between the rebels and the army years ago. The fighting ground down the insurgents, who were forced out.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the main rebel leader, called the capture of Homs a historic moment and urged fighters not to harm “those who drop their arms”.

Rebels freed thousands of detainees from the city prison. Security forces left in haste after burning their documents.

The battle for control of the country is likely to turn quickly to the capital. Residents of numerous Damascus districts turned out to protest Assad on Saturday evening, and security forces were either unwilling or unable to clamp down.

Syrian rebel commander Hassan Abdul Ghani said in a statement early Sunday that operations were ongoing to “completely liberate” the countryside around Damascus and rebel forces were looking toward the capital.

In one suburb, a statue of Assad’s father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, was toppled and torn apart.

The Syrian army said it was reinforcing around Damascus, and state television reported on Saturday that Assad remained in the city.

Outside the city, rebels swept across the entire southwest over 24 hours and established control.

Rebels on a lightning advance through Syria said on Saturday they have begun to encircle Damascus as government forces denied they had withdrawn from areas near the capital.

“Our forces have begun the final phase of encircling the capital, Damascus,” said rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, with the Islamist-led alliance that launched the offensive.

The defence ministry flatly denied the army had fled positions near the city.

“There is no truth to news claiming our armed forces, present in all areas of the Damascus countryside, have withdrawn,” it said.

Earlier, a war monitor and Abdel Ghani said rebels were within 20 kilometres of Damascus as government forces fall back in the face of the offensive gathering even more momentum.

The Syria Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had ceded more key ground, losing control of all of southern Daraa province and evacuating posts in Quneitra, near the Israel-annexed Golan Heights.

The monitor said government forces were also pulling out of towns as little as 10 kilometres (six miles) from Damascus.

Abdel Ghani said earlier that “our forces were able to control the Saasaa (security) branch in the Damascus countryside. The advance towards the capital continues.”

Air strikes and shelling by government forces and their ally Russia killed at least seven civilians near the city of Homs, as the army sought to slow the rebel advance there.

The astounding rebel gains have brought the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies to the doorstep of President Bashar al-Assad’s seat of power, just over a week into a renewed offensive in a conflict that had long seemed frozen.

As the rebels seize more territory, they have also sought to reassure those living in areas now under their control.

Abdel Ghani in a statement on Telegram Saturday recognised that the rebels had taken areas where “different religious sects and minorities” live.

“We ask that all sects be reassured… for the era of sectarianism and tyranny has gone away forever,” he said.

Minorities have often been persecuted during Syria’s long conflict, and HTS’s precursor Al-Nusra Front, which was linked to Al-Qaeda, launched deadly attacks on Assad’s Alawite minority in Homs early in the war.

The army said it was redeploying in the south where the Observatory said the government had lost control of Daraa province and the key city of the same name, cradle of the 2011 uprising.

An AFP correspondent in Daraa saw local fighters guarding public property and civil institutions on Saturday.

In the central Homs area, a key stepping stone to the seat of power in Damascus, the Observatory said government forces had brought “large reinforcements” and stopped the rebel advance.

An army statement carried by state media said government forces were “redeploying and repositioning” in the southern provinces of Sweida and Daraa.

But both the Observatory and rebels said that government forces no longer controlled any of Daraa province.

After the rebels seized Aleppo and Hama, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, the Britain-based monitor said.

In nearby Quneitra province, government forces “evacuated military and security positions while civil servants left their posts, leaving the province… free of the Syrian army for the very first time”, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

– Evacuation calls –

Daraa and Quneitra are near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, where Israel said it was boosting its troop presence, and Jordan, which late Friday urged its citizens to leave Syria “as soon as possible”.

Russia and the United States, which has troops in Syria as part of an anti-jihadist coalition, have also advised their nationals to leave.

Syria’s civil war, which began with Assad’s crackdown on democracy protests, has killed more than 500,000 people and forced more than half the population to flee their homes.

The HTS-led alliance has made rapid gains in the west since launching its offensive on November 27.

By Friday, the government was also pulling its troops out of Deir Ezzor in the east, with Kurdish-led forces saying they had moved in.

The HTS leader, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, said in an interview published Friday the offensive’s aim was to oust Assad.

“The goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal,” he told CNN.

HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, it has sought to soften its image in recent years.

The Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which control territory in the east, expressed readiness for dialogue with rival rebels and Turkey, saying the offensive heralded a “new” political reality for Syria.

– ‘Syria is ours’ –

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a “political solution to the conflict” and for the protection of civilians and minorities, his spokesperson said Friday, in a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Fidan and his Iranian and Russian counterparts discussed Syria in Qatar on Saturday.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, said the world had been “surprised” by the speed of the rebel advance, and called for “a political framework” to prevent violence from spiralling.

He also said Assad had failed to “start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people”.

At least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed since the offensive began last week, according to the Observatory, while the United Nations said the violence has displaced 370,000 people.

Many of the scenes witnessed in recent days would have been unimaginable earlier in the war.

In Hama, an AFP photographer saw residents set fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall.

“The rebels entered Hama, it was a great joy for us — something we had been waiting for since 2011,” said Maymouna Jawad, expressing her hope that anti-government forces would “liberate” the whole country.

Online footage verified by AFP showed residents toppling a statue of Assad’s father Hafez, under whose brutal rule the army carried out a massacre in Hama in the 1980s.

 

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

In another setback to President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power, the Syrian government forces have lost control of Daraa city, widely regarded as the birthplace of Syria’s 2011 civil uprising.

Beirut:

Rebel forces pressing a lightning offensive in Syria aim to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, their Islamist leader said in an interview published on Friday.

The Islamist-led rebels were at the gates of Syria’s Homs, a war monitor said, after wresting other key cities from government control.

In little over a week, the offensive has seen Syria’s second city Aleppo and strategically located Hama fall from President Bashar al-Assad’s control for the first time since the civil war began in 2011.

Should the rebels capture Homs, that would cut the seat of power in the capital Damascus from the Mediterranean coast, a key bastion of the Assad clan, which has ruled Syria for the past five decades.

By Friday morning, the rebels were just five kilometres (three miles) from the edge of Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel alliance, said the goal of the offensive was to overthrow Assad’s rule.

“When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal,” Jolani told CNN in an interview.

The rebel alliance conducting the offensive that began on November 27 is led by HTS, which is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda but has sought to moderate its image in recent years.

The rebels launched their offensive in northern Syria the same day a ceasefire took effect in the war between Israel and Lebanese group Hezbollah, which along with Russia and Iran have been crucial backers of Assad’s government.

Turkey, which has backed the opposition, on Friday said its Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan would meet with his Russian and Iranian counterparts this weekend in Qatar to discuss the situation in Syria.

– Fear –

Fearing the rebels’ advance, tens of thousands of members of Assad’s Alawite minority were fleeing Homs on Thursday, residents and the Observatory said.

Khaled, who lives on the city’s outskirts, told AFP that “the road leading to (coastal) Tartus province was glowing… due to the lights of hundreds of cars on their way out”.

Homs was the scene of a months-long government siege of opposition areas and deadly sectarian attacks in the early years of the civil war.

Early in the war, which began with Assad’s brutal crackdown on democracy protests, activists referred to the city as “the capital of the revolution” against the government.

Syrians who were forced out of the country by the crackdown on the revolt were glued to their phones as they watched the developments unfold.

“We’ve been dreaming of this for more than a decade,” said Yazan, a 39-year-old former activist who survived the siege and is now living as a refugee in France.

Asked whether he was worried about HTS’s Islamist agenda, he said: “It doesn’t matter to me who is conducting this. The devil himself could be behind it. What people care about is who is going to liberate the country.”

On the other side of the sectarian divide, however, there was fear among Homs’s Alawite community.

Haidar, 37, who lives in an Alawite-majority neighbourhood, told AFP by telephone that “fear is the umbrella that covers Homs now”.

“I’ve never seen this scene in my life. We are extremely afraid, we don’t know what is happening.”

On Friday, the rebel alliance “entered the cities of Rastan and Talbisseh” on the main road between Hama and Homs, the Observatory said.

The factions were faced with “a total absence” of government forces, it added.

Footage posted on social media and verified by AFP showed rebels firing into the air as they drove through Talbisseh.

The Syrian defence ministry said the army launched strikes against “terrorist” fighters in Hama province.

The Syrian Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, said 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed since the offensive began last week.

The United Nations said that the violence has displaced 280,000 people, warning that numbers could swell to 1.5 million.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said there was a “massive exodus of Syrian Alawites from parts of Homs, tens of thousands are heading towards the Syrian coast, fearing the rebels’ advance”.

– ‘Massive blow’ –

Many of the scenes witnessed in recent days would have been unimaginable earlier in the war.

The rebels announced on Telegram their capture of Hama following street battles with government forces, describing it as “the complete liberation of the city”.

Many residents turned out to welcome the rebel fighters. An AFP photographer saw some residents set fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall.

The army admitted losing control of the city, though Defence Minister Ali Abbas insisted that its withdrawal was a “temporary tactical measure”.

In a video posted online, HTS leader Jolani said his fighters had entered Hama to “cleanse the wound that has endured in Syria for 40 years”, referring to an army massacre in the 1980s.

In another message on Telegram congratulating “the people of Hama on their victory,” he used his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, instead of his nom de guerre for the first time.

Aron Lund, a fellow of the Century International think tank, called the loss of Hama “a massive, massive blow to the Syrian government”.

Should Assad lose Homs, it wouldn’t mean the end of his rule, Lund said, but “with no secure route from Damascus to the coast, I’d say it’s over as a credible state entity.”

UN chief Antonio Guterres said Thursday that the escalation in Syria is the result of a “chronic collective failure” of diplomacy.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Internally displaced people arrive at a camp in Tabqa city, Raqqa governorate, northern Syria
| Photo Credit: AP

Thousands of people fled the Central Syrian City of Homs overnight and into Friday (December 6, 2024) morning, a war monitor and residents said, as rebel forces sought to push their lightning offensive against Government forces further south.

They have already captured the key cities of Aleppo in the north and Hama in the center, dealing successive devastating blows to President Bashar Al-Assad, nearly 14 years after protests against him erupted across Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based war monitor, said thousands of people had begun fleeing on Thursday (December 5, 2024) night towards Syria’s western coastal regions, a stronghold of the Government.

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A resident of the coastal area said thousands of people had begun arriving there from Homs, fearing the rebels’ fast-paced advance. On Friday morning, Israeli air strikes hit two border crossings between Lebanon and Syria, Lebanon’s transport minister Ali Hamieh said. Russian bombing overnight also destroyed the Rustan bridge along the key M5 highway, to prevent rebels from using this main route to Homs city, a Syrian army officer told Reuters.

“There were at least eight strikes on the bridge,” he added. Government forces were working to beef up positions around Homs city with fresh reinforcements, he said. Rebels led by the Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham had pledged to move on to the central city of Homs, a crossroads city that links the capital Damascus to the north and Assad’s heartland along the coast.

“Your time has come,” said a rebel operations room in an online post, calling on Homs residents to rise up in revolution.