As government forces drew closer to protect the vital central city of Homs in an attempt to preserve President Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year rule, Syrian rebels continued their lightning advance on Saturday, claiming to have taken control of the majority of the south.
Government defenses have collapsed nationwide at an alarming rate since the rebels’ invasion of Aleppo a week ago. Insurgents have taken control of many major cities and risen up in areas where the uprising had long appeared to be over.
The rebels claimed to have conquered southern Quneitra, Deraa, and Suweida and to have moved within 50 kilometers of the capital, in addition to seizing Aleppo in the north, Hama in the center, and Deir al-Zor in the east.
With state television and Syrian military sources reporting heavy airstrikes on rebel strongholds and a surge of reinforcements coming in to dig in around the city, government defenses were concentrated on Homs.
On the important route between Damascus and Jordan, the rebels claimed to have taken Sanamayn and expanded their territory to nearly the whole southwest. The Syrian military did not acknowledge territorial losses when it announced that it was repositioning.
With Qatar claiming on Saturday that it challenged Syria’s territorial integrity, the rapidity of events has shocked Arab capitals and sparked concerns about a new wave of regional unrest.
The civil conflict in Syria, which began in 2011 as a revolt against Assad’s government, attracted major foreign powers, gave jihadists a place to plan operations globally, and forced millions of people to flee to neighboring countries.
The Syrian military, according to Western diplomats, is in a precarious position and has been forced to retreat after failing to stop opposition gains.
Iran sent ally forces, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi militia, to support the Syrian military and storm insurgent strongholds, while Russia bombed from the skies as part of Assad’s long-standing reliance on friends to crush the rebels.
However, since 2022, Russia has been preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, and this year, Hezbollah’s leadership has been completely destroyed in its own bloody fight with Israel.
Russia called on its citizens to leave the country on Friday. According to an Iranian official, Iran withdrew diplomats’ families from Syria.
Western authorities stated that although Hezbollah moved some “supervising forces” to Homs on Friday, any large-scale deployment would put the region at risk of Israeli bombings.
Lebanon said that Israel has targeted two border crossings between Lebanon and Syria on Friday.
With thousands of heavily armed combatants prepared to deploy to Syria, many of whom have gathered close to the border, Iran-backed Iraqi militias are on high alert. However, according to two of their commanders, they have not yet received an order to cross.
A government spokesperson stated on Friday that Iraq does not seek military participation in Syria.
The rebels’ principal international backers, Iran, Russia, and Turkey, will gather on Saturday to talk about the Syrian issue.
“No specific decisions have been made regarding a horizon for Syria’s future,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Iranian television.
He claimed that protecting Syria’s territorial integrity and averting “potential consequences” in the area were the main goals of his conversations in Doha.
The Homs Battle
A day after capturing neighboring Hama after a short struggle outside the city, the rebels claimed to be “at the walls” of Homs after capturing the final hamlet on its northern outskirts late Friday.
According to a resident inside Homs, the situation had seemed normal until Friday, but it had become increasingly tense due to the pro-Assad armed groups erecting checkpoints and the audible sound of gunfire and bombings.
According to the local, “they are telling people to stay in line and not get too excited and expect Homs to go easily.”
By taking control of Homs, a crucial intersection between the capital and the Mediterranean, Damascus would be cut off from both Assad’s Russian allies’ air and naval bases there as well as the coastal bastion of his minority Alawite sect.
Both sides claimed that the military and its supporters were trying to dig in for a city defense while rebels outside of Homs were subjected to heavy shelling throughout the night.
After a night of heavy airstrikes on the insurgents, a Syrian military officer said that fighting had paused on Saturday morning.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group is part of a coalition of rebel factions that issued a final appeal for Assad’s government-aligned fighters in Homs to defect.
According to neighbors and witnesses, thousands of people evacuated Homs in the direction of the regime strongholds of Tartus and Latakia on the coast before the rebel onslaught.
“The key is homs.” The key roadway from Damascus to Tartus and the coast would be severed if Homs falls, cutting off the capital from the Alawite Mountains, but it will be extremely difficult for Assad to maintain his position,” said Jonathan Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma.
But Syria’s army refuses to engage in combat. He went on to say, “No one wants to die for Assad and his regime.”
According to military insiders, seizing Deraa and Suweida in the south may enable a coordinated attack on the capital, which is where Assad’s authority is based.
According to rebel sources, the military agreed Friday to leave from Deraa in an orderly manner in exchange for safe passage for army officials to the capital, Damascus, which is located around 100 kilometers to the north.
As the birthplace of the rebellion, Deraa, which had a population of over 100,000 prior to the start of the civil war 13 years ago, has symbolic significance. It is the capital of a province that borders Jordan and has a population of roughly one million.
According to three Syrian sources who spoke to Reuters, Assad’s land connection to friends in Iraq is in jeopardy after a US-backed coalition led by Syrian Kurdish fighters took control of Deir el-Zor, the government’s major bastion in the wide desert, on Friday.
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