Syrian insurgents advance to the doorstep of the country’s third-largest city, Homs
- Share via
BEIRUT — Thousands of people fled the central Syrian city of Homs, the country’s third largest, as insurgents seized two towns on the outskirts Friday, positioning themselves for an assault on a potentially major prize in their march against President Bashar Assad.
The move, reported by pro-government media and an opposition war monitor, was the latest in the stunning advances by opposition fighters over the last week that have so far met little resistance from Assad’s forces. A day earlier, fighters captured the central city of Hama, Syria’s fourth largest, after the army said it withdrew to avoid fighting inside the city and spare the lives of civilians.
The insurgents, led by the Hayat Tahrir al Sham group, or HTS, have vowed to march to Homs and the capital, Damascus, Assad’s seat of power. Videos circulating online showed a highway jammed with cars full of people fleeing Homs, a city with a large population belonging to Assad’s Alawite sect, seen as his core supporters.
Syrian rebels have made their largest gains in years, threatening a fragile status quo in the country.
If Assad’s military loses Homs, it could be a crippling blow. The city, parts of which were controlled by insurgents until 2014, lies on an important intersection between Damascus and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus, where Assad enjoys wide support. Homs province is Syria’s largest in size and borders Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan.
Pressure on the government intensified from multiple directions. Opposition protesters stormed security posts and army positions in the southern province of Suwayda, opposition activists said. U.S.-backed Kurdish forces who control eastern and northeastern Syria began to encroach on government-held territory.
After years of largely being bottled up in a northwest corner of the country, the insurgents burst out a week ago, captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, and have kept advancing since. Government troops have repeatedly fallen back.
The sudden offensive has flipped the tables on a long-entrenched stalemate in Syria’s nearly 14-year-old civil war. Along with HTS, the fighters include forces of an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Turkey has denied backing the offensive, though experts say insurgents would not have launched it without the country’s consent.
HTS’ leader, Abu Mohammed al Golani, told CNN on Thursday that Assad’s government was on the path to falling, propped up only by Russia and Iran.
“The seeds of the regime’s defeat have always been within it,” he said. “But the truth remains, this regime is dead.”
A key question about Assad’s ability to fight back is how much top ally Russia — whose troops back Assad’s forces — will throw support his way at a time when it is tied up in the war in Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he planned to discuss the developments in Syria with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts at a meeting Friday in Qatar.
The foreign ministers of Iran, Iraq and Syria gathered Friday in Baghdad to consult on the rapidly changing war. Syrian Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh said the developments may pose “a serious threat to the security of the region as a whole.”
The insurgent fighters on Friday took over the towns of Rastan and Talbiseh, putting them three miles from Homs, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor.
Rebels took over the city of Hama, upending a long-running stalemate in Syria’s civil war.
“The battle of Homs is the mother of all battles and will decide who will rule Syria,” said Rami Abdurrahman, the observatory’s chief.
Pro-government radio station Sham FM said the insurgents entered Rastan and Talbiseh without facing any resistance.
The observatory said Syrian troops had left Homs. But the military denied that in comments reported by the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, or SANA, saying troops were reinforcing their positions in the city and were “ready to repel” any assault.
In eastern Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces coalition said it had moved into the government-held half of the city of Dair Alzour, apparently without resistance. One of the main cities in the east, Dair Alzour had long been split between the government on the western side of the Euphrates River and the SDF on the eastern side. The SDF also said it took control of other parts of the border with Iraq.
The opposition assault has struck a blow to Syria’s already decrepit economy.
Syria’s economy has been hammered for years by the war, Western sanctions, corruption and an economic meltdown in neighboring Lebanon, Syria’s main gate to the outside world.
Damascus residents told the Associated Press that people were rushing to markets to buy food, fearing further escalation.
The worsening economy could be undermining the ability of Syria’s military to fight, as the value of soldiers’ salaries melts away while the insurgents are flush with cash.
Syria’s military, which is backed by Russian forces stationed in the country, has not appeared to put up a cohesive counteroffensive against the opposition advances. SANA on Friday quoted an unnamed military official as saying the Syrian and Russian air forces were striking insurgents in Hama province, killing dozens of fighters.
Syria’s defense minister said in a televised statement late Thursday that government forces withdrew from Hama as “a temporary tactical measure” and vowed to gain back lost areas.
Gen. Ali Mahmoud Abbas said the insurgents, whom he described as “takfiri” — Muslim extremists — are backed by foreign countries. He did not name the countries but appeared to be referring to Turkey, which is a main backer of the opposition, and the United States.
Mroue writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Albert Aji in Damascus and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
