DAMASCUS: Rebel forces are launching a lightning offensive in Syria to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, their leader said in an interview published Friday.
Terrorists were on the outskirts of Homs in Syria, a war observer said, after wresting other key towns from government control.
In just over a week, the offensive saw Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and strategically located Hama escape President Bashar al-Assad’s control for the first time since the civil war began in 2011 .
If rebels seize Homs, it would cut off the seat of power in the capital Damascus from the Mediterranean coast, a key bastion of the Assad clan, which has ruled Syria for five decades.
As of Friday morning, the rebels were only five kilometers from the outskirts of Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel alliance, said the goal of the offensive was to overthrow the Assad regime.
“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 this goal,” Jolani told CNN in an interview.
The rebel alliance leading the offensive launched on November 27 is led by HTS, rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda but which has sought to moderate its image in recent years.
The rebels launched their offensive in northern Syria on the same day a ceasefire came into effect in the war between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which along with Russia and Iran have been essential supporters of the Assad government.
Turkey, which supports the opposition, announced Friday that its Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan would meet his Russian and Iranian counterparts this weekend in Qatar to discuss the situation in Syria.
Fear
Fearing the advance of the rebels, tens of thousands of members of Assad’s Alawite minority fled Homs on Thursday, residents and the OSDH said.
Khaled, who lives on the outskirts of the town, told AFP that “the road leading to the (coastal) province of Tartous was shining… because of the headlights of hundreds of cars coming out.”
Homs was the scene of a months-long government siege of opposition areas and deadly sectarian attacks during the early years of the civil war.
At the start of the war, which began with Assad’s brutal suppression of pro-democracy protests, activists called the city the “capital of the revolution” against the government.
Syrians who were forced to leave the country because of the suppression of the revolt were glued to their phones as they watched events unfold.
“We have been dreaming of this for more than a decade,” said Yazan, a 39-year-old former activist who survived the siege and now lives as a refugee in France.
Asked if he was worried about HTS’s Islamist agenda, he replied: “I don’t care who runs it. The devil himself could be behind this. What matters to people is who will liberate the country.
On the other side of the sectarian divide, however, fear reigned within Homs’ Alawite community.
Haidar, 37, who lives in a predominantly Alawite neighborhood, told AFP by telephone that “fear is the umbrella that covers Homs now.”
“I have never seen this scene in my life. We are extremely scared, we don’t know what is happening.”
Assad says rebels are trying to ‘redraw’ regional map
On Friday, the rebel alliance “entered the towns of Rastan and Talbisseh”, on the main road between Hama and Homs, the OSDH said. The factions are faced with “a total absence” of government forces, the press release added.
Images posted on social media and verified by AFP showed rebels firing into the air as they crossed Talbisseh.
Syria’s Defense 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 fighters but also 111 civilians, have been killed since the offensive began last week.
The United Nations said the violence had displaced 280,000 people, warning that the number could reach 1.5 million.
The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, said there was a “mass exodus of Syrian Alawites from parts of Homs, with tens of thousands heading towards the Syrian coast, fearing the rebel 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 fighting with government forces, describing it as “the complete liberation of the city”.
Many residents came to welcome the rebel fighters. An AFP photographer saw residents setting fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall.
The army admitted it had lost control of the city, although Defense Minister Ali Abbas insisted its withdrawal was a “temporary tactical measure”.
In a video posted online, HTS leader Jolani said his fighters entered Hama to “clean the wound that has lasted in Syria for 40 years,” referring to a military massacre in the 1980s.
In another Telegram message congratulating “the people of Hama on their victory,” he used his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, for the first time instead of his nom de guerre.
Aron Lund, a fellow at the think tank Century International, called the loss of Hama a “massive, massive blow to the Syrian government.”
If Assad lost Homs, it would not mean the end of his rule, Lund said, but “without a secure road between Damascus and the coast, I would say it’s over as a credible state entity.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres said Thursday that the escalation in Syria was the result of a “chronic collective failure” of diplomacy.
