Tens of thousands of people have fled Homs as the Syrian city looks set to become the third to be captured by Islamist-led rebels, in a further blow to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The rebels, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), stormed the nearby town of Hama yesterday after heavy fighting and claimed to have seized the prison and released prisoners.
Fearing that Homs will be the next city to fall, government forces have scrambled in recent hours to secure the city. A war monitor reported that airstrikes targeted a bridge on the highway connecting the city with Hama.
‘Fighters carried out several airstrikes targeting the Al-Rastan Bridge on the Homs-Hama highway… and attacked positions around the bridge, in an attempt to cut off the road between Hama and Homs and keep Homs safe states,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports.
It added this morning that the rebels were just five kilometers from Homs on Friday after taking control of two strategic towns, Rastan and Talbisseh, on the road linking it to Hama.
As the rebels advanced towards Homs, videos circulated showing lines of cars – ostensibly people desperately trying to leave the city.
The UN has reported that an estimated 120,000 refugees have already fled conflict zones for refuges in the north since the conflict flared up again, fueling fears that this could lead to a mass migration.
Syria’s neighbor Lebanon is already expecting a large influx of refugees, and there are concerns that a repeat of the last war’s migrant crisis could occur, with displaced Syrians seeking refuge in Europe via dangerous routes.
As rebels reportedly put pressure on Homs, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman reported a mass exodus from the city of members of Assad’s Alawite minority community.
Videos showing rows of cars are circulating on social media. There are reports of an exodus of people leaving Homs
Tens of thousands of people are reportedly heading from Homs to areas along Syria’s Mediterranean coast
A family is seen in Homs. It is the third largest city in Syria and is located just 40 kilometers south of Hama
He said tens of thousands were heading to areas along Syria’s Mediterranean coast where Alawites, followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam, are the majority.
Control of Homs could allow the rebels to “cut off the main road leading to the Syrian coast,” the stronghold of the Alawite minority, the Observatory said.
“We are afraid and concerned that what happened in Hama will be repeated in Homs,” said one official, who gave his name only as Abbas. We are afraid that they (the rebels) will take revenge on us,” the 33-year-old said.
Until last week, the war in Syria had been largely dormant for years, but analysts have said it would inevitably resume because it has never really been resolved.
The rebels launched their offensive just over a week ago, just as a ceasefire emerged in neighboring Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, the ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
To slow the rebel advance, the Observatory said Assad’s forces have erected ground barriers on the highway north of Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, which is just 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Hama.
Tens of thousands of members of Assad’s Alawite minority community fled Homs on Thursday, fearing the rebels would continue their advance, the Observatory said earlier.
The rebels captured Hama on Thursday after street battles with government forces, announcing “the complete liberation of the city” in a message on their Telegram channel.
Rebel fighters hold weapons in front of the governor’s building of Hama as they gather after Syrian rebels captured the city during their advance through northern Syria
Rebel fighters kissed the ground and unleashed volleys of celebratory gunfire as they entered Syria’s fourth-largest city.
Many residents appeared to welcome the rebel fighters. An AFP photographer saw some residents setting fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of the city hall.
The army admitted it had lost control of the city, strategically located between Aleppo and Assad’s seat of power in Damascus.
Defense Minister Ali Abbas emphasized that the army withdrawal was a “temporary tactical measure.”
“Our troops are still in the area,” he said in a statement carried by the official SANA news agency.
A multi-barrel rocket launcher fires at regime forces in the northern outskirts of the west-central city of Hama on December 4, 2024
Anti-government fighters rest in a position in the northern outskirts of the west-central city of Hama in Syria on December 4, 2024
Aron Lund, a member of the think tank Century International, called the loss of Hama “a huge blow to the Syrian government” because the army should have had an advantage there to reverse the rebels’ gains “and they couldn’t.” .
He said that HTS would now try to advance towards Homs, where many residents already left yesterday.
Early Thursday afternoon, the Syrian army admitted it had lost control of the strategically located city seen as crucial in its efforts to protect the capital and seat of power, Damascus.
“In recent hours, with the intensification of confrontations between our soldiers and terrorist groups… these groups have managed to break through a number of axes in the city and enter it,” the army said, adding that units were stationed outside had moved the city. .
A Syrian Kurdish woman, fleeing from northern Aleppo, stands leaning on a bullet-riddled wall as she arrives in Tabqa, on the western outskirts of Raqa, on December 4, 2024
The fall of Hama came despite shelling and attacks by the Syrian and Russian air forces, as reported by state media late Wednesday.
Maya, a 22-year-old student who gave only her first name for safety reasons, said she and her family stayed home as the fighting raged outside.
“We have been hearing the sounds of explosions and grenades non-stop,” she told AFP by telephone from Hama. “We don’t know what’s happening outside.”
According to the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, 826 people, mostly fighters but also 111 civilians, have been killed in the country since violence broke out last week.
It marks the most intense fighting since 2020 in the civil war sparked by the suppression of pro-democracy protests in 2011.
The key to the rebels’ successes since the offensive began last week has been the takeover of Aleppo, which had never completely fallen out of government hands in more than a decade of war.
Although the advancing rebels encountered little resistance earlier in their offensive, the fighting around Hama was particularly fierce.
Armed groups opposing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad took control of much of Aleppo’s city center in Syria on November 30, 2024.
An Arab newspaper estimated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fortune – largely stolen from his own people – at as much as £13.5 billion.
Assad has ordered a 50 percent pay increase, state news agency SANA reported on Wednesday, as he tries to strengthen his forces for a counter-offensive.
Rebels pushed back Syrian forces despite the government sending “large military convoys,” the Observatory said.
The rebels launched their offensive in northern Syria on November 27, the same day a ceasefire came into effect in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
Both Hezbollah and Russia have been crucial pillars of Assad’s government, but have become embroiled in their own conflicts in recent years.
HTS is rooted in the Syrian Al-Qaeda branch.
The group has tried to moderate its image in recent years, but experts say it faces the challenge of convincing Western governments that they have completely renounced hardline jihadism.
The United States maintains hundreds of troops in eastern Syria as part of a coalition formed against Islamic State jihadists.