Opposition forces based in Daraa say they have taken control of the southern city, the fourth strategically important city that President Bashar al-Assad's forces have lost in a week.
Sources said the army had agreed to carry out an orderly withdrawal from Daraa as part of a deal allowing army officials safe passage to the capital, Damascus, about 100 km to the north.
Daraa was dubbed “the cradle of the revolution” at the start of Syria's war, as a government crackdown on protests failed to quell public anger after the government arrested and tortured a group of boys for scrawled anti-al-Assad graffiti on the walls of their school in 2011. In April of that year, regime forces besieged the city, a move seen as having militarized the revolution.
On Friday evening, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said local factions had taken control of more than 90 percent of Deraa province, including the eponymous city.
In the nearby town of Soueida, the Syrian Observatory and local media said the governor, police and prison chiefs, and the local Baath Party leader left their offices as local fighters took control. of several checkpoints.
Soueida is the heartland of Syria's Druze minority and has been the scene of anti-government protests for more than a year, as the cost of living has soared and tens of thousands of Druze men have refused to carry out their compulsory military service.
Lose ground
“Our forces operating in Deraa and Soueida are redeploying and repositioning and establishing a security cordon in this direction after terrorist elements attacked remote army checkpoints,” the army general command and of the armed forces in a press release released on Saturday by the official media. .
The army's statement added that it is “beginning to regain control of the provinces of Homs and Hama,” as Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reported from Lebanon, saying Syrian and Russian airstrikes hit the north of Homs in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Hama fell to opposition fighters Thursday as they advanced south towards Homsfive days after taking the second largest city of Aleppo.
“[Opposition forces] are now at the gates of Homs,” said Khodr, who is following developments from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
“They repeatedly called on government troops to surrender and avoid battle,” she reported. “This could indicate that the government intends to fight.”
“It's unclear whether or not they will be able to hold on to Homs, a strategic city located at the crossroads between Damascus and the regime's heartland along the coast.”
Since a rebel alliance led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) After launching its lightning offensive on November 27, the government gradually lost ground.
As the army and its allied Iranian-backed militias withdrew from Deir az Zor in eastern Syria, Kurdish-led forces said Friday they had crossed the Euphrates and taken control of the territory that had been liberated.
Never before in the war had al-Assad's forces lost control of so many key cities in such a short time.
Diplomatic push
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is due to meet his Russian and Iranian counterparts on Saturday in Doha to seek a solution to the resumption of fighting in Syria and avoid chaos on its borders.
The three countries have been partners since 2017 in the Astana process aimed at ending the war in Syria, even as they support opposing sides on the battlefield.
Moscow and Tehran have supported al-Assad in crushing the opposition while Ankara has supported various rebel movements and views their recent advances favorably.
“[D]Diplomacy can now focus on developing an exit option from the regime and ensuring an orderly transition,” Berkay Mandiraci, senior Turkey analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.
“The rebels' unexpected advances…came at a time when the regime's main backers – Russia and Iranian proxies – are getting bogged down in other theaters of conflict,” Mandiraci added.
Syrian Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh met his Iraqi and Iranian counterparts in Baghdad on Friday, warning that the offensive threatens regional stability.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein condemned the offensive and said Iraq “cannot participate in any war.”
Syria's civil war has killed more than 500,000 people and forced more than half the population to flee their homes.
#Opposition #forces #Syria39s #Daraa #Astanathemed #meeting #place #News #war #Syria
News ,
