By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Timour Azhari
AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels said on Saturday they had taken control of the southern city of Daraa, the birthplace of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad and the fourth city his forces have lost in a week.
Rebel sources said the army had agreed to carry out an orderly withdrawal from Daraa as part of a deal giving army officials safe passage to the capital Damascus, about 100 km (60 miles) east. north.
Videos on social media showed rebels on motorbikes and others mingling with residents in the streets. People fired shots into the air in the city's main square to celebrate, videos showed.
There was no immediate comment from the military or Assad's government, and Reuters could not independently verify the rebels' claims.
With the fall of Daraa, Assad's forces surrendered four major centers to insurgents in a week.
Daraa, which had more than 100,000 inhabitants before the start of the civil war 13 years ago, holds symbolic importance as the birthplace of the uprising. It is the capital of a province of around 1 million inhabitants, bordering Jordan.
The capture of Daraa follows the rebels' claim Friday evening that they had advanced to the outskirts of the central city of Homs, a key crossroads between the capital and the Mediterranean coast.
Capturing Homs would cut off Damascus from the coastal stronghold of Assad's minority Alawite sect, as well as the naval base and airbase of his Russian allies.
“Our forces have liberated the last village on the outskirts of Homs city and are now on its walls,” the Syrian faction leading the assault said on messaging app Telegram.
A coalition of rebel factions, including the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has issued a final call for forces loyal to Assad's government in Homs to defect.
Before the rebel advance, thousands of people fled Homs to the coastal regions of Latakia and Tartous, government strongholds, residents and witnesses said.
THE ASSAD REGIME UNDER THREATEN
A U.S.-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters captured Deir el-Zor, the main government stronghold in the vast eastern desert, on Friday, three Syrian sources told Reuters.
Rebels seized Aleppo and Hama, in the northwest and center, earlier as part of the blitzkrieg offensive that began on November 27.
In another worrying sign for Assad in the east, Syrian Kurdish forces said the Islamic State — a jihadist group that had imposed martial law under his harsh rule before its defeat by a U.S.-led coalition in 2017 – had taken control of certain areas of eastern Syria. .
Aron Lund, a fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, said Assad's government was “fighting for their lives at this point.”
It's possible the government could hold Homs, “but given the speed at which things have evolved so far, I'm not counting on that,” he said Friday.
Syrian state television reported that Russian-Syrian airstrikes targeting rebel headquarters in rural Hama, Idlib and Aleppo killed at least 200 insurgents on Friday, citing the Russian Coordination Center in Syria.
A Syrian army source said Hezbollah forces, backed by Iran, were positioned to reinforce government defenses in and near Homs.
Syrian state media reported that dozens of rebels were killed in the Homs countryside on Friday in an operation carried out by Syrian and Russian air forces, artillery, missiles and armored vehicles.
Capturing Homs would solidify a chain of powerful positions under Islamic insurgent control from Aleppo, on the Turkish border in the north, to Daraa, on the Jordanian border, in the south.
Conquering Homs would also increase the rebels' chances of isolating the Assad regime's headquarters in Damascus, with the possibility of blocking the northwest route between the capital and the sea.
THE RENOVATED REBELS
As the rebels continued their offensive, Russia and Jordan on Friday urged their nationals to leave Syria.
After years stuck behind frozen front lines, rebel forces broke out of their stronghold in northwest Idlib to achieve the fastest advance on the battlefield by either side since an uprising in street against Assad turned into civil war 13 years ago.
The Syrian conflict killed more than 305,000 people between 2011 and 2021, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in 2022.
Assad regained control of most of Syria after his main allies – Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah – came to his aid. But all have recently been weakened and sidetracked by other crises, giving Sunni Muslim militants a window to fight back.
Tehran, which has focused on tensions with its archenemy Israel since the start of the Gaza war last year, began evacuating its military officials and personnel from Syria on Friday, a sign of Iran's inability to keep Assad in power, according to the New York Times (NYSE:), citing regional officials and three Iranian officials.
The leader of the main HTS rebel faction, Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, promised in a separate New York Times interview published Friday that the insurgents could end Assad's rule.
“This operation has broken the enemy,” he said of the rebels' lightning offensive.
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