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Syrian rebels said they were advancing south towards the strategic city of Homs on Friday, a day after seizing Hama, deepening the crisis facing Bashar al-Assad’s regime as it struggles to slow the insurgents’ rapid offensive.
The forces, led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, said on Friday morning that they “continued to advance towards the city of Homs at a steady pace” even as pro-regime air strikes hit the route.
A rebel commander said insurgents had taken control of a village 10km north of Homs, while pro-rebel media posted videos which claimed to show the insurgents entering the town of Al-Dar Al-Kabira only 5km away.
Homs lies along an important route which connects Damascus with the regime strongholds of Latakia and Tartus on the coast. Its fall to the rebels would mark another severe blow to the Assad regime, which acknowledged on Thursday that its forces had pulled out of the major city of Hama after the rebels took over.
Ali Mahmoud Abbas, the Syrian government’s defence minister, downplayed the withdrawals on state TV on Thursday night, saying his forces were “in a good field position”.
“Our armed forces have worked on redeploying to preserve lives,” Abbas said. “Military operations, in the context of battle tactics, sometimes require repositioning and redeployment.”
Syrian and Russian war planes targeted the rebels both north and south of Hama on Friday, the Syrian army said, claiming it had killed dozens of insurgent fighters. Russian air strikes reportedly attempted to slow the insurgents’ advance, striking the Al-Rastan Bridge which lies on the Homs-Hama highway.
Homs was the site of brutal battles during Syria’s 13-year civil conflict, whose front lines had long been frozen until HTS-led rebels last week launched a lightning campaign from their north-western stronghold of Idlib, posing the gravest threat to the Assad government in a decade.
Thousands of regime supporters fled Homs for the coast on Thursday ahead of the rebels’ anticipated advance, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Videos on pro-rebel social media showed bumper-to-bumper traffic as people sought to leave the city.
The rebels’ ability to advance on Homs underlines the vulnerability of the Syrian regime and its army, despite it being backed up by forces from Russia, Iran and Iranian-militants. Russian and Syrian war planes have been bombarding Idlib, which is home to between 3mn and 4mn people.
But the offensive came at a time when Assad’s backers were distracted and weakened by their own conflicts.
The foreign ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey are expected to hold talks on the crisis over the weekend in Qatar. While Russia and Iran have backed Assad, reaffirming their support this week, Turkey has been an important backer of rebel groups and protects Idlib.
The three key foreign actors in Syria have previously thrashed out local ceasefire arrangements and de-escalation deals during the civil war. But Assad has repeatedly refused to engage with the Syrian opposition to negotiate a settlement.
On Thursday, the leader of Hizbollah, whose intervention in Syria’s civil conflict was key to shoring up Assad’s regime, said the Lebanese militant group supported Assad but did not make concrete pledges of military back-up.
The foreign ministers of Syria and Iran were due to meet their counterpart from Iraq, which is home to powerful Tehran-backed Shia militias, in Baghdad on Friday to discuss the situation.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani on Thursday issued a video message directed at Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani, urging him to prevent the Shia militias from intervening.
Meanwhile, Israel said it had struck near Syrian regime-controlled border crossings between Lebanon and Syria it claimed were used by Hizbollah to transport weapons.
Syrian state media said the Arida crossing was out of service after the Israeli strikes early on Friday morning and published photos of a bridge reduced to rubble.