So far the rebel advance in Syria appears unstoppable. On Friday, the columns of pickup trucks and motorbikes of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies were reported to have reached the outskirts of the city of Homs, only 100 miles (160km) from Damascus, the capital.
The extraordinarily rapid advance made by the coalition of rebel groups has stunned not only observers and regional powers but also, it appears, the regime of Bashar al-Assad. HTS swept first from its north-western stronghold into Aleppo, the country’s second biggest city, and then Hama, another major city 80 miles further south down the strategic M5 highway.
Assad’s military forces have offered negligible resistance. Poorly trained police officers have been pressed into service, with predictable results. Shortly before the rebels arrived outside Hama, Syria’s defence ministry called its defensive lines “impregnable”. The Syrian army then said it had withdrawn “to preserve the lives of civilians”.
Few are fooled by such claims, particularly from a regime responsible for such vast numbers of civilian casualties over 13 years of civil conflict. Analysts describe Assad’s military as “hollowed out” by poor morale, defections and corruption. Its retreat has left rows of armoured personnel carriers, tanks, even sophisticated Russian-supplied missile launchers and warplanes in rebel hands.
“The question is whether they can continue the momentum and go to Damascus. It looks like a huge groundswell of support for what’s happening and that reveals the brittle nature of the regime,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at London’s Chatham House.
HTS, a former branch of al-Qaida, has made efforts to soften its sectarian image and, possibly, ideology. H A Hellyer, a senior associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, said careful management of relations with diverse communities was one reason for the successes of the last week, pointing to the negotiated entry of the rebels into Ismaili Shia villages as an example. “If they could pull off that kind of approach with Alawite communities then it is all over,” Hellyer said, referring to the heterodox Shia minority of which Assad is a member and from which he draws much of his most loyal support.
There is evidence too of close coordination between rebel forces – the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army sent a convoy to support HTS when it needed reinforcements – which may allay concerns about the unity of the rebels.
This weekend may see the most significant gains yet. Homs province is Syria’s largest in size and borders Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. Homs city, parts of which were controlled by insurgents until a bloody siege in 2014, is a gateway to Damascus, as well as Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus, both bastions of regime loyalists.
But anyone hoping for a decisive outcome in the coming days or even weeks may be disappointed. The rebels may not even have thought they could seize Aleppo so swiftly when they launched their offensive last week, and have come a long way very quickly. It is not clear that they will be able to use the heavy weapons or other equipment they have seized, and success could expose the deep divisions between their various factions.
At the same time, the regime’s forces may rally as the initial shock subsides. Assad is already withdrawing forces from Syria’s east to reinforce those around Damascus, ceding key cities such as Deir ez-Zor to Kurdish opposition factions.
“There is a clear level of desperation and they are concentrating defence around strongholds. The big question now is what Iran and Russia do,” said Broderick McDonald, an associate fellow at King’s College London.
Moscow, a key backer that provided much of the firepower that turned the tide of the civil war in Assad’s favour, is distracted by Ukraine but is unlikely to abandon its investment in Syria outright. Tehran too, though weakened by the conflict with Israel, will do what it can after decades of support for the Assad family. Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, fought for the regime in the civil war, and may still be able to offer some assistance despite recent losses in its war with Israel. Hundreds of fighters from Iran-backed militia in Iraq are poised to cross into Syria to fight the rebels.
Then there are Gulf powers who are more likely to back the devil they know than the one they do not, particularly when the main contender is a proscribed jihadi extremist.
This weekend two annual conferences in Bahrain and Qatar will bring together many of the foreign ministers of the region, allowing unofficial discussions and possibly the formulation of a plan to roll back the rebel advance.
“This brings the whole Syrian uprising full circle,” Vakil said. “Assad survived through external support, but this is giving people another shot at the Arab spring … We are in the fog of it but for ordinary civilians this is a real moment, dangerous and uncertain but an opportunity, definitely.”