By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Timour Azhari
AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels made a lightning advance on Saturday, saying they had seized much of the south, as government forces dug in to defend the key central city of Homs to try to save President Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year rule.
Since rebels swept into Aleppo a week ago, government defenses have crumbled across the country at breakneck speed as rebels seized a number of major cities and rose in places where the rebellion had long seemed over.
As well as capturing Aleppo in the north, Hama in the center and Deir al-Zor in the east, the rebels said they had captured southern Quneitra, Deraa and Suweida and advanced to within 50 km (30 miles) of the capital.
Government defenses were focused on Homs, with state television and Syrian military sources reporting massive airstrikes on rebel positions and a wave of reinforcements arriving to dig in around the city.
Meanwhile, the rebels extended their control to almost the entire southwest and said they had captured Sanamayn on the main highway from Damascus to Jordan. The Syrian army said it was moving, without admitting territorial losses.
The speed of the events stunned Arab capitals and fueled fears of a new wave of regional instability, with Qatar saying on Saturday it threatened Syria’s territorial integrity.
Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against Assad’s rule, has drawn in major outside powers, created space for jihadist militants to plot attacks around the world and sent millions of refugees into neighboring states.
Western officials say the Syrian army is in dire straits, unable to stop the rebel advance and forced to retreat.
Assad has long relied on allies to subdue the rebels, with Russian warplanes bombing from the sky, while Iran has sent allied forces, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi militia, to reinforce the Syrian army and attack rebel strongholds.
But Russia has been focused on the war in Ukraine since 2022, and Hezbollah has suffered heavy losses in its own attrition war with Israel, significantly limiting its or Iran’s ability to support Assad.
On Friday, Russia called on its citizens to leave the country. Iran has evacuated the families of diplomats from Syria, an Iranian official said.
Hezbollah sent some “surveillance forces” to Homs on Friday, but any significant deployment would risk exposure to Israeli airstrikes, Western officials said. Israel attacked two Lebanese-Syrian border crossings on Friday, Lebanon said.
Iraqi militias backed by Iran are on high alert, with thousands of heavily armed fighters ready to deploy to Syria, many of them massed near the border. But they have not yet been ordered to cross, said two of their commanders. Iraq is not seeking military intervention in Syria, a government spokesman said on Friday.
Iran, Russia and Turkey, which is the main foreign backer of the rebels, will meet on Saturday to discuss the crisis in Syria.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Iranian television that “no concrete decisions have been made regarding the horizon for the future of Syria.” He said his meetings in Doha were aimed at preserving Syria’s territorial integrity and preventing “potential consequences” in the region.
THE BATTLE FOR HOMS
Rebels said they were “in front of the walls” of Homs after taking the last village on its northern edge late Friday.
Inside Homs, a resident said the situation had been normal until Friday but had become more tense with the sounds of airstrikes and gunfire clearly heard and pro-Assad militias setting up checkpoints.
“They are sending a message to people to keep order and not to get excited and not expect Homs to go away easily,” said a resident.
The capture of Homs, a key crossroads between the capital and the Mediterranean, would cut Damascus off from the coastal stronghold of Assad’s minority Alawite sect, and from the naval and air base there of his Russian allies.
A Syrian military officer said there was a lull in fighting on Saturday morning after a night of intense airstrikes against rebels and that a large convoy of troops and vehicles had moved from Palmyra to help defend Homs.
A coalition of rebel factions that includes the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) issued a final call for forces loyal to the Assad government in Homs to defect.
Ahead of the rebel advance, thousands of people fled Homs for the coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, government strongholds, residents and witnesses said.
“Homs is the key. It will be very difficult for Assad to hold his ground, but if Homs falls, the main highway from Damascus to Tartus and the coast will be closed, cutting off the capital from the Alawite mountains,” said Jonathan Landis, a Syria specialist at the University Oklahoma.
“But the Syrian army will not fight. Nobody wants to die for Assad and his regime,” he added.
In the south, the fall of Deraa and Suwayda on Friday, followed by Quneitra on Saturday, could enable a coordinated attack on the capital, the seat of Assad’s power, military sources said.
The Syrian army has withdrawn to a better-defended position in Saasa, a Syrian military officer said.
Deraa, which had more than 100,000 inhabitants before the start of the civil war 13 years ago, has symbolic importance as the cradle of the uprising. It is the capital of a province of about one million people, which borders Jordan.
To the east, a US-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters captured Deir el-Zor, the government’s main stronghold in the vast desert, on Friday, three Syrian sources told Reuters, threatening Assad’s land link with allies in Iraq.
