By Maya Gebeily and Suleiman Al-Khalidi
BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian rebels advancing against government forces pushed close to the capital Hama on Tuesday, rebels and a war monitor said, after their surprise seizure of Aleppo last week rattled President Bashar al-Assad.
Rebels and war monitors with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels had seized villages, including Maar Shahur, a few miles north of the city. Syrian state media reported that reinforcements were arriving in the area.
An attack on Hama would increase pressure on Assad, whose Russian and Iranian allies have struggled to prop him up against a resurgent rebellion. The city has remained in government hands since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in an interview in Arabic that Tehran would consider sending troops to Syria if Damascus asked, and Russian President Vladimir Putin called for an end to “terrorist aggression” in Syria, RIA reported.
Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani said Baghdad would not be “just a bystander” in Syria and blamed the Syrian government for Israeli military strikes for the rebel advance, his office said.
Adding to Assad’s problems, fighters from a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led coalition have battled government forces in the northeast, both sides said, opening a new front along a vital supply route.
Last week’s rebel capture of Aleppo – Syria’s largest city before the war – marked the biggest offensive in years.
The front lines of the conflict have been frozen since 2020 after Assad wrested much of the country from rebels, aided by Russian air power and military aid from Iran and its network of regional Shiite militia groups.
Now, however, Russia is concentrating on the war in Ukraine, while Israeli strikes over the past three months have decimated the leadership of Hezbollah, the strongest Iranian-backed force fighting in Syria.
On Monday, hundreds of Iranian-backed Iraqi militia fighters entered Syria to support Syrian government forces, Iraqi and Syrian sources said, but Hezbollah has no plans to send forces now.
A rebel source said Iranian-backed militia fighters were among the forces they battled outside Hama.
In recent days, Russian and Syrian government warplanes have intensified airstrikes against the rebels, both sides said. Rescuers reported deadly strikes on hospitals in Aleppo and Idlib.
ŽOKINJA FOR THE TERRITORIES
Any sustained escalation in Syria risks further destabilizing a region already wracked by wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where a cease-fire between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group took effect last week.
The withdrawal of Assad’s forces over the past few days has led to a struggle for control among other groups that control pockets in the northwest, north and east.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-backed umbrella group that controls territory in eastern Syria, said early Tuesday that its Deir al-Zor military council had “become responsible for the protection” of seven villages previously held by the Syrian army.
The Deir al-Zor Military Council is made up of local Arab fighters under the SDF, an alliance mainly led by the Kurdish militia, the YPG.
Syrian state media reported that the army and allied forces were repelling an SDF attack on the villages, the Syrian government’s only presence along the east bank of the Euphrates River, an area otherwise largely held by the SDF.
A Syrian military officer said the SDF attack was aimed at exploiting the weakness of government forces after the rebel advance and said the army and allied militias backed by Iran were sending reinforcements.
The airstrikes also targeted Iranian-backed militias supporting Syrian government forces in the strategically vital region, a security source in eastern Syria and a Syrian military source said.
The US military, which has a small number of troops stationed at a gas field in the area, carried out at least one attack in self-defense overnight, the US official said, adding that it was unrelated to the ongoing rebel advance.
CROWDED BATTLEFIELD
The battlefield is crowded in northern Syria, with the US, Russia, Iran and Turkey engaged in renewed fighting, underscoring the messy global politics at play.
On Monday, Iran said a meeting of foreign ministers with Turkey and Russia would be held in Doha next weekend as part of a diplomatic process previously used to stabilize borders.
The SDF was the main Western-backed ground force in eastern Syria in the fight against Islamic State, which ran a jihadist mini-state there from 2014 to 2017. Turkey says the SDF’s main fighting force, the YPG, are Kurdish separatists it considers terrorists and sent troops across the border in 2017 to push them out.
Rebel advances in recent days have driven the YPG out of areas in and near Aleppo, including Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood and the corridor around Tel Refaat in the north.
The SDF’s presence in northeastern Syria along much of the border with Iraq also complicates supply lines for regional Iranian-backed paramilitary groups that support Assad. Reuters reported on Monday that hundreds of Iranian-backed Iraqi fighters had crossed the border into Syria to help government forces.
Israel has regularly attacked Iranian-backed forces in Syria. Hezbollah said an Israeli strike near Damascus on Tuesday killed one of its senior officers who was in contact with the Syrian army. The Israeli army said it does not comment on foreign media reports.
