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Syrian rebels say they are closing in on the strategic city of Homs as they make a lightning advance south toward President Bashar al-Assad’s remaining strongholds.
“Our forces have liberated the last village on the outskirts of Homs city and are now in front of its walls,” the rebels said late Friday on their Telegram channel.
Homs is the largest city still controlled by the Assad regime on the highway leading south to the capital, Damascus. The rebels, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have already captured Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and Hama since launching their offensive 11 days ago.
The attack represents the most serious threat to Assad’s rule in a decade, reigniting a 13-year civil war that has been largely frozen since 2020.
State media reported that joint Syrian and Russian forces shelled rebel forces in the northern suburbs of Homs.
Although much of the rebel advance has met with little resistance from forces loyal to Assad, there are signs that fighting may intensify around Homs.
If the government were to lose Homs, analysts say, it would cut Damascus off from Assad’s other major base of support in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus. Assad comes from the minority Alawite sect, whose population is concentrated on the coast.
The area is also key for Russia, which intervened in the 2015 Syrian war to support Assad, giving Moscow access to the Mediterranean.
HTS, which is supported by Turkish-backed factions, has taken advantage of the fact that Assad’s supporters Iran, Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah and Russia are weakened and distracted by other conflicts.
Russian planes responded to the rebel advance with airstrikes, but in a sign of the seriousness of the crisis, Moscow warned his citizens to flee Syria on Friday. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Iran’s military commanders were evacuating.
Homs is close to the Syrian-Lebanese border, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. Iran and Hezbollah’s support for Assad a decade ago helped solidify the dictator’s rule, but a year of war with Israel has weakened it.
Local media reported that roads were clogged with people fleeing the offensive, and HTS issued a statement to Lebanese people asking them not to get involved in the conflict.
In Deraa, birthplace of the 2011 Syrian revolution, Reuters reported that rebels had reached an agreement with regime forces to withdraw. HTS said Deraa had been “liberated from the grip of the criminal regime and its militias”.
Several towns near the Jordanian border were also taken over by opposition factions, with minimal fighting.
State media downplayed the south’s rapid realignment, saying the army was repositioning and establishing a “security cordon” after “terrorist elements attacked scattered army checkpoints with the aim of distracting our armed forces”.
But Assad has also lost ground in eastern Syria, where US-backed Kurdish fighters have taken control of the city of Deir Ezzor, the capital of the oil-rich province. That area was where ISIS jihadist militants were at their greatest expansion in Syria.
