Tens of thousands of people have fled Homs as the Syrian city looks set to become the third to be captured by Islamist-led rebels in another blow for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The rebels, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), yesterday stormed the nearby city of Hama after fierce fighting, and claimed to have seized its prison and released inmates.
Fearing that Homs will be the next city to fall, government forces have been scrambling to secure it in recent hours, with a war monitor reporting that air strikes targeted a bridge on the highway linking it to Hama.
‘Fighter jets executed several airstrikes, targeting Al-Rastan bridge on (the) Homs-Hama highway… as well as attacking positions around the bridge, attempting to cut off the road between Hama and Homs and secure Homs,’ the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
It added this morning that the rebels were just three miles from Homs on Friday, after seizing control of two strategic towns, Rastan and Talbisseh, on the road linking it to Hama.
As rebels advanced towards Homs, videos circulated showing queues of cars – purported to be people desperately trying to leave the city.
The UN has reported that an estimated 120,000 refugees have already fled conflict zones for sanctuaries in the north since the conflict reignited, stoking fears that it could spark a mass migration.
Syria’s neighbour Lebanon is already anticipating a major influx of refugees, and there are worries that a repeat of the migrant crisis seen during the last war could arise, with displaced Syrians seeking sanctuary in Europe via dangerous routes.
As rebels were reported to be bearing down on Homs, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman reported a mass exodus from the city of members of Assad’s Alawite minority community.
Videos showing queues of cars have circulated on social media. There have been reports of an exodus of people leaving Homs
Tens of thousands of people are reportedly heading towards areas along Syria ‘s Mediterranean coast from Homs
A family is seen in Homs. It is Syria’s third-largest city which lies just 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Hama
He said tens of thousands were heading towards areas along Syria‘s Mediterranean coast, where the Alawites, followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam, form the majority.
Control of Homs could allow the rebels to ‘cut off the main road leading to the Syrian coast’, the stronghold of the Alawite minority, the Observatory said.
‘We are afraid and worried that what happened in Hama will be repeated in Homs,’ said a civil servant, who gave his name only as Abbas. We fear they (the rebels) will take revenge on us,’ the 33-year-old said.
Until last week, the war in Syria had been mostly dormant for years, but analysts have said it was bound to resume as it was never truly resolved.
The rebels launched their offensive a little more than a week ago, just as a ceasefire in neighbouring Lebanon took hold between Israel and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ally Hezbollah.
To slow the rebel advance, the Observatory said Assad’s forces erected soil barriers on the highway north of Homs, Syria’s third-largest city which lies just 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Hama.
Tens of thousands of members of Assad’s Alawite minority community were fleeing Homs on Thursday, for fear that the rebels would keep up their advance, the Observatory said earlier.
The rebels captured Hama on Thursday following street battles with government forces, announcing ‘the complete liberation of the city’ in a message on their Telegram channel.
Rebel fighters hold weapons in front of Hama governor’s building as they gather after Syrian rebels captured the city during their advance across northern Syria
Rebel fighters kissed the ground and let off volleys of celebratory gunfire as they entered Syria’s fourth-largest city.
Many residents turned out to welcome the rebel fighters. An AFP photographer saw some residents set fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall.
The army admitted losing control of the city, strategically located between Aleppo and Assad’s seat of power in Damascus.
Defence Minister Ali Abbas insisted that the army’s withdrawal was a ‘temporary tactical measure’.
‘Our forces are still in the vicinity,’ he said in a statement carried by the official SANA news agency.
A multi-barrel rocket launcher fires against regime forces, in the northern outskirts of Syria’s west-central city of Hama on December 4, 2024
Anti-government fighters rest at a position in the northern outskirts of Syria’s west-central city of Hama on December 4, 2024
Aron Lund, a fellow of the Century International think tank, called the loss of Hama ‘a massive, massive blow to the Syrian government’ because the army should have had an advantage there to reverse rebel gains ‘and they couldn’t do it’.
He said HTS would now try to push on towards Homs, where many residents were already leaving yesterday.
By early Thursday afternoon, Syria’s army admitted it had lost control of the strategically located city seen as crucial in its efforts to protect the capital and seat of power, Damascus.
‘Over the past few hours, with the intensification of confrontations between our soldiers and terrorist groups… these groups were able to breach a number of axes in the city and entered it,’ the army said, adding units had redeployed outside the city.
A Syrian Kurdish woman, fleeing from north of Aleppo, stands leaning on a bullet-riddled wall upon arriving in Tabqa, on the western outskirts of Raqa, on December 4, 2024
The fall of Hama came despite shelling and strikes carried out by the Syrian and Russian air forces, as reported by state media late Wednesday.
Maya, a 22-year-old student who gave only her first name for security concerns, said she and her family were staying at home as the fighting rages outside.
‘We have been hearing non-stop the sounds of explosions and shelling,’ she told AFP by telephone from Hama. ‘We don’t know what’s going on outside.’
According to the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed in the country since the violence erupted last week.
It marks the most intense fighting since 2020 in the civil war sparked by the repression of pro-democracy protests in 2011.
Key to the rebels’ successes since the start of the offensive last week was the takeover of Aleppo, which in more than a decade of war had never entirely fallen out of government hands.
While the advancing rebels met little resistance earlier in their offensive, the fighting around Hama has been especially fierce.
Armed groups opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime seized control of much of Aleppo’s city center in Syria on November 30, 2024
One Arab newspaper estimated Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s fortune – largely stolen from his own people – is a staggering £13.5 billion
Assad ordered a 50-percent raise in career soldiers’ pay, state news agency SANA reported Wednesday, as he seeks to bolster his forces for a counteroffensive.
Rebels drove back the Syrian armed forces despite the fact that the government sent in ‘large military convoys’, the Observatory said.
The rebels launched their offensive in northern Syria on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took effect in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.
Both Hezbollah and Russia have been crucial backers of Assad’s government, but have been mired in their own conflicts in recent years.
HTS is rooted in Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch.
The group has sought to moderate its image in recent years, but experts say it faces a challenge convincing Western governments it has fully renounced hardline jihadism.
The United States maintains hundreds of troops in eastern Syria as part of a coalition formed against Islamic State group jihadists.
