Assad has left Damascus, senior army officers say; Syria rebels say they are in capital

Rebels fired guns into the air in celebration, and youths tore down posters of the Syrian president, whose territorial control has collapsed in a dizzying week-long retreat by the military.

The fall of Homs gives the insurgents control over Syria’s strategic heartland and a key highway crossroads, severing Damascus from the coastal region that is the stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect and where his Russian allies have a naval base and air base.

Homs’ capture was also a powerful symbol of the rebel movement’s dramatic comeback in the 13-year-old conflict. Swaths of Homs were destroyed by gruelling siege warfare between the rebels and the army years ago. The fighting ground down the insurgents, who were forced out.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the main rebel leader, called the capture of Homs a historic moment and urged fighters not to harm “those who drop their arms”.

Rebels freed thousands of detainees from the city prison. Security forces left quickly after burning their documents.

Syrian rebel commander Hassan Abdul Ghani said in a statement on Sunday that operations continued to “completely liberate” the countryside around Damascus, and rebel forces were looking towards the capital.

In one suburb, a statue of Assad’s father, the late former president Hafez al-Assad, was toppled and torn apart.

The Syrian Army said it was reinforcing around Damascus, and state television reported on Saturday that Assad remained in the city.

The lightning rebel advance suggests Assad’s government could fall within the next week, US and other Western officials said.

Since the rebels’ sweep into Aleppo a week ago, government defences have crumbled at a dizzying speed as insurgents seized a string of major cities and rose in places where the rebellion had long seemed over.

The threat to Damascus now poses an existential danger to the Assad dynasty’s five-decade reign over Syria and the continued influence in the country of its main regional backer, Iran.

The rebels’ moves around the capital, reported by an opposition war monitor and a rebel commander, came after the Syrian Army withdrew from much of the southern part of the country, leaving more areas, including several provincial capitals, under the control of opposition fighters.

The advances in the past week were among the largest in recent years by opposition factions led by a group that has its origins in al-Qaeda and is considered a terrorist organisation by the US and the United Nations. In their push to overthrow Assad’s government, the insurgents, led by the HTS group, have met little resistance from the Syrian Army.

The UN’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, on Saturday called for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition”.

Speaking to reporters at the annual Doha Forum in Qatar, Pedersen said the situation in Syria was changing by the minute. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose country is Assad’s chief international backer, said he felt “sorry for the Syrian people”.

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In Damascus, people rushed to stock up on supplies. Thousands went to Syria’s border with Lebanon, trying to leave the country.

Many shops in the city were shuttered, a resident told the Associated Press, and those still open had run out of staples such as sugar. Some were selling items at three times the normal price.

“The situation is very strange. We are not used to that,” the resident said, insisting on anonymity for fear of retributions.

“People are worried whether there will be a battle [in Damascus] or not.”

It was the first time that opposition forces had reached the outskirts of Damascus since 2018, when Syrian troops recaptured the area following a years-long siege. The UN said it was moving non-critical staff outside the country as a precaution.

Assad rumours

Syria’s state media denied social media rumours that Assad had left the country, saying the president was performing his duties in Damascus.

Assad has had little, if any, help from his allies. Russia is busy with its war in Ukraine, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to shore up Assad’s forces, has been weakened by a year-long conflict with Israel. Iran has had its proxies across the region degraded by regular Israeli airstrikes.

US President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday posted on social media that the US should avoid engaging militarily in Syria.

Pedersen said a date for talks in Geneva on implementing a 2015 UN resolution calling for a Syrian-led political process would be announced later. The resolution calls for the establishment of a transitional governing body, followed by the drafting of a new constitution and ending with UN-supervised elections.

Foreign ministers and senior diplomats from eight key countries, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran, along with Pedersen, gathered on the sidelines of the Doha summit on Saturday to discuss the situation. No details were immediately available.

The insurgents’ march

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said insurgents were in the Damascus suburbs of Maadamiyah, Jaramana and Daraya. Opposition fighters were also marching towards the Damascus suburb of Harasta, he said.

Insurgent commander Hassan Abdul Ghani posted on the Telegram messaging app that opposition forces had begun the “final stage” of their offensive by encircling Damascus.

HTS controls much of north-west Syria and, in 2017, set up a “salvation government” to run daily affairs in the region. In recent years, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani has sought to remake the group’s image, cutting ties with al-Qaeda, ditching hardline officials and vowing to embrace pluralism and religious tolerance.

Syria’s military, meanwhile, sent large numbers of reinforcements to defend the key central city of Homs, Syria’s third-largest, as insurgents approached its outskirts.

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The shock offensive began on November 27, during which rebel fighters captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, and the central city of Hama, the country’s fourth-largest city.

Opposition activists on Friday said insurgents entered Palmyra, which is home to invaluable archaeological sites that had been in government hands since being taken from the Islamic State group in 2017.

To the south, Syrian troops left much of the province of Quneitra, including the main Baath City, activists said.

The Syrian Observatory said government troops had withdrawn from much of the two southern provinces.

The army said in a statement that it had carried out redeployment and repositioning in Sweida and Daraa after its checkpoints came under attack by “terrorists”.

The army said it was setting up a “strong and coherent defensive and security belt in the area”, apparently to defend Damascus from the south.

The Syrian government has referred to opposition gunmen as terrorists since the conflict broke out in March 2011.

Diplomacy in Doha

The foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey, meeting in Qatar, called for an end to the hostilities. Turkey is the main backer of the rebels.

Qatar’s top diplomat, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, criticised Assad for failing to take advantage of the lull in fighting in recent years to address the country’s underlying problems.

“Assad didn’t seize this opportunity to start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people,” he said.

Sheikh Mohammed said he was surprised at how quickly the rebels advanced and said there was a real threat to Syria’s “territorial integrity”. He said the war could “damage and destroy what is left if there is no sense of urgency” to start a political process.

AP, Reuters

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