An opposition fighter takes a photo at the Hama Airport Saturday after the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, took control of the city. The group later claimed to have captured the strategically important city of Homs and appeared poised to advance on the capital of Damascus. Photo by Mohammed Al Rifai/EPA-EFE
Dec. 7 (UPI) — Syrian rebels said Saturday they have captured the strategically important city of Homs and are now on the doorstep of the capital of Damascus as they pressed a lightning assault on the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of the Jihadist rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, said in a video posted on the organization’s Telegram channel that 3,500 prisoners were freed from the Assad regime’s prison in Homs after the rebels entered the city.
“The Military Operations Department liberated the Al-Sukhnah area in the eastern countryside of Homs after expelling the criminal regime forces from it as part of the Deterrence of Aggression operation,” al-Jolani said.
Homs, located 100 miles north of Damascus on the Orontes River, is regarded as a key link between Syria’s interior cities and the Mediterranean coast. Its apparent capture has come quickly after the rebels similarly took control of major cities such as Aleppo and Hama.
HTS rebels have also already surrounded areas on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, according to sources cited Saturday by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Resistance by Assad’s army seemed to be melting away as the group advanced, the monitors said, reporting that regime forces such as 9th Division have “withdrawn completely” from their positions in Daraa province as well as in the Artouz area, located only several miles from the capital.
Syrian journalist Nour Qormosh told Al Jazeera Damascus was surrounded and has come under siege.
“We have seen in the past 24 or maybe 48 hours a massive advancement of the opposition forces into the entire countryside of Homs, as we saw in the previous advancement into Hama and Aleppo,” Qormosh said. “Now, with the capture of Homs, and the advancement of the opposition forces in the countryside of Damascus, it’s really putting Assad in a very bad situation here now.
“He’s basically trapped in the city of Damascus, not knowing how far the opposition can be in the coming hours.”
“After Homs, we will head towards Damascus,” an HTS spokesman told the broadcaster. “There will be a new Syria based on justice. We are not facing an actual army, but rather a militia.”
As the Assad regime appeared to be crumbling, its main allies, Russia and Iran, sent out signals seeking “dialogue” between the government and “legitimate” opposition forces.
“We firmly reaffirm our message about the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Syria,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday at a forum on the crisis in Doha, Qatar. “We call for an immediate end of hostilities and a start of dialogue between the government and legitimate opposition forces.”
Lavrov called for “full implementation” of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, which in 2015 provided a blueprint for ending the Syrian civil war and establishing a peace process to be facilitated by the UN.
Iran on Saturday denied reports that Assad had fled to Russia as the rebels advance.
Yaqoub Rezazadeh, a member of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, “categorically denied” the idea, as well as other reports suggesting Iran had evacuated its embassy in Damascus or pulled its military advisors from the country.
“The news is baseless,” he told state-run Press TV. “[Former Iranian diplomat Ali] Larijani met with President Assad in Damascus just yesterday.”