By Maya Gebeily, Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Parisa Hafezi
BEIRUT/AMMAN/DUBAI (Reuters) – Syrian rebel forces advanced in central Homs and Kurdish fighters effectively seized control of the eastern desert on Friday, handing President Bashar al-Assad a grip on power. and triggering a local rebellion against his rule in the country. right.
If the Islamist rebels capture Homs in their new offensive, it will cut off the capital Damascus from the coast, a long-held stronghold of Assad's Alawite minority and home to his navy and air base. Russian friends.
In a parallel standoff for Assad, a US-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters captured Deir el-Zor, the government's main stronghold in the vast desert east of the country, three Syrian sources said. to Reuters on Friday.
It was the third major city, after Aleppo and Hama in the northwest and center, to fall out of Assad's control in a week.
Adding to the pressure, two Syrian military sources said that the alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had swept through the border between Albu Kamal nearby with Iraq.
In the southern Deraa province, local Syrian fighters and former rebels overran one of the main military bases, known as Liwa 52, near the town of Herak as fighting spread to the southern border with Jordan, two sources said. rebels told Reuters on Friday.
They also seized parts of the Nassib border crossing with Jordan near the customs department where dozens of trailers and passenger cars were lost, sources said.
After years trapped behind frozen front lines, rebel forces have burst out of their base in northwestern Idlib to make the fastest battlefield advance on either side since the street uprising against Assad into the civil war 13 years ago.
Assad gained control of most of Syria after liberating key allies – Russia, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah group. But recently everything has been undermined and sidelined by another crisis, giving Sunni Muslim militants a window to fight back.
A senior Iranian official said at the same time that Tehran, which has been focused on tensions with arch-enemy Israel since the start of the Gaza war, would send missiles, drones and more advisers to Syria.
“It seems that Tehran will have to send military equipment, missiles and drones to Syria … Tehran has taken all necessary steps to increase the number of military advisers in Syria and deploy forces,” said a senior Iranian official spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Now, Tehran is providing intelligence and satellite support to Syria.
The head of the Syrian group that led the sweeping attack told CNN that his group – a former Al-Qaeda affiliate now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – aimed to “raise Syria ” and bring home Syrian refugees from Lebanon and Europe. .
This was Abu Mohammed Al-Golani's first interview since his group began capturing land from Assad's forces on November 27.
HTS broke away from Al-Qaeda in 2016, saying it poses no threat to the West and has spent years trying to balance its image, presenting itself as a viable alternative to authoritarian rule. 54 years of the Assad family.
STORY OFFICER
The rebel sweep has shocked the region and emboldened other Assad opponents. Syrian rebel leader Hassan Abdul Ghany urged top army officers to defect, in a video statement broadcast on Friday.
At least three people were killed in clashes between Druze militias and security forces in the southern Syrian city of Sweida on Friday, two witnesses and a local activist said.
They said anti-government fighters seized the main police station and the largest prison hours after hundreds of people protested in a square calling for Assad to step down.
The Israeli military said it was reinforcing its air and ground forces in the Golan Heights in southwestern Syria occupied by Israel and that they were ready for any eventuality.
Meanwhile, Iran-backed Hezbollah sent a small number of “command forces” from Lebanon to Syria overnight to prevent anti-government fighters from capturing Homs, two senior security sources said. Lebanon to Reuters.
But Israel has severely weakened Hezbollah in fighting in Lebanon this year, assassinating its top officials and destroying its military infrastructure.
HTS rebels said they had also taken over the towns of Talbisa and Rstan, bringing them within miles (km) of Homs.
The Syrian military said there was no truth to reports that it had withdrawn from Homs, saying in a statement that it had been installed on “stable and strong defensive lines” there.
A resident of Homs said earlier that the offices of Syria's main security branches there had been emptied, with members leaving the city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said thousands of people had started fleeing from Homs on Thursday night towards the government strongholds of Latakia and Tartus.
A resident on the shore said that thousands of people had started arriving there from Homs, fearing the rapid advance of the rebels.
Wasim Marouh, a Homs resident who decided not to leave, said most of its main commercial streets were largely empty as anti-government militia groups monitor the area.
ISLAMIC STATE
In another alarming development for Assad, the head of the US-backed Syrian Kurdish force said that the Islamic State group, which had been involved in terrorism in areas of Iraq and Syria before losing a coalition with the US in 2017, now accepted. control of some areas in eastern Syria.
“As a result of the recent developments, there is more movement by Islamic State mercenaries in the Syrian desert, in the south and west of Deir Al-Zor and al-Raqqa countryside,” Mazloum Abdi told reporters -statement, referring to areas in eastern Syria.
Rebels led by HTS have sought to capitalize on their quick takeover of Aleppo in the north and Hama in west-central Syria by pushing on to Homs, another 40 km (24 miles) south.
A rebel operations room urged Homs residents in an online post to rise up, saying: “Your time has come.”
Russian bombing overnight destroyed the Rastan bridge on the M5 highway, the main route to Homs, to prevent rebels from using it to advance, a Syrian military official told Reuters.
Aron Lund, another fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, said the government was “fighting for their lives at this point”.
It was possible that the government could hold Homs “but given how fast things have moved so far, I wouldn't count on it”.
