Resistance fighters in Syria he captured the strategic city of Hama Thursday in a few hours.
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which means the Committee for the Liberation of the Levant, were in charge of the crime as they attacked the city. Government forces quickly retreated.
Residents appeared to welcome what many described as the liberation of their city from the clutches of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
One HTS fighter, who did not want to give his name, told Al Jazeera after entering Hama: “Thank God we liberated the city of Hama and now we are securing it (e ). With God's blessing, we will enter the city of Homs next.”
Analysts and observers believe that anti-government fighters could capture most of the country, but say Hama holds special value for the Syrian opposition.
Here's what we know about the city's strategic and symbolic importance.
Why is Hama so important in Syria?
The city witnessed one of the most brutal acts of violence in Syria's history, analysts and observers say.
In 1982, al-Assad's father, Hafez, who was then president, ordered the killing of members of the Muslim Brotherhood living in the city.
The targeted people were part of a movement that was trying to remove the al-Assads from power and they had taken over the town after attacking the army soldiers.
They killed senior officials and leaders within the government and burned their homes, according to a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank based in the United Kingdom.
The group's activities attracted widespread support and sparked an uprising against the city government.
The government responded by bombing Hama for several days while Syrian troops moved in to crush the rebellion.
In the weeks that followed, Syrian forces laid siege to the city, going door-to-door to kill, torture and arrest any young men they believed to be in opposition, according to Amnesty International.
It is estimated that between 10,000 and 40,000 people were killed in Hama – the exact number is still unknown.
“It was the sense of arrest and execution that scared people,” said Robin Yassin-Kassab, an expert on Syria and co-author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War.
“(The program) made Syria a silent kingdom,” he told Al Jazeera.
The Syrian revolution in 2011 quickly broke that barrier of fear.
As protests swept the country, residents of Hama gathered and chanted “Yalla erhal ya Bashar,” which translates to “Come on and go, Bashar!”
Protesters in Hama bearing olive branches and crowds reached more than 500,000 people, activists told Al Jazeera in 2011.
What did the Syrian regime do to Hama in 2011?
Across Syria, government forces quelled violent demonstrations in 2011, including in Hama.
For more than ten years, cities were barrel bombed and activists and opponents they saw arrested and tortured.
The government often relied on Alawi, as well as Shia, armed groups, both from Syria and across the region, to suppress militants.
The Alawi sect in Syria is an offshoot of Shia Islam to which al-Assad and his family belong.
Yassin-Kassab said many believe the barrier of fear has been breached for the second time after rebel groups now captured Aleppo and Hama within days.
In Hama, scenes of prisoners of conscience being freed from the main prison sparked celebrations by Syrians.
In the city, residents tore down a statue of Hafez al-Assad.
“I assumed that Hama was where (the government and the loyalists) would put up a big fight… but they couldn't,” said Yassin-Kassab.
“After Hama (which was liberated), I thought to myself: 'The Syrian revolution is back.'”
Is Hama strategically important?
Very much so.
The capture of Hama allows rebel groups to continue moving down the Aleppo-Damascus M5 highway towards Homs, which could, if he could, separate the strongholds of the regime from each other.
It seems that fighters have reached the outskirts of the city, according to reports, and thousands of people have fled.
Homs has a larger population of Alawis than Hama, but HTS has given assurances that minorities in Syria will not be harmed.
The city is actually a gateway to the Syrian capital, Damascus, as well as the coastal areas of Tartous and Latakia, which are in the Alawi heartland and home to Russian naval and air bases.
If Homs falls to the opposition, it is likely that opposition fighters will push forward to try to take Damascus, Yassin-Kassab said.
“I think if Homs falls, that will be the beginning of the end of the (Assad regime),” he told Al Jazeera.
