Islamist-led rebel forces have captured yet another city in Syria, overrunning Assad’s forces in the city of Hama as the insurgents continue their surprise offensive.
Rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) stormed the city of just under a million people and, after fierce fighting, claimed to have taken its prison and freed prisoners.
After a night of violent clashes, rebels entered Hama “from several sides” and engaged in street fighting with Assad’s forces, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British organization monitoring the war.
Early Thursday afternoon, the Syrian army admitted it had lost control of the strategically located city considered crucial in its efforts to protect the capital and seat of power, Damascus.
“In recent hours, with the intensification of clashes between our soldiers and terrorist groups… these groups managed to break a number of axes in the city and entered it,” the army said, adding that units had redeployed outside of the city. .
The fall of Hama came despite bombing and strikes carried out by the Syrian and Russian air forces, state media reported late Wednesday.
Maya, a 22-year-old student who only gave her first name for security reasons, said she and her family were staying home while fighting raged outside.
“We constantly heard sounds of explosions and shelling,” he told AFP by phone from Hama.
A multi-barreled rocket launcher fires on regime forces on the northern outskirts of the city of Hama in west-central Syria on December 4, 2024.
Anti-government fighters rest in a position on the northern outskirts of the city of Hama in west-central Syria on December 4, 2024.
A Syrian Kurdish woman, fleeing northern Aleppo, leans against a bullet-riddled wall as she arrives in Tabqa, on the western outskirts of Raqa, on December 4, 2024.
“We don’t know what’s going on outside.”
The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, says 727 people, mostly combatants but also 111 civilians, have been killed in Syria since violence broke out last week.
This is the most intense fighting since 2020 in a country already devastated by civil war, which broke out with the repression of pro-democracy protests in 2011.
The key to the rebels’ success since the offensive began last week was the capture of Aleppo, which in more than a decade of war had never completely fallen from government hands.
HTS head Abu Mohammad al-Jolani visited the historic citadel of Aleppo on Wednesday.
Jolani was seen waving to supporters from an open-top car while visiting the historic fortress, in images posted on the rebels’ Telegram channel.
While the advancing rebels encountered little resistance at the beginning of their offensive, the fighting around Hama has been especially fierce.
Assad ordered a 50 percent increase in the salary of career soldiers, state news agency SANA reported, as he seeks to bolster his forces for the counteroffensive.
A Syrian Kurdish woman, fleeing northern Aleppo, waits on a street with a child upon arrival in Tabqa, on the western outskirts of Raqa, on December 4, 2024.
An anti-government fighter carries a rocket to be used against regime forces, on the northern outskirts of the city of Hama, in west-central Syria, on December 4, 2024.
The rebels launched their offensive in northern Syria on Nov. 27, the same day a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon went into effect.
The Syrian armed forces were pushed back by the rebels despite the government sending “large military convoys,” according to the Observatory.
The monitor said Wednesday’s fighting occurred near an area populated primarily by Alawites, followers of the same branch of Shiite Islam as the president.
The rebels launched their offensive in northern Syria on Nov. 27, the same day a ceasefire went into effect in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
Both Hezbollah and Russia have been key supporters of the Assad government, but more recently have been mired in their respective conflicts.
The United Nations said on Wednesday that 115,000 people had been “again displaced in Idlib and northern Aleppo” by the fighting.
Human Rights Watch warned that the fighting “raises concerns that civilians face a real risk of serious abuses at the hands of armed opposition groups and the Syrian government.”
Until last week, the war in Syria had been largely dormant for years, but analysts have said violence was destined to break out as it was never truly resolved.
Armed groups opposing Bashar al-Assad’s regime continue their advance and captured 20 more settlements in the western province of Hama, Syria, on December 4, 2024.
Military reinforcements are en route from Idlib to control the Hama fronts as armed groups opposing Bashar al-Assad’s regime captured 20 more settlements in Syria’s western Hama province on December 4, 2024.
Smoke rises as a member of the rebels led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rides a motorcycle in al-Rashideen, Aleppo province, Syria, on November 29, 2024.
At the head of the rebel alliance is HTS, which has its roots in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.
“HTS has had a lot of time, space and resources to organize and prepare for this,” said analyst Sam Heller of the US-based think tank Century Foundation.
How the fighting unfolds now “depends on whether the Syrian government can regain its footing,” Heller said.
“Opposition forces currently advancing south will likely be trapped somewhere in central Syria, when they encounter truly motivated and intractable loyal resistance,” he said.
“At that point, it will be a question of whether Damascus has the means to mount the kind of scorched earth counteroffensive that I assume it would like to execute.”