Hama city falls to Syrian rebels as advance continues
Syrian rebels have taken control of the central city of Hama as their shock advance across the country continues.
The Syrian army announced it was no longer in control of the city on Thursday, while an activist group said the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham-led fighters released hundreds of prisoners from Hama prison.
"Over the past few hours, with the intensification of confrontations between our soldiers and terrorist groups... these groups were able to breach a number of axes in the city and entered it," the army said.
It added that "military units stationed there have redeployed" outside the city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group monitoring the war, earlier said there was "street fighting against regime forces in a number of areas" across the city.
"Our forces entered and liberated vast neighbourhoods in the city, and the enemy forces are collapsing,” rebel commander Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Abdul Ghani told Middle East Eye.
"We seized the main police department in the centre of the city and the general prison, and liberated many prisoners. The clashes are ongoing to liberate the entire city in the coming hours.”
Rebel fighters, led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have seized large swathes of territory, including Syria's second city Aleppo, since launching a surprise offensive last week.
According to the Observatory, 727 people - mostly combatants but also 111 civilians - have been killed in Syria since the offensive began.
Russia has launched air strikes on rebel forces in an attempt to bolster President Bashar al-Assad's forces, who have struggled to halt the rebels' progress.
Onwards to Homs?
Rebel forces are now eyeing Homs, a city that played an important part in the pro-democracy revolution in 2011 that spiralled into civil war. Some former rebels in Talbiseh, a town in the city's northern suburbs, pledged their loyalty to HTS in recent days.
Despite promises to protect Syria's diversity, religious minorities have expressed concerns about HTS's former affiliation to al-Qaeda, while Kurdish residents fear the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) which has also participated in the rebel advance.
'Hama is not strategic, but Homs is because it connects Damascus with the coastal area, and for the Iranians losing Homs means potentially losing access to Lebanon'
- Jihad Yazigi, the Syria Report
In a video address on Thursday, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani announced that the "revolutionary forces" had entered Hama.
"I pray to God Almighty that this will be a victory full of mercy and kindness, free from revenge," he said.
Hama has symbolic value for many due to its history as a stronghold of opposition to Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez al-Assad.
In 1982, following an uprising led by the Muslim Brotherhood in the city, Hafez al-Assad launched a brutal campaign of repression, killings and air strikes that left 20,000-40,000 people dead.
Jihad Yazigi, editor-in-chief of the Syria Report, told MEE that the loss of Hama also virtually guaranteed that any government hopes it could retake Aleppo were over.
"In Syria, people tend to call every single village and town 'strategic'. Not everything is strategic - but I think the importance of the fall of Hama is that it puts the regime in a situation where it cannot retreat anymore," he explained.
After the fall of Hama, Homs remains as Damascus's last line of defence, and while its fall would not necessarily be "existential" for the Assad government, Yazigi argued it would likely push the president's allies Russia and Iran to demand meaningful change "because they would be afraid to lose everything".
"Hama is not strategic, but Homs is because it connects Damascus with the coastal area, which is the core of the loyalist base, and for the Iranians losing Homs means potentially losing access to Lebanon," he said.
'Different reactions'
Homs is the last major government-held stronghold before the capital Damascus and its fall would leave the Assad government vulnerable.
UN Syria envoy Geir Pedersen on Wednesday said the latest developments had provoked "different reactions among the Syrian people, a grave threat for some, a sign of hope for others", and stressed the need to protect civilians.
Read More »Images released on social media showed rebel supporters celebrating in Hama, while members of the exiled opposition praised the capture of the city as a possible stepping stone to Assad's eventual overthrow.
On Thursday, the Chinese embassy in Syria said its citizens should leave the country as soon as possible.
China has been one of the few members of the international community that has supported Assad since the outbreak of war and one of the few countries the Syrian president has visited abroad since 2011.
China's foreign ministry said on Monday that it "supports Syria's efforts to maintain national security and stability".
Syria's war, which broke out after government forces opened fire on pro-democracy protesters, has killed more than half a million people. Around 12 million people remain displaced by fighting and repression, half outside the country.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday said the ongoing "carnage" in Syria was the result of a "chronic collective failure" to initiate a political process in the country since 2011.
