Thousands flee Homs as Syrian militants push on lightning offensive

Turkey, Iran and Russia to meet in Doha today to discuss Syria

FE Team | Published: December 06, 2024 22:19:16

BEIRUT/AMMAN, Dec 06 (Reuters): Thousands of people fled the central Syrian city of Homs overnight and into Friday morning, a war monitoring group and residents said, as rebel forces sought to push their lightning offensive against government forces further south.
The head of the Syrian faction leading the sweeping assault told CNN that his group - a former Al-Qaeda affiliate now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) - aimed to "build Syria" and bring Syrian refugees back home from Lebanon and Europe.
It was Abu Mohammed Al-Golani's first interview since his group began seizing territory from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces on Nov. 27. Rebels have captured two major cities so far and are now thrusting toward Homs, a key crossroads city linking the capital Damascus to Assad's coastal heartlands.
After years locked behind frozen front lines, the insurgents have burst out of their northwestern Idlib bastion to reel off the swiftest battlefield advance by either side since a street uprising against Assad mushroomed into civil war 13 years ago.
Assad regained control of most of Syria after his key allies - Russia, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah group - came to his support. But all have recently been diverted by other crises, giving Syrian Sunni Muslim militants a window to fight back.
Hezbollah sent a small number of "supervising forces" from Lebanon to Syria overnight to help prevent anti-government fighters from seizing the strategic city of Homs, two senior Lebanese security sources told Reuters.
A Syrian military officer and two regional officials close to Tehran also told Reuters that elite forces from Iran-backed Hezbollah had crossed over from Lebanon overnight and had taken up positions in Homs. Hezbollah has suffered major blows in its war with Israel in Lebanon, which assassinated some of its top leaders.
Meanwhile, the rebels said they had taken over the towns of Talbisa and Rastan, bringing them within miles (km) of Homs. In another alarming development for Assad, the head of the US-backed Syrian Kurdish force said the radical Islamic State group, which ran a reign of terror in large swathes of Iraq and Syria until it was defeated by a US-led coalition in 2017, had now taken control of some areas in eastern Syria.
"Due to the recent developments, there is increased movement by Islamic State mercenaries in the Syrian desert, in the south and west of Deir Al-Zor and the countryside of al-Raqqa," Mazloum Abdi told a press conference, referring to areas in the east of the country.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said thousands of people had begun fleeing from Homs on Thursday night towards the Mediterranean coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, strongholds of the government.
A coastal resident said thousands of people had begun arriving there from Homs, fearing the rebels' rapid advance. Wasim Marouh, a resident of Homs city who decided not to leave, said most of its main commercial streets were empty and only a few grocery shops were open as pro-government militia groups were roaming the streets.
Thousands of families rushed out of the city overnight and traffic jams held up cars for hours, he said.
Rebels led by HTS have sought to capitalise on their swift takeovers of Aleppo in the north and Hama in west-central Syria by pressing onwards 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." Seizing Homs would cut off Damascus from the coast, a longtime redoubt of Assad's minority Alawite sect and where his Russian allies have a naval base and air base.
Russian bombing overnight destroyed the Rustan bridge along the M5 highway, the main route to Homs, to prevent rebels using it to advance, a Syrian army officer told Reuters.
"There were at least eight strikes on the bridge," he added. Government forces were bringing reinforcements to positions around Homs, he added.
Assad relied heavily on Russian and Iranian military backing during the most intense years of the civil war, helping him to claw back most territory and Syria's largest cities before front lines hardened in 2020.
But Russia has been focused on its full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022. And many in the top leadership of Hezbollah, the most powerful Iran-aligned militia force, were killed by Israel over the past two months. Hezbollah's new leader, Naim Qassem, pledged to stand by Syria in a television statement.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran, and Russia will meet in Doha on Saturday to discuss a lightning rebel advance in Syria, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Friday.
Syrian rebels have made their biggest battlefield gains since the civil war began 13 years ago, striking a devastating blow to President Bashar al-Assad.
After years of being locked behind frozen frontlines, the rebels captured the main northern city of Aleppo last week before pushing as far south as the centre of Hama, taking the strategic central city for the first time.
Turkey, Russia and Iran have regularly held talks on Syria's future in a trilateral format as part of what is known as the Astana peace process. While NATO member Turkey backs the political and armed opposition, Russia and Iran support Assad.
The source said the three ministers were expected to meet on the sidelines of the Doha Forum on Saturday within the framework of the Astana process, but did not provide further information.
On Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking alongside Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi after their talks in Ankara, said that a new effort would be made to revive the Astana process.
Since the start of the renewed conflict, Ankara has called on Assad to engage with the Syrian people for a political solution.
It has denied any involvement in the rebels' operation and said it did not want to see a new migrant wave heading toward its borders.