Syrians are fleeing the city of Homs in droves after rebels seized the nearby strategically important city of Hama in a blitz offensive that dealt a heavy blow to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Located south of Aleppo, the second city in Syria, the strategic city of Hama is a key on the road to Homs, about forty kilometers to the south, and to the capital Damascus, two major cities still in the hands of the authorities.
On Thursday evening, tens of thousands of Homs residents, mostly members of the Alawite community, which includes President Assad, fled to the west coast, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
Rebels led by the extremist Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a surprise offensive on Nov. 27 from their stronghold in Idlib, in the northwest, capturing dozens of places, most of northern Aleppo and now Hama. The hostilities left more than 800 dead, according to an NGO.
"What happened today" in Hama is a "temporary tactical measure, our forces are still close to the city," Syrian Defense Minister Ali Abbaso said of the "redeployment" of government troops.
But residents of Homs, Syria's third-largest city, say they fear a rebel advance.
"Fear rules the city," Hajdar, a resident of an Alawite settlement reached by phone, who is trying to flee as quickly as possible to Tartus, an Alawite stronghold on the west coast, where he has already evacuated his parents, told AFP.
After the rebels entered Hama, residents took to the streets on foot or in long lines of cars, others greeted the rebels and set fire to the giant portrait of the Syrian president that hung on the Municipality building.
Rebels shot into the air, others knelt to pray, while corpses littered the streets.
The rebel coalition boasted on Telegram about the "complete liberation of Hama", and especially about the release of "hundreds of prisoners" from the central prison.
According to OSDH, "more than 200 military vehicles" of the army left Hama for Homs.
The hostilities are the first on such a scale since 2020 in a country ravaged by a devastating civil war that has left half a million dead since 2011 and divided it into zones of influence, with warring parties backed by various foreign powers.
Since Nov. 27, fighting and bombing have killed 826 people, including 111 civilians, according to the UK-based OSDH with a vast network of sources in Syria. Of that total number, 222 fighters have been killed since Tuesday around Hama, the ODSH announced.
The UN reported 115.000 displaced persons in a week.
UN chief Antonio Guterres has called for an end to the "carnage" in Syria, which is the result of a "chronic collective failure" to initiate a political solution to the conflict.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, which is the main supporter of the rebels, called on Assad, with the support of Russia and Iran, to "urgently" find a "political solution".
Following the launch of the rebel offensive, Russia, which has bases in Syria, launched airstrikes on rebel-held areas in support of government forces.
Thanks to the key support of Russia, as well as Iran and the pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah, the Syrian government turned the tide of the war in 2016 by regaining a large part of the territory.
Today, weakened by two months of open war with Israel, Hezbollah has reiterated its support for Assad.
HTS leader Ahmed al-Chareh, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, urged neighboring Iraq to stay out of the conflict.
In Aleppo, a large northern city, residents who returned with rebel troops celebrated being reunited with their loved ones.
"Indescribable joy," said Mohamed Joma, 25, who fled the city and left his family behind when the government completely took control of Aleppo in 2016.
Police and soldiers who had deserted now lined up outside the offices to register with the rebel forces.
The leader of HTS said in a video message that there will be no "revenge" in Hama, as he announced that his fighters entered the city "to close the wound opened 40 years ago."
Hama was the scene of a massacre in 1982 under the presidency of Hafez Al Assad, the current president's father, during the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood rebellion.
"The loss of Hama is a very hard blow for the Syrian government, especially after its defeat in Aleppo. Here, the army tried to turn the situation around (...) but failed," Aaron Lund, a researcher at "Century International" told AFP and added that HTS will now try to advance further, towards Homs.
Syrian Defense Minister Ali Abbas said today that the army is "still close" to Hama, since that city in the center of the country was captured by the rebels.
He stressed that the decision to move government forces out of Hama was a "temporary tactical measure".
Our forces are still close to the city, Abbas said in a statement carried by the official Sana news agency.
The Syrian army has withdrawn from the strategically important city of Hama as rebels breached its defenses, in another blow to President Bashar al-Assad. Hama is one of the few cities that was under full government control during the Syrian civil war.
The Syrian army said it withdrew from Hama and took up positions outside the city to protect civilian lives. The announcement came hours after opposition fighters entered the city and headed for the center.
Hama is the main traffic junction in Syria, connecting the center of the country with the north, east and west. It is located about 200 kilometers north of the capital Damascus.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in new conflicts that began with the opposition's sudden offensive at the end of November.
The offensive is being led by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as well as a Turkish-backed Syrian militia group called the Syrian National Army. Their surprise capture of Aleppo was a stunning success and reignited a conflict that had largely stalled for the past few years.
The rebels' next target is likely to be Homs, the country's third-largest city. Homs is about 40 kilometers south of Hama.
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