Rebels take control of Syria’s 3rd largest city, Homs in blow to President Assad’s regime

Homs could be a crippling blow for Assad’s regime as geographically it is located between capital Damascus and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus.

By: Express Web Desk

December 8, 2024 05:36 AM IST

3 min read

Defectors line-up to register their details with Syrian insurgents in Aleppo, Syria, Thursday Dec. 5, 2024. As insurgents consolidate their hold of Aleppo, which they overran last week, they issued a call to government soldiers and security agencies to defect, granting them what they called "protection cards," which offer them some sort of amnesty and assurances that they won't be hunted down.(AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Syrian rebels, led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have claimed to have captured Syria’s third largest city, Homs and reports suggest that they have reached the gates of the capital Damascus.

The government of Syria was forced to deny the rumours being spread that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had fled the country. Homs could be a crippling blow for Assad’s regime as geographically it is located between capital Damascus and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus.

In a Telegram video, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani said, “We are living in the final moments of the liberation of the city of Homs…this historic event that will distinguish between truth and falsehood,” as reported by BBC.

Syrian opposition fighters remove a government Syrian flag from an official building in Salamiyah, east of Hama, Syria Syria, Saturday Dec. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

Jolani further added that it was a “historic moment” for the rebel group and urged the fighters “not to harm those who drop their arms”. In a blow to President Assad’s government, the rebels have been able to take control of the third city in Syria after Aleppo and Hama, and analysts believe Homs capture could prove to be a game changer.

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“Rebel factions entered the city of Homs and took control of some neighbourhoods after the withdrawal of security forces and the army from their last positions in the city,” said UK based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman.

The Syrian government has been pushed back by the rebels as for the first time in the country’s long-running civil war, the government now has control of only three of 14 provincial capitals: Damascus, Latakia and Tartus, reported Associated Press.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who backs Assad’s government on an international front, said that he feels “sorry for the Syrian people.” The United Nations special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, called for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition.”

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