BEIRUT/AMMAN/DUBAI: Syrian rebel forces announced on Friday that their lightning advance had reached the central city of Homs — a development that would ultimately lead the insurgents to capture another strategically significant town, potentially undermining President Bashar al-Assad's hold on power, Reuters reported.
"Our forces have liberated the last village on the outskirts of the city of Homs and are now on its walls," the Syrian faction leading the sweeping assault said on Telegram.
The group, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), made a last call on forces loyal to Assad's government in Homs to defect.
Rebel sources also said early on Saturday they had seized the southern city of Daraa, near Jordan, after reaching a deal to give army officials safe passage to the capital Damascus for the army's orderly withdrawal.
Reuters could not independently confirm the rebels' claims.
If the rebels capture Homs, they would cut off Damascus from the coast, a stronghold of Assad's minority Alawite sect and where his Russian allies have a naval base and air base.
A Syrian army source said any rebel push from the north of Homs would face Iran-backed Hezbollah forces who were positioned to bolster government defences.
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.
Syrian state media reported the army was carrying out an operation in the Homs countryside with support from Syrian and Russian air forces, artillery, missiles and armoured vehicles. Citing a military source, it said dozens of rebels were killed.
In another setback for Assad, a US-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters on Friday took Deir el-Zor, the government's main foothold in the vast desert in the east of the country, three Syrian sources told Reuters.
It was the third major city, after Aleppo and Hama in the northwest and centre, to fall out of Assad's control in a week.
Piling on the pressure, two Syrian army sources said the alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had swept through the Albu Kamal border crossing with Iraq on Friday.
In southern Daraa province, Syrian local fighters and former rebels overran one of the main army bases, known as Liwa 52, near Herak town as fighting spread to the border with Jordan, two rebel sources told Reuters on Friday.
They also seized parts of the Nassib border crossing with Jordan where dozens of trailers and passenger cars were stranded, sources added.
Syrian state TV reported at least 200 insurgents were killed on Friday in Russian-Syrian airstrikes targeting rebel headquarters in the countryside of Hama, Idlib and Aleppo, citing the Russian Coordination Centre in Syria.
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