Assad’s rule in peril as rebels advance on Damascus

BEIRUT: Rebels on a lightning advance through Syria said they were nearing Damascus on Saturday, although Bashar al-Assad’s government denied that the army had withdrawn from areas around the capital.

“Our forces have begun the final phase of encircling the capital,” said rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, with the Islamist-led alliance that launched the offensive.

The leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group which has headed the assault, told fighters to prepare to take the seat of Assad’s government, just over a week into a renewed offensive in the long dormant conflict. “Damascus awaits you,” said HTS’s Ahmed al-Sharaa in a statement on Telegram, using his real name instead of his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

The HTS-led alliance’s offensive since November 27 represents the most significant threat to President Bashar al-Assad’s power in years, after Syria’s civil war -- which began with Assad’s crackdown on democracy protests in 2011 -- had been mostly dormant.

However, the Syrian defence ministry, loyal to Assad, denied the army had fled positions.

“There is no truth to news claiming our armed forces, present in all areas of the Damascus countryside, have withdrawn,” it said.

Earlier, Syrian rebels battled government forces for control of the key city of Homs on Saturday.

Since the rebels’ sweep into Aleppo a week ago, government defences have crumbled at dizzying speed as insurgents seized a string of major cities and rose up in places where the rebellion had long seemed over.

A Homs resident, and army and rebel sources said the insurgents had breached government defences from the north and east of the city. A rebel commander said they had taken control of an army camp and villages outside the city.

State television reported that the insurgents had not penetrated into Homs although it said they were on the city outskirts, where it said the military was striking them with artillery and drones.

Insurgents have seized almost the entire southwest within 24 hours, and they have advanced to within 30 km of Damascus as government forces fell back, rebels said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported government forces were pulling out of towns as little as 10 kilometres from Damascus.

Air strikes and shelling by government forces and their ally Russia killed at least seven civilians near the city of Homs on Saturday.

The Britain-based Observatory said government forces had brought “large reinforcements” to quell the rebel advance on Homs, as the army sought to slow the rebel advance there, about 140 kilometres from the seat of power in Damascus.

Since the offensive began last week, at least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed, according to the Observatory. The United Nations said the violence has displaced 370,000 people.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah -- a longtime ally of Damascus -- has sent 2,000 fighters to a part of Syria near the border with Lebanon, a source close to the group said. “Hezbollah sent 2,000 fighters to the Qusayr area... to defend its positions there and has not yet participated in any battles” with Syrian rebels, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Security sources in neighbouring Iraq told AFP the country had allowed hundreds of troops from the Syrian army, some of them wounded, to cross the border.

The soldiers from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces “have fled the front lines” and entered Iraq through the Al-Qaim border crossing, said one senior security official, adding that “the wounded have been hospitalised” in the area. A second source gave a figure of 2,000 soldiers, including officers, who entered Iraq with the authorities’ permission.

In a Damascus suburb on Saturday, witnesses said protesters toppled a statue of the late president Hafez al-Assad, who handed Syria’s rule to his son.

Similar scenes were witnessed in images shared by local media in the southern city of Daraa and in online footage verified by AFP from Hama, north of the capital.

In Hama, an AFP photographer saw residents set fire to a giant poster of President Assad on the facade of city hall. “The rebels entered Hama, it was a great joy for us -- something we had been waiting for since 2011,” said resident Maymouna Jawad, of the year Assad’s crackdown on democracy protests escalated into civil war.

Syria’s presidency denied reports that Assad had left Damascus, saying he was “following up on his work and national and constitutional duties from the capital”.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Syria must not be allowed to fall into the hands of “terrorist” rebels. “It’s inadmissible to allow the terrorist group to take control of the lands in violation of agreements which exist, starting with the UN Security Council Resolution 2254 which strongly reiterated sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of the Syrian Arab Republic,” Lavrov said at an event in Qatar, referring to a 2015 UN resolution for a political settlement in Syria.

US President-elect Donald Trump weighed in on the escalating situation in Syria Saturday, posting on social media: “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”

Trump also argued that if Syrian rebels are able to force President Bashar al-Assad out of power, “it may actually be the best thing that can happen” to Russia, which he argued is too preoccupied with its war in Ukraine to stop the rebel fighters. The president-elect also blamed former US President Barack Obama’s administration for what he said was failing to enforce the 2013 “red line,” which stated that Syria’s use of chemical weapons would mean US military action. Reiterating his “America First” stance, Trump argued that Syria is not the United States’ fight.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hopes neighbouring Syria finds peace. “Our wish is for our neighbour, Syria, to find the peace and tranquility it has been dreaming of for 13 years,” said Erdogan, a key player in the region, adding that Syria “is tired of war, blood and tears”.

Turkey, which has a long border with Syria, has become home to about three million Syrian refugees since the start of the civil war in 2011. “Our Syrian brothers and sisters deserve freedom, security and peace in their homeland,” Erdogan added, voicing hope “to see a Syria where different identities co-exist in peace”.

“We hope to see such a Syria in the very near future,” he said in a speech delivered in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, to which several hundred thousand Syrians fled.

The Turkish president was long a supporter of the resistance to Assad since the civil war erupted. But in recent months Erdogan tried to reconcile with his Syrian counterpart -- an olive branch he accused Assad of not grasping. “There is now a new political and diplomatic reality in Syria,” he told the crowd in Gaziantep, accusing Damascus of not having grasped “the hand extended by Turkey” through Russian mediation.

Qatar’s prime minister said Assad had failed to engage with his people and address issues like the return of refugees during a period of calm in the country’s civil war. “Assad didn’t seize these opportunities to start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people, and we didn’t see any serious movement, whether it’s on the return of the refugees or on reconciling with his own people,” Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani said at the Doha Forum for political dialogue. Doha had given early support to the rebels in the wake of Assad’s crackdown in 2011.

The foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Russia met in Doha and agreed to initiate a “political dialogue between the Syrian government and the legitimate opposition groups”, Iran´s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi said. The three countries have been involved since 2017 in talks that began in Astana, Kazakhstan, seeking a political settlement in Syria.

Russia and Turkey brokered a 2020 ceasefire in Syria’s northwestern Idlib region, at that time the last major rebel bastion in the country.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release that in view of the ongoing developments and evolving situation in Syria, it had activated its Crisis Management Unit to facilitate Pakistanis in Syria.

Pakistani nationals in Syria and their families are encouraged to contact the CMU at the following telephone/Email: Phone No: 051-9207887 Email: cmu1@mofa.gov.pk

Meanwhile the Pakistan Embassy in Damascus remains actively engaged to facilitate Pakistani nationals in Syria. Contact details of the Embassy of Pakistan, Damascus Cell/Whatsapp: (+963 987 127 822) (+963 990 138 972) Email: parepdamascus@mofa.gov.pk