Syrian rebels led by Islamist militants were reported to be entering to the central city of Homs on December 7 and closing in on Damascus suburbs as the county’s main allies – Russia and Iran – scrambled to protect the regime of authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad and their own assets in the country.
As fighting on the ground and rebel gains intensified, the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran, and Turkey held emergency talks in Doha, Qatar, on December 7 calling for an end to hostilities in the most serious challenge to Assad’s rule in years.
Meanwhile, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said the United States “should have nothing to do” with the war in Syria, where a small contingent of U.S. forces remain deployed in some areas.
“Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT,” he wrote on this Truth Social platform.
“THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”
Fast-moving developments on the ground were difficult to confirm, but news agencies quoted witnesses as well as rebel and Syrian Army sources as saying militant fighters had made continued gains on December 7 in their effort to topple Assad.
Some agencies reported signs of nervousness in Damascus, with shortages of critical supplies, although the government said Assad was at work as usual in the capital.
Government forces and their Russian allies continued efforts to halt the continued rebel push toward Homs, which stands at an important intersection between the capital, Damascus, and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus. Homs is 140 kilometers from the capital.
Russia was reported to have intensified air strikes around Homs in an apparent attempt to stop the rebel advance, the Saudi-owned news channel Al-Arabiya reported. The Syrian Army was also reported to be sending reinforcement to Homs, according to Arabiya and Al-Jazeera.
Witnesses and army sources told Reuters that some rebels had entered Homs as government forces dug in to defend the city of 775,000 people, although reports were impossible to confirm.
Homs Province is Syria’s largest in size and borders Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan. The city is also home to one of Syria’s two state-run oil refineries.
The AFP news agency quoted security sources as saying hundreds of Syrian government troops, some injured, had crossed the border into Iraq.
The surprising rebel offensive was launched last week by a coalition of rebel groups lead by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) faction, which is considered a terrorist group by the United States, Britain, Canada, and the European Union.
Besides HTS, the fighters include forces of an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Turkey has denied backing the offensive, though experts say insurgents would not have launched it without the country’s consent.
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said civilians were fleeing from Homs toward the Mediterranean coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, strongholds of the government and the site of Russian air and naval bases.
Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declined to comment on the fate of the Russian bases, saying he “wasn’t in the business of guessing.”
The United Nations said on December 6 that almost 300,000 people in Syria had already been displaced since late November by the fighting, and that up to 1.5 million could be forced to flee as the rebels advance and inflict losses on Assad, as well as his allies in Russia and Iran.
Assad has relied on Iran and Russia to remain in power since the conflict erupted in 2011.
Following the meeting in Doha, Lavrov and the foreign ministers of Iran and Turkey called for an immediate end to all hostilities in Syria.
Lavrov also said — referring to HTS rebels — that it was “inadmissible to allow terrorist groups” to take control of Syrian territory and that Russia would oppose them with all means possible.
Since the rebels’ seized control of Aleppo a week ago, they have moved on to capture other major cities with Assad’s forces providing little resistance.
Besides capturing Aleppo in the north, Hama in the center, and Deir al-Zor in the east, rebels rose up in southern Suweida and Deraa, saying on December 6 they had taken control of the two cities and posting videos showing insurgent celebrations there.
Taking Deraa and Suweida in the south could allow a concerted assault on the capital, Damascus, the seat of Assad’s power, military sources said.
Video posted online showed protesters in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana chanting and tearing down a statue of Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000, when his son took power.
HTS’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, told CNN in an exclusive interview on December 5 from Syria that Assad’s government was bound to fall, propped up only by Russia and Iran.
“The seeds of the regime’s defeat have always been within it,” he said. “But the truth remains, this regime is dead.”
With reporting by AFP and Reuters
