Hundreds of people appear to have fled the city of Homs, in central Syria, during the early hours of Friday (6), as rebels advance further south on their way to the capital Damascus.
Images showed hundreds of vehicles lined up on the highway leading out of Homs, as the city prepares for violence that could occur during clashes between the rebels and the country’s regime.
After capturing the northern city of Hama on Thursday, the rebels set their sights on the city of Homs, which, if captured, would divide the territories under the control of President Bashar al-Assad in two.
“Our heroic people in Homs, your time has come,” said a rebel spokesman on Thursday (5).
In an exclusive interview with CNN, the rebels’ militant leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, said the goal of Syria’s insurgent coalition is to overthrow the decades-old Assad regime. Rebels have wrested two major cities from government control in just over a week of fighting.
“When we talk about objectives, the objective of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve this goal,” Jolani said.
Homs has a sizable population of Alawites, Assad’s co-religionists, many of whom fear reprisals from Islamic militants who accuse Alawites of dominating the country and supporting Assad’s suppression of the rebellion.
After pulling out of their pocket of territory in the northwestern region of Idlib, the rebels captured Aleppo in three days and Hama in eight, encountering minimal resistance from regime forces, who were caught off guard by the lightning offensive.
It is unclear whether regime forces will be able to defend the city of Homs, about an hour’s drive south of Hama. If the rebels capture Homs next, it would mean they have effectively divided the Assad regime into two pockets: one along the coast and the other in Damascus.
THE CNN was unable to reach several contacts in Homs on Friday (6), amid reports of an internet blackout as rebels approached the city.
Residents celebrate advance of rebels
The rebels’ progress was met with celebration by many residents of the newly captured cities and towns who had lived under the regime for years. Videos located by CNN showed rebel fighters celebrating – almost in disbelief at their progress – as they entered Hama.
“Guys, my country is being liberated. I swear to God, we are inside the city of Hama, we are inside the city of Aleppo”, a fighter celebrated while filming himself at the Alaarbaen roundabout in Hama.
The rebels, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), said they had released hundreds of “unjustly detained” people from Hama’s central prison. The city was the site of one of Syria’s biggest massacres in 1982, when President Hafez al-Assad – father of the current ruler – ordered his military to suppress an uprising.
In an interview with CNN Jolani, the HTS leader, said his group aimed to create a government based on institutions and a “council chosen by the people.”
Although the prospect of the rapid collapse of the Assad regime was hardly conceivable just over a week ago, Jolani said: “The seeds of the regime’s defeat were always within him… the Iranians tried to revive the regime, biding their time, and later the Russians they also tried to support him. But the truth remains: this regime is dead.”
The offensive reignited a civil war that had been largely dormant for years. The conflict began in 2011, after Assad moved to end peaceful pro-democracy protests during the Arab Spring. The fighting escalated as other regional actors and world powers – from Saudi Arabia and the United States to Iran and Russia – joined in, escalating the civil war into what some observers described as a “proxy war”.
More than 300,000 civilians have been killed in more than a decade of war, according to the United Nations, with millions more displaced across the region.
This content was originally published in Rebel advance forces hundreds of people to leave the city of Homs, Syria on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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