Syrian rebels say they have taken control of the main city of Hama, after the army withdrew its forces amid heavy fighting.
The leader of the Islamic terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, declared “victory” in the city and vowed “there will be no revenge”.
Earlier, the rebel commander said that HTS and its supporters had taken over the prison and freed the prisoners, while the army said it had re-deployed troops to “protect people’s lives and prevent urban fighting”.
Hama is home to a million people and is 110 kilometers south of Aleppo, which rebels captured last week after a surprise attack on their northwestern stronghold.
A rebel commander told residents of Homs, the next city south on the main road from Aleppo to Damascus, that “your time has come”.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, says more than 720 people, including 111 civilians, have been killed across the country since the rebel offensive began eight days ago.
More than half a million people in Syria have been killed since civil war broke out in 2011 after President Bashar al-Assad’s government violently crushed peaceful pro-democracy protests.
Earlier this week, the United Nations expressed alarm at the sudden escalation of the conflict and warned that the country is “at grave risk of further fragmentation, disintegration and destruction”.
President Assad has vowed to “crush” the rebels and accused the West of trying to redraw the map of the region, while his key allies Russia and Iran have offered their “unconditional support”.
Russian warplanes have stepped up their strikes on rebel-held areas in recent days, Iran-backed forces have sent fighters to bolster government defenses, and Iran has said it is ready to send more troops to Syria if requested.
Turkey, which supports the Syrian opposition but has denied reports that it is involved in attacks led by HTS, has urged Assad to engage in a political process with the opposition to end Syria’s 13-year civil war.
Turkish-backed rebel groups have contributed to the government’s retreat in the north by launching separate attacks on an area near Aleppo that was controlled by the Kurdish-led coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkey, which has a large, restive Kurdish minority, views the Syrian Kurds as a threat.
Before the rebel offensive began, the government had regained control of Syria’s major cities with the help of Russian, Iranian and Iranian forces. However, large parts of the country remained ungovernable.
The rebels’ last base is in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, which border Turkey and are home to more than four million people, most of whom were displaced from government-held areas.
The Enclave was occupied by HTS, which was designated as a terrorist organization by the UN, the US, Turkey and other countries because it was affiliated with al-Qaeda in Syria until it officially severed ties in 2016.
A number of allied rebel and jihadist groups were also based there, as well as Turkish-backed SNA groups and Turkish forces.
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