After conquering Aleppo and Hama, the rebels are now at the gates of the strategically important city of Homs. At the same time, the south is also rising. Bashar al-Asad’s regime is at risk of collapse.
Tanks advance on Homs, Syria, December 6, 2024.
Mahmoud Hassano/REUTERS
It’s the same old images from Syria that are currently flooding social networks. On one side: bearded men in pickup trucks, their fists raised victoriously into the sky, and celebrating fighters with Kalashnikovs in the streets of newly conquered cities. On the other: abandoned tanks and fighter planes at hastily evacuated military bases and defensive positions.
Just ten days after Islamist rebels began an offensive in northern Syria against Damascene ruler Bashar al-Asad, his rotten regime is threatening to collapse like a house of cards. The insurgents first took Aleppo last weekend, then they overran Hama on Thursday. Now they are at the gates of Homs.
If Homs falls, Asad is threatened with ruin
If the central Syrian city falls, it could herald the end of the Asad regime. Homs is located on a strategically important highway that connects Damascus with the Mediterranean coast and Asad’s Alawite homeland. If the city is lost, the route to Damascus is clear for the rebels. Actually, the Damascene ruler’s troops should now counter the advance at the latest.
But there is little to suggest that the Syrian army could succeed in this. The demoralized, hollowed-out troops seem either unable or unwilling to do anything to counter the onslaught of the rebel force supported by Turkey and led by the Islamist organization HTS. Even a Russian airstrike on a key bridge halfway from Hama to Homs failed to stop the insurgents.
But Asad is threatened with further disaster: inspired by the success of the rebels in the north, the regime opponents in the south of the country are now also rising up. Within a very short time, they attacked police and military positions in Daraa and Suweida and allegedly took control of Syria’s border crossing with Jordan. In the east, Asad’s troops also cleared the city of Deir al-Zur. This means that the noose around Damascus is tightening ever further.
The destination is Damascus
It now seems increasingly unlikely that Russian fighter jets and Iranian foot troops will come to the aid of the regime, as was the case in 2015. Because neither Moscow nor Tehran seem to have the strength to do this. Russia called on its citizens to leave Damascus. The foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey want to meet in the Qatari capital Doha on Saturday to discuss the situation in Syria.
However, time is apparently running out for a diplomatic solution: Asad has been approached, said Turkish President Erdogan, who is considered the main supporter of the insurgents, on Friday. “But unfortunately we didn’t get a positive answer.” The goal, according to Erdogan, is now Damascus.
Meanwhile, there is confidence among the rebels. Its leader – the former al-Qaeda cadre Mohammed al-Jolani – emphasized himself as a moderate statesman in an interview with the American television channel CNN and promised to protect religious minorities. However, it is uncertain whether the traumatized Syrians, exhausted by years of war, will actually buy this.
