Damascus and Assad are now in the range of opposition militants

The speed with which the situation in Syria has turned in recent days has been exceptional, even though it is an unresolved and insufficient situation.

Syrian government officials and their supporters were still maintaining that the army would hold out in Hama, even as opposition fighters entered the city.

Shortly after, the Syrian army admitted its withdrawal from Hama, relinquishing control of the city for the first time to an opposition faction.

After seizing two major cities within a week, Homs is the next target for the opposition led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.

Tens of thousands of people flee the city anticipating what appears to be the next great battle.

The risks have increased dramatically for President Bashar al-Assad and his two main backers, Russia and Iran.

Homs is considered to be of much greater strategic importance than Aleppo or Hama. It is located at a crossroads that leads west to the heart of the areas supporting the Assad family, and south towards the capital, Damascus.

Regardless of the previous strategy of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which has spent years building its power base in northwestern Idlib province, last week’s momentum appears to be leading inexorably toward a direct challenge to Assad’s continued rule.

In an interview with CNN, the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, confirmed that the militants are indeed aiming to overthrow the Assad regime.

So, attention now focuses on whether the Syrian president has the capacity to confront this renewed attempt to oust him from power.

The Syrian army – made up mostly of conscripts – might have lost the war years ago had it not been for the intervention of outside powers on Assad’s side.

Soldiers were poorly paid, ill-equipped, and often had low morale, and desertion was a long-standing problem.

When Assad’s army failed to hold Aleppo and then Hama, the president issued an order to increase soldiers’ salaries by 50%, but this is unlikely to change the situation.

Russian warplanes provided support to Syrian forces in Hama, but not forcefully enough to make an impact.

The lack of full Russian military support has raised speculation that Moscow may be less able to play the decisive role it played in Syria in 2015. This may be the result of nearly three years of war in Ukraine, which has depleted Russia’s reserves of manpower and military equipment.

But Russia still has strong reasons to stay with Assad. President Putin’s decisive and comprehensive military intervention, which kept the Syrian president in power when he was close to defeat, demonstrated the failure of Western allies – especially the United States – to fulfill their promises to support the opposition.

The naval base that Russia has maintained for decades in the Syrian port of Tartus gives Moscow its only military outpost in the Mediterranean. If opposition militants are able to control Homs, this could open a path towards the Syrian coast. Which could put Al Qaeda at risk.

It remains unlikely that Russia will not feel a political and strategic urgency to refocus its firepower on opposition militants in order to keep Assad in power, even if Assad’s areas of control become smaller, and shrink significantly from the 60% he currently controls.

The other big question is about Iran and the militias it supports — including Hezbollah — and the military expertise it has provided, which has been another key element in keeping Assad in power.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem – who took command after Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah – announced that the group would stand alongside the Syrian government, against what he described as jihadist aggression orchestrated by the United States and Israel.

But with the party’s leadership destroyed, and its fighters busy reorganizing their ranks after the Israeli ground and air attack on it in Lebanon in recent months, Hezbollah may not be close to the strength it was when it fought on the front lines against the Syrian opposition factions.

However, it is clear that he remains committed to playing his role, as security sources in Lebanon and Syria say that elite Hezbollah forces have crossed into Syria and taken up positions in Homs.

As for Tehran, it seems that it is currently moving away from direct confrontations and proxy confrontations in the region, in contrast to its more aggressive strategy in the past few years.

This may limit its desire to provide full military support to Assad as it has done in the past.

There was speculation that Iranian-backed Iraqi militias might enter the conflict, but the Iraqi government and one of the most prominent Shiite leaders, Muqtada al-Sadr, warned against this.

Assad’s chances of political survival depend not only on the capabilities of his armed forces and key allies, but also on the existing divisions between the various groups that oppose him.

Besides Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and factions from Idlib, there are Kurdish forces in the northeast, the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army in the north, and other groups that still have some influence in different regions of the country.

Among them is the Islamic State, which may exploit the recent conflict to try to make gains beyond the remote desert areas, where it still has a foothold.

The failure of the opposition factions to unite among themselves was one of the main factors in Assad’s survival. Assad and his supporters hope that events will repeat in the same way again.

For now, support for the Syrian president appears to be the least bad option among several minorities in Syria, including of course the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs.

These minorities fear what they see as a force of jihadists taking over their cities and towns. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham may have abandoned its previous affiliation with Al-Qaeda, but many still see it as an extremist organization.

Ultimately, Assad’s fate appears to depend largely on what the main external players in Syria decide.

Russia, Iran, and Turkey had previously reached agreements on conflict areas in Syria, especially in Idlib four years ago, but the sudden and rapid escalation in Syria shocked them all.

They may soon have to reevaluate matters and decide what suits their interests: Syria with or without Assad.