Advance of Syrian rebels towards Damascus: Where is Bashar al-Assad and what is happening in Damascus? ?

An unnamed US official told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that Damascus appears to be “falling suburb by suburb into the hands of the rebels”, as fighters opposed to the Assad regime advance along the main road leading to the Syrian capital.

A video appears to show a statue being torn down by protesters in the southern suburbs of Damascus, while fighting unfolds in Syria’s third city, Homs.

However, the Syrian government denies the rebel takeover of the capital.

He also claims that President Bashar al-Assad has not fled the city, while many wonder about the president’s whereabouts.

The mood in Damascus appears to be one of confusion and fear, with many people unable to know exactly what is happening as rebel factions move ever closer.

In several suburbs, symbols of the power of the Assad dynasty were demolished or toppled. The Interior Ministry says it is creating a steel belt around the capital.

But government forces have failed to provide such defense in towns and villages that have fallen to rebel factions across the country.

Rumors are circulating about President al-Assad’s whereabouts, with people checking in on flights to and from Damascus to find out if he is gone.

The Syrian presidency has denied all these reports, saying that he is still at work in Damascus.

HTS was established under another name, Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2011, as a direct affiliate of Al-Qaeda.

The leader of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also participated in its training.

This group was considered one of the most effective and deadly of those opposing President Assad.

But his jihadist ideology appeared to be his driving force rather than revolutionary zeal – and he was seen at the time as at odds with the main rebel coalition under the banner of Free Syria.

In 2016, the group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, publicly broke ranks with al-Qaeda, disbanded Jabhat al-Nusra and created a new organization, which took the name Hayat Tahrir al-Sham when it merged with several other similar groups a year later.

Over the past four years, the war in Syria has given the impression that it is effectively over.

President Bashar al-Assad’s power is essentially unchallenged in the country’s major cities, while other parts of Syria still escape his direct control.

These include the Kurdish-majority regions of the east, which have been more or less separated from Syrian state control since the early years of the conflict.

In the south, where the revolution against Assad’s regime began in 2011, unrest has continued, albeit relatively quietly.

In the vast Syrian desert, groups calling themselves Islamic State still pose a security threat, particularly during the truffle hunting season, when people travel to the region to find the highly profitable commodity.

In the northwest, Idlib province is held by militant groups who were pushed there at the height of the war.

HTS, the dominant force in Idlib, was the one that launched the surprise attack on Aleppo.

For several years, Idlib remained a battleground as Syrian government forces attempted to regain control.

But a 2020 ceasefire deal brokered by Russia, which has long been Assad’s main ally, and Turkey, which has supported the rebels, has been largely respected.

About four million people live in Aleppo, most of them displaced from towns that Assad’s forces retook from rebels in a brutal war of attrition.

Aleppo was one of the bloodiest battlefields and represented one of the rebels’ biggest defeats.

To achieve victory, Assad relied on Russian air power and Iranian military aid on the ground, primarily through Iranian-sponsored militias.

Hezbollah is one of them.

There is no doubt that the recent setback suffered by Hezbollah due to the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, as well as Israeli strikes against Iranian military commanders in Syria, played an important role in the decision of jihadist and rebel groups to ‘Idlib to suddenly and unexpectedly attack Aleppo.

For some time, HTS has established its power base in Idlib, where it is the de facto local administration, although its legitimacy efforts have been tarnished by allegations of human rights violations.

It was also involved in bitter infighting with other groups.

Its ambitions beyond Idlib have become unclear.

Since its break with al-Qaeda, its focus has been limited to attempting to establish a fundamentalist Islamic regime in Syria rather than a broader caliphate, as IS has tried and failed to do.

He has shown little sign of attempting to reignite the full-scale Syrian conflict and challenge Assad’s rule over much of the country – until today.

Additional reporting by Maia Davies.