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After Aleppo, rebels take key Syrian city of Hama
Four days after Aleppo, the rebels took the strategic town of Hama in central Syria on Thursday during a dazzling offensive against the troops of President Bashar al-Assad, whose power appears increasingly weakened. Located in the south from Aleppo, the second city of the country at war, the city of Hama commands the road towards Homs, further south and the capital Damascus, two large cities still in the hands of power. The rebels led by the Islamists Extremists from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a surprise offensive on November 27 from their stronghold of Idlib (northwest), seizing dozens of localities as well as most of Aleppo (north). ) and Hama and killing, according to an NGO, more than 800 people. The rebels celebrated their entry into Hama, some shooting in the air and others kneeling to pray, according to reports. AFP images. Nearby, a corpse lies in the street, while smiling residents applaud the arrival of the insurgents. In Homs, residents have started to flee the city to reach Damascus or the Syrian coast, residents told AFP “We are afraid and we fear that the scenario in Hama will happen in Homs,” said Abbas, a 33-year-old civil servant. “We fear that they (the rebels) will take revenge on us. We have nowhere to flee if fighting breaks out in Homs, and we will fight to the death,” he said.The coalition rebel announced on Telegram the “total liberation of Hama”. “Our forces entered the central prison of Hama and released hundreds of unjustly detained prisoners,” Hassan Abdel Ghani, an insurgent military leader, announced earlier. – “Collective failure” – The Syrian army admitted losing Hama , indicating that its forces had “redeployed outside the city”. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), “more than 200 military vehicles” of the army left Hama in the direction of Homs and government forces also withdrew from two other towns in the area, including one on the Hama-Homs road. The official Syrian agency Sana then indicated that air defense had shot down two “enemy” drones above Damascus, without further details. The hostilities are the first of this magnitude since 2020 in a country ravaged by a devastating civil war which has left half a million dead since 2011, and divided it into zones of influence, with belligerents supported by different foreign powers. .Since November 27, fighting and aerial and artillery bombardments have left 826 dead, including 111 civilians, according to the OSDH, based in United Kingdom and which has an extensive network of sources in Syria. Of this total, 222 fighters have died since Tuesday around Hama, the Observatory said. The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, called for an end to the “carnage” in Syria, the result of a “chronic collective failure” to initiate a political settlement of the conflict. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is a major supporter of the rebels, called on Mr. Assad to “urgently” find a “political solution”. Iran and Russia, the main allies of the Syrian government, are in “close contact” with Turkey, to stabilize the situation, according to Russian diplomacy. – “No revenge” -After the launch of the rebel offensive, Russia, which has bases in Syria, launched air raids on the sectors controlled by insurgents, in support of government forces. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned of a resurgence of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, where this jihadist group had occupied large areas of that country and neighboring Iraq before being successively driven out in 2019. The UN reported 115,000 displaced in one week. In Aleppo, however, residents who returned with the rebel troops celebrated their reunion with their loved ones. “A joy indescribable,” said Mohammed Jomaa, 25, who fled the city and left his family when the government completely took over Aleppo in 2016. HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani promised he would not there would be “no revenge” in Hama, in a video message after announcing that its fighters had entered the city “to close the wound opened 40 years ago”. – “Very hard blow” -Hama was the scene of a massacre in 1982 under the presidency of Hafez al-Assad, father of the current leader, during the suppression of a Muslim Brotherhood insurrection. With the military support of Russia, Iran and of Lebanese Hezbollah, the Syrian government recaptured a large part of the country in 2015, and the entirety of Aleppo in 2016. Weakened by two months of open war with Israel, the Hezbollah said it stood by Mr. Assad. “The loss of Hama is a very hard blow for the Syrian government, especially after its defeat in Aleppo. This is where the army tried to reverse the situation (…) but it did not succeed” , Aron Lund, researcher at Century International, told AFP. “HTS will now try to advance towards Homs.” bur-cab/tp
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