BEIRUT: Islamist-led rebels introduced on Sunday (Dec 8) that that they had captured the strategic metropolis of Homs, on the best way in the direction of Damascus the place Syria’s embattled authorities stated it was establishing an impenetrable safety cordon.
The defence ministry earlier denied rebels had entered Homs, describing the scenario there as “protected and steady”.
However the chief of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, Ahmed al-Sharaa, stated their management over Homs marked a “historic occasion that may distinguish between fact and falsehood”.
The seize of Homs, Syria’s third-largest metropolis, would reduce the seat of energy within the capital Damascus from the Mediterranean coast, a key bastion of the Assad clan which has dominated Syria for the previous 5 a long time.
Hassan Abdel Ghani, a number one commander of the insurgent coalition, stated the group’s “operations proceed to totally liberate the Damascus countryside”.
“Our eyes are on the capital, Damascus”, he stated on Telegram.
Earlier, President Bashar al-Assad’s authorities denied that the military had withdrawn from areas round Damascus.
“A really sturdy safety and navy cordon” was being established across the capital “and nobody … can penetrate this defensive position that we, the armed forces, are constructing,” Inside Minister Mohammed al-Rahmoun instructed state tv.
Homs lies about 140km north of the capital and is the third main metropolis seized by the rebels who started their advance on Nov 27, reigniting a years-long conflict that had turn out to be largely dormant.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, earlier reported insurgent factions taking management of some Homs neighbourhoods “after the withdrawal of safety forces and the military from their final positions within the metropolis”.
Abdel Ghani stated the rebels had freed greater than 3,500 detainees from the central jail of Homs.
The defence ministry stated “armed forces are deployed across the metropolis, positioned in sturdy defensive strains strengthened with numerous kinds of weapons”.