Syrian rebels have taken control of the strategic city of Hama, with Bashar al-Assad’s regime announcing a withdrawal of its troops following intense fighting.
It is the second major city to fall to the anti-regime forces led by militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who have already seized much of Aleppo in a significant challenge to the president.
It is the first time Hama has fallen out of the regime’s hands in 13 years of brutal civil war, showing the Syrian army’s weakness despite the support of Russia forces and Iran’s network of proxies.
Rebels entered the east of the city earlier on Thursday and moved in on the west, claiming regime leaders had already fled as the Syrian army announced its withdrawal.
The general command of the armed forces said it had “redeployed and repositioned” its soldiers to “preserve the lives of civilians in Hama and not to involve them in battles inside the city”.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the HTS leader, declared that Hama had been liberated in a video released by the group and announced that his fighters had entered Hama “to cleanse the wound that has endured in Syria for 40 years”.
He also called it a “conquest with no revenge” and told his troops to spare civilians.
Images that circulated on social media show rebels inside the city, wearing scarves emblazoned with the flag of the Syrian revolution and plumes of smoke hanging in the air.
A regime helicopter was downed earlier on Thursday by by opposition forces amid fierce clashes and another was forced to make an emergency landing after being hit, according to Anadolu, the Turkish state news agency.
The capture of Hama paves the way for a potential advance toward Homs, the last major city before Damascus, the country’s capital. Analysts warned of serious instability and said the regime’s position looked perhaps its most vulnerable since the civil war began.
Fighting broke out between HTS and regime forces last week, alongside a number of rebel groups operating under the umbrella of the Syrian National Army. This opposition coalition has taken control of much of Aleppo and all of Idlib.
Aleppo is Syria’s second largest city and was the country’s economic heart before the civil war.
Hama holds strategic and symbolic importance as the site of a 1980s massacre at the hands of Hafez al-Assad, Assad’s father.
The city is a major intersection point that links central Syria with the north, east and west. The Hama province also borders the coastal region of Latakia, which is a key supporter base for Assad.
The rebels could now squeeze the regime-held salient between the front line and the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, including the port city of Tartus, which is home to the Russian navy’s only Mediterranean base.
Losing Tartus would be a major blow for Russian power projection in southern Europe and North Africa, with its fleet relying on nearby shore bases for resupply and refuelling.
Anti-government fighters rest at a position in the northern outskirts of Hama on Dec 4 – BAKR AL KASSEM/Getty Images
An anti-government fighter carries a rocket to be used against regime forces in the north of Hama – BAKR AL KASSEM/Getty Images
On Tuesday, commercial satellite imagery showed that every major Russian warship known to operate from Tartus had unmoored and sailed into the Mediterranean. However, rebel media released a video the next day claiming to show Russia launching cruise missiles from ships in the port to strike their positions in Hama.
The eruption of Syria’s long civil war comes as Russia and Iran – Assad’s main regional and international backers – are preoccupied with wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon.
Tens of thousands of people have already been displaced by the fighting, with Kurdish channels claiming that 100,000 people have been driven out of refugee camps.
The rebel coalition contains ideologically different forces but is being led by HTS in an offensive alliance that they have called “Operation Deterrence of Aggression”.
Mr al-Jawlani, who fought against Assad’s regime for over a decade, was previously an al-Qaeda militant. He has renounced the terror group but the FBI offered a $10 million (£7.8 million|) reward for locating him in 2017.
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