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BEIRUT: Syrian government forces have lost control of Daraa city, a war monitor said, in another stunning blow for President Bashar al-Assad’s rule after rebels wrested other key cities from his grip.
Daraa was dubbed “the cradle of the revolution” early in Syria’s civil war, after activists accused the government of detaining and torturing a group of boys for scribbling anti-Assad graffiti on their school walls in 2011.
While Aleppo and Hama, the two other main cities taken from government control in recent days, fell to an Islamist-led rebel alliance, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“Local factions have taken control of more areas in Daraa province, including Daraa city… they now control more than 90 percent of the province, as regime forces successively pulled out,” the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources around Syria, said late Friday.
Daraa province borders Jordan.
Despite a truce brokered by Russia, the province has been plagued by unrest in recent years, with frequent attacks, clashes and assassinations.
Waves of violence
Syria’s civil war, which began with Assad’s crackdown on democracy protests, has killed more than 500,000 people and forced more than half the population to flee their homes.
Never in the war had Assad’s forces lost control of so many key cities in such a short space of time.
Since a rebel alliance led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched its offensive on November 27, the government has lost second city Aleppo and subsequently Hama in central Syria.
The rebels were on Friday at the gates of Homs, Syria’s third city, as the government pulled out its troops from Deir Ezzor in the east.
In an interview published on Friday, the leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, said the aim of the offensive was to overthrow Assad.
“When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal,” Jolani told CNN.
HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, it has sought to soften its image in recent years.
Sudden withdrawal
As the army and its Iran-backed militia allies pulled out of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, Kurdish-led forces said they crossed the Euphrates River and took control of the territory that had been vacated.
The Observatory said government troops and their allies withdrew “suddenly” from the east and headed towards the oasis town of Palmyra on the desert road to Homs.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who are backed by the United States, expressed readiness for dialogue with both Turkey and the rebels, saying the offensive heralded a “new” political reality for Syria.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a “political solution to the conflict” and for the protection of civilians and minorities, his spokesperson said Friday, in a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
The rebels launched their offensive the same day a ceasefire took effect in neighbouring Lebanon in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Lebanese militant group has been an important Assad ally, alongside Russia and Iran.
Turkey, which has backed the opposition, said it would hold talks with Russia and Iran in Qatar this weekend.
Ahead of the talks, the foreign ministers of Iran, Iraq and Syria met in Baghdad, where Syria’s Bassam al-Sabbagh accused the government’s enemies of seeking to “redraw the political map”.
Iran’s Abbas Araghchi pledged to provide Assad’s government with “whatever (support) is needed”.
But Tehran has started to withdraw its military commanders and personnel, including some diplomatic staff, from Syria, the New York Times reported Friday, citing unnamed regional officials and three Iranian officials.
Fear
In Homs, the scene of some of the war’s deadliest violence, tens of thousands of members of Assad’s Alawite minority were fleeing, fearing the rebels’ advance, residents and the Britain-based Observatory said.
Syrians who were forced out of the country years ago by the initial crackdown on the revolt were glued to their phones as they watched current developments unfold.
“We’ve been dreaming of this for more than a decade,” said Yazan, a 39-year-old former activist who now lives in France.
Asked whether he was worried about HTS’s Islamist agenda, he said: “It doesn’t matter to me who is conducting this. The devil himself could be behind it. What people care about is who is going to liberate the country.”
On the other side of the sectarian divide, Haidar, 37, who lives in an Alawite-majority neighbourhood, told AFP by telephone that “fear is the umbrella that covers Homs now”.
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