“Damascus is waiting for you.” It is with these words that Ahmed al-Chareh, the leader of HTS, a radical Islamist group and member of the rebel coalition, addressed his fighters this Saturday, December 7 in a press release. The forces opposed to Bashar al-Assad and his regime continue their meteoric advance in the country. They thus claimed to have begun to encircle the capital, Damascus, and are also at the gates of Homs, the third city in the country, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH). At least seven civilians were killed this Saturday in Russian and Syrian strikes near the city, according to this NGO based in the United Kingdom which has a vast network of sources in the country.
On November 27, a coalition of rebels, led by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – considered terrorist by the UN, the United States and certain European countries – launched an offensive from its stronghold in Idleb, in the northwest of the country. In a few days, it captured dozens of localities and the strategic towns of Aleppo, the country’s second city (in the north), and Hama (in the center). This is the most spectacular progress in 13 years of war in Syria.
The fighting has so far left at least 826 dead, including around a hundred civilians, since November 27, and at least 370,000 people have been displaced according to the UN. It is very difficult to independently verify the situation on the ground. If some independent journalists collaborating with the AFP are in areas held by the rebels, the AFP does not have a journalist present with them at the gates of Damascus, where they claim to be.
“Overthrow the Syrian regime”
Ahmed al-Chareh, the leader of HTS, told CNN this Friday that “the goal of the revolution” was “to overthrow (the) regime” in Syria. According to witnesses, demonstrators toppled a statue of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s late father and predecessor, in Jaramana, a suburb of Damascus.
Rebel forces have “started to encircle” the capital, a senior rebel coalition commander, Hassan Abdel Ghani, said early this afternoon, after saying they were less than 20 kilometers from the southern entrance. damask. Government forces withdrew from localities around ten kilometers from the capital, said the OSDH, which added that they had also abandoned their positions in the province of Qouneitra, which borders the Golan Heights annexed by Israel.
The Defense Ministry, however, said that reports that the Syrian armed forces, “present in all areas of the Damascus countryside, have withdrawn, are unfounded.” The Syrian authorities assured that a “very strong” security cordon was in place around Damascus.
Some 2,000 Syrian army soldiers who fled the fighting have entered Iraq, two Iraqi security officials told AFP this Saturday, without saying which region these soldiers came from. There were even rumors that Bashar al-Assad himself had fled the country in the face of advancing rebel forces. Information denied by the Syrian presidency, which affirmed that he carried out his “functions” from Damascus.
‘The era of bigotry and tyranny’ is ‘gone forever’
Rami Abdel Rahmane, director of the OSDH, also told AFP that local rebel fighters now controlled the entire province of Deraa, cradle of the 2011 uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which had returned to his control. in 2018.
Shortly before the announcement of the capture of Deraa by the rebels, the Syrian army announced that it was redeploying in this province, as well as the neighboring province of Soueida, “after terrorist elements attacked isolated checkpoints “. Government forces “are beginning to regain control of the provinces of Homs and Hama,” she also added.
According to the OSDH, government forces had sent “significant reinforcements” near Homs, while Damascus and its ally Moscow launched strikes and artillery fire on the fighters. Faced with the rebel advance, leader Hassan Abdel Ghani invited “all faiths to be reassured, affirming that “the era of sectarianism and tyranny” was “gone forever”.
“Let’s not get involved!”, says Donald Trump
The conflict in Syria was triggered after the repression of a popular uprising which degenerated into civil war in 2011. It left more than half a million dead and divided the country into zones of influence, with belligerents supported by various foreign powers. Main ally of the Syrian government, Russia has called on its citizens to leave the country, as have the United States and neighboring Jordan. Another key supporter of the regime, Tehran has also started to evacuate its military personnel and diplomats, according to the New York Timesciting Iranian and regional officials.
In this context, a meeting dedicated to Syria took place in Doha between the heads of Turkish, Russian and Iranian diplomacy, whose countries have been partners since 2017 in the Astana process initiated to silence the guns. At the end of this meeting with his Russian (Sergueï Lavrov) and Turkish (Hakan Fidan) counterparts, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, considered that a “political dialogue” was necessary between the government and the opposition . Sergei Lavrov, for his part, judged that it would be “inadmissible” to see “terrorist groups” control Syria, while Qatar for its part pleaded in favor of a “political solution”.
Ankara, even if it was a party to this meeting, seems to be on a very different line. Recep Tayyip Erdogan thus affirmed this Saturday that he “wishes” that Syria “finds the peace it has dreamed of for thirteen years” and the start of the uprising crushed in blood. “Our Syrian brothers and sisters deserve freedom, security and peace in their homeland,” insisted the Turkish president, saying he hoped “to see a Syria where different identities will coexist peacefully.” “There is now a new political and diplomatic reality in Syria,” he added, accusing Damascus of not having grasped “the hand extended by Turkey”, which had sought in recent months a rapprochement with the Syrian regime in particular in order to to allow the return of some of the three million Syrian refugees on Turkish soil.
Another significant speech: that of Donald Trump. The future American president affirmed that the United States should not “meddle” in the situation. “Syria is chaos, but it is not our friend, and the United States should have nothing to do with it. This is not our fight. Let (the situation) develop. Let’s not get involved in it !”, he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Russia’s limited involvement
The main lesson of this abrupt uprising, which began on November 27, is the more than limited involvement of Russia. If government forces carried out air raids with the help of Moscow, Russian military aid was crucial in 2015 to turn the tide of the war and allow Bashar al-Assad to retake a large part of the country’s territory. But Moscow’s resources are now mobilized by its offensive in Ukraine, and the Kremlin does not seem able – or willing – to support the Syrian regime any further.
Hezbollah and Iran had also provided enormous military support to Bashar al-Assad, but both actors have been considerably weakened since the war in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. However, a source close to Hezbollah announced this Saturday that the movement had sent 2,000 reinforcement fighters to the town of Qousseir, close to the border with Lebanon, to defend it in the event of a rebel attack.
If the rebels seize Homs, the country’s third city, only Damascus and the Mediterranean coast will still be in the hands of the forces of Bashar al-Assad, whose family has been in power for more than five decades. A regime that has perhaps never seemed so close to falling.