Rebels led by radical Islamists entered the strategic town of Hama, in central Syria, on Thursday, December 5, after bitter battles with the army of President Bashar al-Assad, who admitted defeat. This is the second city that rebels led by the extremist Islamists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have seized in the space of a week: Aleppo, the country’s second city, fell on December 1st. The rebels “have entered several neighborhoods of the city of Hama, and street fighting is taking place there with regime forces,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
The Syrian army admitted having lost control of the city and indicated that its forces had “redeployed” outside Hama. “During the last few hours […]”, the terrorist groups were able to break through several fronts in the city and enter it,” she said in a statement.
Hama controls the road to Homs (center) and the capital Damascus, now the only two large cities in the hands of power.
Hundreds of detainees released
Located 210 kilometers north of Damascus, Hama is a strategic city for the government of Bashar al-Assad because it commands the road to the capital. The OSDH reported Thursday morning “fierce” fighting between rebels led by the extremist Islamists of HTS and the Syrian army, which had sent reinforcements to the city.
The rebels managed to almost completely surround Syria’s fourth city on Wednesday evening, after a dazzling offensive from the north which allowed them to take Aleppo. On Thursday, they announced that they had taken Hama prison and freed hundreds of inmates. “Our forces entered Hama central prison and freed hundreds of unjustly detained prisoners,” Hassan Abdel Ghani, a military leader of the rebel coalition, announced on a Telegram channel.
The clashes triggered since the start of the rebel offensive 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 several zones of influence, with belligerents supported by different foreign powers.
Hama was the scene of a 1982 massacre by the army under the rule of President Bashar al-Assad’s father who was suppressing a Muslim Brotherhood insurgency. It was also in this city that some of the largest demonstrations took place at the start of the 2011 pro-democracy uprising, the repression of which sparked the civil war.