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07-12-2024
DAMASCUS: Syrian rebels say they have taken full control of a second major city, after the military withdrew its troops from Hama in another setback for President Bashar al-Assad.
The leader of the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, declared “victory” in Hama and vowed there would be “no revenge”.
Earlier, HTS fighters and their allies took over Hama central prison and released inmates amid fierce battles, while the military said it had redeployed troops outside the city.
Hama is home to one million people and is 110km (70 miles) south of Aleppo, which the rebels captured last week after launching a surprise offensive from their stronghold in the north-west.
The rebel commander told residents of Homs, which is the next city south on the highway from Aleppo to Damascus, that “your time has come”.
In the past, President Assad relied on Russia and Iran to crush his opponents but with both allies preoccupied with their own affairs, it is unclear how or if he will be able to stop an advance that could threaten his government’s survival.
More than half a million people have been killed since a civil war erupted in 2011 after Assad’s government cracked down violently on peaceful pro-democracy protests.
The rebels broke through the government’s defensive lines north of Hama following several days of heavy fighting.
The military had sent reinforcements to the city after the fall of Aleppo but despite support from Russian air strikes and Iran-backed militia fighters, troops were unable to prevent Hama being overrun on Thursday.
Rebel commander Hassan Abdul Ghani said in the morning that its fighters were engaged in fierce battles in various districts.
In the early afternoon, he announced that hundreds of inmates from Hama’s central prison had been released.
Minutes later, the military announced the redeployment of troops outside Hama “to preserve civilian lives and prevent urban combat”.
Photos and videos posted online and verified by media showed fighters in several north-eastern neighborhoods. The freed inmates were also filmed celebrating outside the central prison with a rebel and a reporter for a pro-opposition news outlet.
Abdul Ghani subsequently declared: “We’re pleased to tell you that Hama has been completely liberated after our forces have finished combing operations.”
He also said the rebels had cleared Hama military airport, in the city’s western outskirts, as well as Jabal Zain al-Abadin, a strategically important hill just to the north-east that overlooks the Damascus-Aleppo highway.
In a video, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani said his fighters had entered Hama to “cleanse the wound that has endured in Syria for 40 years”.
“I ask God almighty that it be a conquest with no revenge,” he added.
The HTS leader was referring to the killing of between 10,000 and 25,000 people in the city in 1982, when the late President Hafez al-Assad sent in tanks and artillery to crush an Islamist uprising.
Similar tactics have been employed across the country by his son, Bashar, over the past 13 years. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, says more than 820 people most of them combatants, but also including 111 civilians have been killed across the country since the start of the rebel offensive eight days ago. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
