Syrian Rebels Capture Hama, Weaken Assad’s Grip on Nation
Syrian rebels have driven government forces from Hama, a major city that the country’s regime had held over more than a decade of civil war, further weakening President Bashar al-Assad’s grip on the nation. The rebels, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), said they freed hundreds of those “wrongfully detained” from the city’s central prison.
Hama is the second major city the rebels have captured in their week-long offensive, which has thrown the Assad regime’s forces into disarray. After capturing Aleppo last week, the rebels swept south to Hama and are now setting their sights on Homs, the next city south on the highway to the Syrian capital of Damascus.
The shock offensive delivered a huge blow to Assad and his backers in Iran and Russia, and has reignited a civil war that had been largely dormant for years. Hama is strategically located at a key crossroads in western-central Syria, providing direct supply lines between the capital Damascus and Aleppo. Rebels had been unable to capture the city since the start of the civil war.
The city holds symbolic significance as it was the site of one of the country’s largest and most brutal massacres in 1982, when President Hafez al-Assad, the current ruler’s father, ordered his military to quash a revolt. Videos geolocated by CNN showed rebel fighters celebrating as they entered Hama.
HTS, the rebel movement, was formed by Jolani after he dismantled al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate al-Nusra Front in 2016 over ideological differences. Despite Jolani’s effort to distance his new group from al Qaeda and ISIS, the United States designated the HTS a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2018 and placed a $10 million bounty on him.
Since bursting out of their pocket of territory in the northwest of the country a week ago, the rebels’ progress has been stunningly swift. The rebels have now pledged to push further south to Homs, another major city about 50 kilometers south of Hama. If the rebels capture Homs next, this would mean they have effectively split the Syrian regime into two pockets: one along the coast and the other in Damascus.