Damascus is expected to fall, three US officials told CBS News, as Syrian insurgents have surrounded the capital in a fast-moving offensive.
Iranian forces that had been defending Syrian President Bashar Assad have been “virtually” evacuated from Syria, US officials said.
Syrian insurgents arrived in the suburbs of Damascus on Saturday as part of a fast-moving offensive that has seen them occupy some of Syria’s biggest cities, opposition activists and a rebel commander said on Saturday.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said insurgents are now active in the Damascus suburbs of Maadamiyah, Jaramana and Daraya. He added that opposition fighters were also marching from eastern Syria to the Damascus suburb of Harasta on Saturday.
A commander with the insurgents, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, posted on the Telegram messaging app that opposition forces have begun carrying out the “final stage” of their offensive encircling Damascus. He added that the insurgents were heading from southern Syria towards Damascus.
Ghaith Alsayed / AP
The move away from Daraa and Sweida provinces came as the Syrian army sent a large number of reinforcements to defend the key central city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, as insurgents closed in on their outside
The insurgents’ rapid advances are a stunning reversal of fortune for Syrian President Bashar Assad, who appears to be largely on his own, with former allies preoccupied with other conflicts.
Its main international backer, Russia, is busy with its war in Ukraine, and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to shore up its forces, has been weakened by conflict of a year with Israel. Meanwhile, Iran has seen its proxies throughout the region degraded by regular Israeli airstrikes. The Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday that after gunmen carried out an attack on a UN post in the Hader area, its troops are helping UN forces repel the attack
On Saturday, President-elect Donald Trump commented on the situation on Truth Social, saying: “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT.
Three US officials told CBS News that the al-Assad family’s reign that began in 1971 appears to be coming to an end.
How the conflict was ignited
Thousands of people were fleeing the area amid the dramatic escalation of the civil war, which had simmered without major advances by either side for years until the rebels mounted a shock offensive about two weeks ago
The rebels took full control of another city, Hama, and about a week after they began a widespread incursion across the north of the country. The first big prize of their offensive was taking control of Aleppo a week ago, which was for a long time Syria’s second most populous city.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani told CNN in an exclusive interview Thursday from Syria that the goal of the offensive is to topple the Assad government.
The Britain-based Observatory said Syrian troops have withdrawn from much of the two southern provinces and are sending reinforcements to Homs, where a battle is looming. If the insurgents capture Homs, they would cut the link between Damascus, Assad’s seat of power, and the coastal region where the president enjoys wide support.
The Syrian army said in a statement on Saturday that it has carried out the redeployment and repositioning in Sweida and Daraa after its checkpoints were attacked by “terrorists”. The army said it is setting up a “strong and coherent defensive and security belt in the area”, apparently to defend Damascus from the south.
Since Syria’s conflict broke out in March 2011, the Syrian government has referred to opposition gunmen as terrorists.
In the gas-rich nation of Qatar, the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey were scheduled to meet to discuss the situation in Syria. Turkey is the main backer of the rebels seeking to topple Assad.
Qatar’s top diplomat, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, criticized Assad for not using the lull in fighting in recent years to address the country’s underlying problems. “Assad did not take this opportunity to begin to engage and restore his relationship with his people,” he said.
Sheikh Mohammed said he was surprised at how quickly the rebels had advanced and said there was a real threat to Syria’s “territorial integrity”. He said the war could “damage and destroy what remains if there is no sense of urgency” to start a political process.
After the fall of the cities of Daraa and Sweida early Saturday, Syrian government forces remain in control of five provincial capitals: Damascus, Homs and Quneitra, as well as Latakia and Tartus on the Mediterranean coast.
Tartus is home to Russia’s only naval base outside the former Soviet Union, while Latakia is home to a major Russian air base.
On Friday, US-backed fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured large parts of the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, which borders Iraq, as well as the provincial capital of the same name. The capture of areas in Deir el-Zour is a blow to Iran’s influence in the region, as the area is the gateway to the corridor linking the Mediterranean with Iran, a supply line for to Iranian-backed fighters, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
With the capture of a main border crossing with Iraq by the SDF and after opposition fighters took control of the Naseeb border crossing to Jordan in southern Syria, the only gateway of the Syrian government to the outside world is the Masnaa border crossing with Lebanon.
contributed to this report.