Photo: Ghaith Alsayed Associated Press Syrian rebels stand on a Syrian army tank on Tuesday in the suburbs of Hama.
Lisa Golden – Agence France-Presse in Beirut
Published at 10:58
- Middle East
The Syrian army launched a counteroffensive on Wednesday to push back rebels led by radical Islamists who have reached the outskirts of the major city of Hama in central Syria after a lightning offensive from the north.
After seizing dozens of towns and most of Aleppo, Syria's second city, the rebels arrived on Tuesday, according to an NGO, “at the gates” of Hama, a strategic city for the army because its protection is essential for that of the capital Damascus, located about 200 kilometers further south.
“Last night, the noises were terrifying and we could clearly hear the sound of the incessant bombing,” testified Wassim, a 36-year-old driver who lives in Hama, contacted by AFP. “We are tired, we have been on edge for four days,” he added.
“There are a lot of rumors. “I follow the news day and night, I don't let go of my phone,” said a 22-year-old student, who left her university in Damascus to join her family in Hama when the offensive began.
After launching a counter-offensive “after midnight”, supported by the air force, government forces have “secured the north-eastern entrance to Hama” and taken control of several villages, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) announced on Wednesday, which reported fighting elsewhere in the province.
On Wednesday, “fierce fighting” pitted the army, supported by Syrian and Russian planes, against rebels in the north of the province of Hama, according to a military source quoted by the official Sana agency.
The German agency DPA announced the death of one of its photographers, Anas Alkharboutli, aged 32, killed in an air strike near Hama.
Photo: Ghaith Alsayed Associated Press A member of the press prays at the grave of photographer Anas Alkharboutli, killed near Hama.
In Sourane, about twenty kilometers north of the city, AFP images showed civilians fleeing, crammed into trucks and trailers, while rebel fighters, brandishing their weapons, patrolled in pick-ups.
Hama was the scene of a massacre perpetrated in 1982 by the army under the reign of President Bashar al-Assad's father, who was suppressing a Muslim Brotherhood insurrection. Decades later, the scars of this massacre, which drove thousands of Syrians into exile, have not healed.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000It was also in this city that some of the largest demonstrations took place at the start of the pro-democracy uprising in 2011, the repression of which sparked the civil war.
Call for help
The UK-based NGO SOHR, which has a large network of sources in Syria, has reported significant population displacement in the region, with tens of thousands of civilians already fleeing the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.
The Kurdish authorities controlling parts of northeastern Syria issued an “urgent” appeal for humanitarian aid on Wednesday in the face of the arrival of a “large number” of displaced people.
The fighting and bombings, which have left 704 dead in one week, including 110 civilians, according to the SOHR, are the first of this scale since 2020 in Syria.
The UN reported on Tuesday “numerous civilian casualties, including a large number of women and children ” in attacks by both sides and the destruction of health facilities, schools and markets.
In rebel-held Aleppo, a medical student told AFP on Tuesday that staff at his hospital were “largely absent, with services operating at half capacity.” “We are trying to respond to emergencies, we are saving equipment,” he said, refusing to give his name.
Read also
- What is happening in Syria?
- The Syrian regime loses the city of Aleppo, Assad seeks the support of his allies
- Bashar al-Assad denounces an attempt to “redraw” the map of the Middle East
Fast forward
Russia and Iran, Damascus' main allies, as well as Turkey, a major supporter of the rebels, are in “close contact” to stabilize the situation, Russian diplomacy announced on Wednesday.
The country, scarred by the civil war that has left half a million dead, is now divided into several zones of influence, where the belligerents are supported by different foreign powers.
While relative calm has been maintained since 2020 in the northwest, a coalition of rebels dominated by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, launched a lightning offensive in this region on November 27.
Photo: Rami al-Sayed Agence France-Presse Syrian rebels trample a poster of President Bashar al-Assad and his father on Tuesday at the Kweyris military airport, east of Aleppo.
In a matter of days, the rebels seized vast swathes of northern Syria and a large part of Aleppo, which is completely out of Damascus’ control for the first time since the start of the civil war, inflicting a heavy setback on the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
With the military support of Russia, Iran and the pro-Iranian Lebanese movement Hezbollah, the regime had retaken a large part of the country in 2015 and all of Aleppo in 2016, the eastern part of which had been in rebel hands since 2012.
“The fact that there is no longer intense violence does not mean that the conflict is over,” Rim Turkmani, a researcher at the London School of Economics, told AFP.
The rebels’ rapid advance, however, does not mean they will have the capacity to hold on to the territories they have taken, Turkmani said. “They have spread very quickly. I think they will find very quickly that it is beyond their capacity to hold on to these areas and, more importantly, to govern them,” she added.