(Bloomberg) -- Syrian rebels are entering the capital Damascus, Agence France-Presse reported, in a swift advance that has threatened President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
Residents in Damascus are hearing heavy gunfire, while the rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham said on Telegram that they are going into the city, AFP said. The Syrian military and security forces left Damascus airport, AFP reported, citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict.
The advance into the capital comes after the AFP cited the rebel group as saying that they have captured Homs, a city just a two-hour drive away from Assad’s palace in Damascus. The fall of Homs to the control of rebel fighters would be the greatest threat to the president’s regime since 2015, when Russia and Iran came to his aid and helped turn the tide in Syria’s war.
The government said earlier Saturday that Assad was continuing to run the country from the capital as speculation swirled regarding his whereabouts.
The rapid collapse of the Syrian government’s defenses has taken Russia, Iran, the US and Israel all by surprise. Tehran and Moscow’s next moves will be crucial in determining whether Assad can beat back an assault on Damascus and ensure his government’s survival.
Assad has lost authority over large swaths of the northwest of the country in the past week, as opposition fighters made a shock advance out of Idlib province. They first captured Aleppo, one of the biggest cities in Syria, and then advanced on Hama.
The capture of Homs “could seriously threaten Assad’s rule,” Serhat Erkmen, director of the Pros&Cons Security and Risk Analysis Center based in Ankara, said last week. It’s much more critical than Hama, which the rebels seized on Dec. 5.
Unlike in 2015, both Iran and Russia are stretched by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.
The Syrian conflict, which began in 2011, so far has left between 300,000 to 500,000 people dead, more than 7 million internally displaced and at least 6.4 million as refugees, according to United Nations agencies and Syrian organizations.
(Updates to say Syrian rebels have entered Damascus from first paragraph)
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