Syrian rebels on Saturday battled government forces in an effort to take control of the crucial city of Homs as they advanced toward the country’s capital, Damascus — moves that catapulted President Bashar al-Assad’s nearly 30 years of power into peril, Reuters reported.
The insurgents’ appearance on the outskirts of Damascus was the first since 2018, when Syrian forces recaptured the area after several years of siege, the Associated Press reported.
The U.S. Embassy in Syria issued an urgent warning on Saturday encouraging citizens to evacuate amid escalating conflict in the region.
Here’s a breakdown of the rapidly evolving conflict.
Why has the war in Syria re-escalated?
Syria’s civil war began during the 2011 Arab Spring when the regime attempted to prevent a pro-democracy uprising against al-Assad. The rebel group Free Syrian Army emerged against government forces.
But about 70 percent of the country has remained in al-Assad’s power.
The 13-year conflict has killed an estimated half-million people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The UN Refugee Agency estimates that 14 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes.
Recently, rebel forces saw an opportunity to renew its fight as al-Assad’s main backers — Iran, Russia and Hezbollah — are currently occupied with other conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The rebels’ advances toward the capital city followed a withdrawal from the Syrian army from most of the southern part of Syria, which left more areas under opposition fighter control, according to an opposition war monitor and rebel commander, as reported by AP. Reuters said that rebels came within 20 miles of the capital city.
The AP described the incursions in the last week as “among the largest in recent years by opposition factions,” which have origins in al-Qaida and have “met little resistance” from the Syrian army.
The moves come in the wake of incursions by various rebel factions, including the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), toward one of the largest cities in the country, Aleppo, last week — the first since 2016.
What does the war in Syria look like on the ground?
AP said that thousands of people sought to leave Syria amid the violence. Some stockpiled supplies as many shops were shuttered, AP was told by a resident.
Reuters reported that protestors have toppled a statue of al-Assad’s father in Damascus, and electricity has been cut off in the capital city, as well. Posters of al-Assad and his father were torn down by protestors, unchallenged by the army or police, Reuters reported.
AP said that the country’s state media has denied rumors circulating on social media that al-Assad has left the country and is in Damascus.
The shock offensive by insurgents, which began on Nov. 26, reawakened a conflict that has been largely dormant since March 2020 when Russia and Turkey mediated a ceasefire in northern Syria, CNN reported.
Much of the towns and villages in Aleppo’s northern province, which were impacted by the advances, were controlled by al-Assad’s government, backed by both Iran and Russia since 2016, Reuters said.
The advances last week mostly affected Syria’s northwestern countryside as residents fled neighborhoods and dozens of fighters from both sides were killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as reported by AP.
Who is fighting?
Al-Assad’s Syrian government has been instrumental in the civil war that began in 2011. He took control of the country is 2000, though his family has been in power since 1970.
The peaceful protests of the Arab Spring in 2011 were met with harsh responses by al-Assad’s government, inciting an uprising across the country.
Throughout the years of war, the government has reclaimed a lot of its territory from Syrian rebels, The New York Times reported.
HTS, which originally had origins to the Islamic state and later al-Qaida, is one of the opposition factions that formed at the beginning of the civil war to fight al-Assad’s government, The Times said.
Al-Assad also has foreign allies, including Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Some of the opposition factions, like the Syrian National Army, however, have support from Turkey. Turkey effectively has power over an area of Syria’s northern border and has launched military mostly against Syrian Kurdish-led forces since the beginning of the civil war, The Times said.
According to The Times, Syria’s Kurdish ethnic minority became of “main local partner” under the Syrian Democratic Forces fighting the Islamic State in Syria, an extremist group that was mostly defeated.
