Syrian government forces pressed a counterattack against Islamist-led rebels around the key city of Hama on Wednesday after suffering a string of staggering losses further north, a war monitor said.Hama is strategically located in central Syria and, for the army, it is crucial to safeguarding the capital and seat of power Damascus.The fighting around Hama follows a lightning offensive by Islamist-led rebels who in a matter of days wrested swathes of territory from President Bashar al-Assad’s grasp.Key to the rebels’ successes since the start of the offensive last week was the takeover of Syria’s second city, Aleppo, which in more than a decade of war had never entirely fallen out of government hands.The head of the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, on Wednesday visited Aleppo’s landmark citadel.Images posted on the rebels’ Telegram channel showed Jolani waving to supporters from an open-top car as he visited the historic fortress.In Hama, 36-year-old delivery driver Wassim said the sounds were “really terrifying” and the continuous bombing was clearly audible.”I’ll stay home because I have nowhere else to flee to,” he said.- ‘Fierce battles’ -While the advancing rebels found little resistance earlier in their offensive, the fighting around Hama has been especially fierce.Rebel forces reached the gates of Hama on Tuesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, and the fighting sparked a wave of displacement.The Britain-based war monitor said government forces backed by air support launched a counterattack on the HTS rebels and allied factions in Hama province on Wednesday.By the afternoon, the government forces had secured the northeastern outskirts of the city as well as several villages, it added.Assad ordered a 50 percent raise in career soldiers’ pay, state news agency SANA reported, as he seeks to bolster his forces for the counteroffensive.A military source cited by SANA reported “fierce battles” against the rebels in northern Hama province since morning, adding that “joint Syrian-Russian warplanes” were part of the effort.The Observatory said government forces brought “large military convoys to Hama” and its outskirts in the past 24 hours.”Dozens of trucks” loaded with tanks, weapons, ammunition and soldiers headed towards the city, it said.It said “regime forces and pro-government fighters led by Russian and Iranian officers were able to repel” an attack northwest of Hama.It said the fighting was close to an area mainly populated by Alawites, followers of the same offshoot of Shiite Islam as the president.German news agency DPA announced the killing of award-winning Syrian photographer Anas Alkharboutli in an air strike near Hama.”Our photographer Anas Alkharboutli, who documented the civil war in Syria in a unique visual language, has been killed in an air strike near the Syrian city of Hama. Anas was just 32 years old,” DPA said.- ‘Close contact’ -The rebels launched their offensive on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took effect in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.Iran-backed Hezbollah is a key backer of Assad’s government and earlier in the war helped prop up his rule.But it suffered a series of heavy blows in its year-long war with Israel, which began after the group launched cross-border attacks in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.During the war in Lebanon, Hezbollah had to pull back some of its fighters from Syria to focus on the home front.Russia has also been key to keeping Assad in power, directly intervening in Syria’s war in 2015. But it has been mired in its own war in Ukraine.Russia, Iran and Turkey are in “close contact” over the conflict in Syria, Moscow said Wednesday.While Russia and Iran both back Assad, Turkey has backed the opposition.The United Nations on Wednesday said 115,000 people have been “newly displaced across Idlib and northern Aleppo” by the fighting.The Observatory says the violence has killed 704 people, mostly combatants but also 110 civilians.- ‘Spread very thin’ -Until last week the war in Syria had been mostly dormant for several years, but analysts have said violence was bound to flare up as it was never truly resolved.”Many policymakers thought, well, Assad won, there is no war,” said Rim Turkmani, director of the Syria Conflict Research Programme at the London School of Economics.But “we’ve been worrying about this for years, that the fact that there is no intense violence doesn’t mean that the conflict is over,” she told AFP.While the rebels may have advanced swiftly, it does not mean they will have the capacity to hold onto the territory they have captured.Spearheading the rebel alliance is HTS, which is rooted in Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch.”It’s very well organised, very ideologically driven,” Turkmani said.”However, they spread very quickly and very thin. And I think very quickly they’re going to realise it’s beyond their capacity to maintain these areas and, most importantly, to govern them.”
Wed, 04 Dec 2024 16:39:57 GMT
