Syrian government forces and rebels battle outside city of Hama

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are reportedly engaged in fierce battles with rebels on the outskirts of the main metropolis of Hama.

A monitoring group stated on Tuesday night that the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies have been “at the gates of Hama”, however on Wednesday it stated the army had retaken a number of villages in a counter-attack backed by intense air strikes.

Syrian state media additionally stated troops had pushed again the rebels north of town, however the rebels denied dropping any floor there.

Hama is 110km (70 miles) south of Aleppo, which the rebels captured final week after launching a shock offensive from their stronghold within the north-west.

The state-run Sana information company and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, each reported intense preventing on Wednesday morning round Jabal Zain al-Abadin, a hill about 5km (3 miles) north-east of Hama.

The SOHR stated the clashes got here after authorities forces launched a counter-attack, throughout which they have been capable of push the rebels again nearly 10km from town and recapture two villages close to the hill.

A spokesman for the insurgent’s “Military Operations Division” accused the army of spreading rumours to lift the morale of its troops and insisted rebels have been nonetheless in command of all areas they’d just lately taken.

An affiliated information channel in the meantime stated that 5 extra villages east of Hama had been captured, in addition to a base of the twenty fifth Special Mission Forces Division.

On Tuesday, the SOHR reported that there had been “major displacement” from Hama, which is dwelling to about 1 million individuals, after the rebels reached town’s outskirts and a number of other civilians have been injured by their shellfire.

Wassim, a supply driver who lives within the metropolis, advised AFP information company: “The sounds were really terrifying, and the continuous bombing could be clearly heard”.

But he added: “I’ll keep dwelling as a result of I’ve nowhere else to flee to.”

The SOHR has stated that greater than 600 individuals have been killed, together with 107 civilians, and tens of hundreds have been displaced for the reason that begin of the insurgent offensive final Wednesday.

The United Nations has expressed alarm on the sudden escalation of Syria’s devastating, 13-year civil struggle and warned that the state of affairs is “extremely fluid and dangerous”.

“If we do not see de-escalation and a rapid move to a serious political process, involving the Syrian parties and the key international players, then I fear we will see a deepening of the crisis,” special envoy Geir Pedersen told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

“Syria will be in grave danger of further division, deterioration, and destruction.”

President Assad has vowed to “crush” the rebels and accused Western powers of trying to redraw the map of the region, while his key allies Russia and Iran have offered their “unconditional support”.

Russian warplanes have intensified their strikes on rebel-held areas in recent days, Iran-backed militias have sent fighters to reinforce the government’s defensive lines around Hama, and Iran has said it is ready to send additional forces to Syria if asked.

Turkey, which supports the Syrian opposition but has denied reports that it is involved in the HTS-led offensive, has urged Assad to engage in a political process with the opposition to bring an end to Syria’s 13-year civil war.

Turkish-backed rebel factions have meanwhile capitalised on the government’s retreat in the north by launching a separate offensive on a pocket of territory near Aleppo that was controlled by a Kurdish-led militia alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

More than half a million people have been killed since the civil war erupted in 2011 after Assad’s government cracked down violently on peaceful pro-democracy protests.

Before the start of the rebel offensive, the government had regained control of Syria’s main cities with the help of Russia, Iran and Iran-backed militias. However, large parts of the country remained out of its control.

The rebels’ last stronghold was in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, which border Turkey and where more than four million people were living, many of them displaced from government-held areas.

The enclave was dominated by HTS, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, US, Turkey and other countries because it was al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria until it formally broke ties in 2016.

A number of allied rebel factions and jihadist groups were also based there, along with Turkish-backed SNA factions and Turkish forces.

In 2020, Turkey and Russia brokered a ceasefire to halt a push by the government to retake the region. That led to an extended lull in violence, but sporadic clashes, air strikes and shelling continued.

HTS and its allies said last Wednesday that they had launched an offensive to “deter aggression”, accusing the government and allied Iran-backed militias of escalating attacks on civilians in the north-west.

But it came at a time when the government’s allies were preoccupied with other conflicts.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, which was crucial in helping push back rebels in the early years of the war, has suffered recently from Israel’s offensive in Lebanon.

Israeli strikes have also eliminated Iranian military commanders in Syria and degraded supply lines to pro-government militias there.

Russia has also been also distracted by the war in Ukraine.

Mr Pedersen estimated that the rebels now had de facto management over territory containing an estimated 7 million individuals, together with 2 million in Aleppo metropolis.