In a move that might have major ramifications for the nation’s 14-year-old civil war, rebel rebels broke into the Syrian city of Hama and drove out government troops on Thursday.
An official from the militant organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, and the Syrian Defense Ministry both reported that insurgents had taken control of the nation’s fourth-largest city and that, in spite of intense combat, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime’s forces had evacuated the area.
The senior commander of the HTS-led forces, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, told NBC News that fighters had broken into the Hama Central Prison and released hundreds of people who had been wrongfully imprisoned, and that tanks had been deployed during the incursion.
Syria’s defense ministry said in a Facebook post that rebel groups had successfully breached multiple points inside the city and entered it. The military units stationed in Hama had redeployed and repositioned outside the city to protect civilians and prevent them from being involved in urban combat.
Because independent journalism is extremely challenging in Syria due to the official government’s control of the media and the quick shifts in territory held by various parties, NBC News was unable to independently verify allegations made by either side.
Since 2020, when the lines of conflict between President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and a patchwork of rebel groups became more distinct, Syria’s civil war, which has been raging for over 14 years, has subsided.
However, all changed last week when HTS, which was formed from the former al Qaeda branch Jabhat al-Nusra and is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations, among others, launched an unexpected attack to take Aleppo, the nation’s most populous city.
The HTS-led forces’ capture of Hama might be crucial in changing the civil war’s equilibrium. Both Assad’s and his father Hafez’s regimes have carried out numerous brutal crackdowns on the city, which has never before been in rebel control.
According to Charles Lister, director of the Syria program at the Middle East Institute, a think group located in Washington, the city would be a huge loss for the government because it is a true bulwark of military resources.
The strategically significant and pivotal city of Homs, which is about 30 miles south of Hama, would be the rebels’ next objective if the city were to fall, Lister told NBC News in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Intense aerial bombardment by government forces have been a defining characteristic of both the fight for Hama and the larger Syrian civil war.
Before government forces left Hama on Thursday, the air dominance of Assad’s forces—which have historically benefited greatly from Russian and Iranian support—was demonstrated. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that barrel bombs were dropped from helicopter gunships.
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