Syrian rebels pressed their lightning advance on Saturday, saying they had seized most of the south, as government forces dug in to defend the key central city of Homs to try to save President Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year rule.
Since the rebels’ sweep into Aleppo a week ago, government defences have crumbled across the country at a dizzying speed as insurgents seized a string of major cities and rose up in places where the rebellion had long seemed over.
Besides capturing Aleppo in the north, Hama in the centre and Deir al-Zor in the east, rebels said they have taken southern Quneitra, Deraa and Suweida and advanced to within 50 kilometres of the capital.
Government defences were focused on Homs, with state television and Syrian military sources reporting massive air strikes on rebel positions and a wave of reinforcements arriving to dig in around the city.
Meanwhile, the rebels extended their control to almost the entire southwest and said they had captured Sanamayn on the main highway from Damascus to Jordan. The Syrian military said it was repositioning, without acknowledging territorial losses.
The pace of events has stunned Arab capitals and raised fears of a fresh wave of regional instability, with Qatar saying on Saturday it threatened Syria’s territorial integrity.
Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against Assad’s rule, dragged in big outside powers, created space for militants to plot attacks around the world and sent millions of refugees into neighbouring states.
On Saturday, anti-government protesters toppled a statue of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s late father Hafez in the mostly Druze and Christian Damascus suburb of Jaramana on Saturday, witnesses told AFP.
A witness said by phone that he saw “dozens of protesters” tearing down the statue in a main square in Jaramana, which bears the former p
