DAMASCUS – The Syrian army says that opposition forces have entered Hama city after intense fighting, prompting its units to redeploy outside the strategic city in another major blow to President Bashar al-Assad.
The army said in a statement on Thursday that it was redeploying its forces “to preserve civilian lives and prevent urban combat”, reversing an earlier claim that denied rebel fighters had entered the city.
Opposition commander Hassan Abdul Ghany posted on social media earlier on Thursday that his fighters had begun entering Hama, which they had been laying siege to since Tuesday amid heavy fighting overnight with the Syrian army, which was backed by intense Russian air attacks.
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said the taking of Hama was a “major development”.
“In just over a week they have managed to take full control of Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, and now the fourth-largest city,” Serdar said, reporting from the Turkish city of Kilis, on the border with Syria.
The opposition also took over the city’s military airport, Serdar said, a significant and “one of the largest in Syria” that has been used by government forces to launch strikes against rebels.
However, he said, the opposition has “not yet announced” that it in full control of the city.
“Today, they managed to breach the regime’s front lines and get into the city from the eastern part,” Serdar said, adding that a “significant” number of residents in Hama fled the city.
Opposition fighters pushed south from their enclave in northwest Syria, seizing Aleppo last week before reaching a strategic hill just north of Hama on Tuesday and advancing towards the city’s east and west flanks.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said after fierce battles inside Hama, opposition fighters now also control the police command headquarters in the city as well as the sprawling air base and the central prison from where hundreds of detainees were set free.
It said late on Wednesday that opposition fighters had “surrounded Hama city from three sides”.
“Violent clashes took place during the night between the rebels and the regime forces”, particularly in the Jabal Zayn al-Abidin area, just north of Hama, the United Kingdom-based monitor said.
Robert Geist Pinfold, from Durham University, said if the opposition manages to “hold Hama”, it would have both symbolic and strategic significance.
“Hama is the birthplace of Sunni, armed, Islamist resistance against the Baath party … of Bashar al-Assad and his father,” Pinfold told Al Jazeera.
Taking Hama would also “open up the road to Homs, it would open up the road to Damascus,” he said.
Hama lies more than a third of the way from Aleppo to Damascus and its capture would open the road to a rebel advance on Homs, the main central city that functions as a crossroads connecting Syria’s most populous regions.
It is also critical to the control of two major towns with sizeable minority religious communities; Muhrada, which is home to many Christians, and Salamiya, where there are many Ismaili Muslims.
Hama province also borders the coastal region of Latakia, a main base of popular support for al-Assad.
Hama stayed in government hands throughout the war, which erupted in 2011 as a rebellion against al-Assad. Its fall to a revived armed uprising would send shockwaves through Damascus and its Russian and Iranian allies.
Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, Damascus is temporarily redeploying forces to “avoid major losses of lives under urban combat, and then they’ll regroup with the required military assistance and try to retake” Hama.
“But I think it’s going to be very hard for the Russians and the Syrians to be able and regain momentum immediately, because now that the opposition is gaining control of Hama, they’re going to be launching a major offensive on Homs,” Ramani told Al Jazeera.
“If Homs is taken, Damascus is under serious threat.”
While Moscow has been largely focused on the war in Ukraine since launching a ground invasion in February 2022, Russian air attacks across rebel-held areas of northern Syria have sharply intensified over the past week.
Syrian state media quoted a military source late on Wednesday as saying Russian and Syrian air forces, alongside artillery units, had conducted “concentrated strikes on the … terrorists” in the Hama area.
Russia is assessing the situation in Syria and is in constant contact with the Syrian authorities, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
“At the moment, we are closely monitoring what is happening in Syria. We are in constant dialogue with our Syrian friends, with Damascus,” Peskov told reporters.
“Depending on the assessment of the situation, we will be able to talk about the degree of assistance that is needed by the Syrian authorities to cope with the militants and eliminate this threat.”
The most powerful opposition faction involved in the advances is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate. Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, has pledged to protect Syria’s religious minorities but many remain fearful.
On Wednesday, al-Julani visited Aleppo’s historic citadel in a symbolic moment. The group’s precursor was driven out of the city in 2016 after months of siege and intense fighting, in their biggest defeat of the war.
C-Al Jazeera
