Rebel forces pressing a lightning offensive in Syria aim to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, their Islamist leader said in an interview published on Friday.
The Islamist-led rebels were at the gates of Syria’s Homs, a war monitor said, after wresting other key cities from government control.
In little over a week, the offensive has seen Syria’s second city Aleppo and strategically located Hama fall from Assad’s control for the first time since the civil war began in 2011.
Should the rebels capture Homs, that would cut the seat of power in the capital Damascus from the Mediterranean coast, a key bastion of the Assad clan, which has ruled Syria for the past five decades.
By Friday morning, the rebels were just 5km (3 miles) from the edge of Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel alliance, said the goal of the offensive was to overthrow Assad’s rule.
Comments are closed.