A Hezbollah official says an Israeli strike in central Beirut has killed the militant group's main spokesman

Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — A Hezbollah official says an Israeli strike in central Beirut has killed the militant group's main spokesman.

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  • In Syria, a ruthless dictator is under siege. Will anyone step up to save him?

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  • Hundreds flee Syrian city of Homs as rebels advance further south

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  • Syria rebel leader says goal is to overthrow Assad

    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 President Bashar al-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.By Friday morning, the rebels were just five kilometres (three 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."When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal," Jolani told CNN in an interview.The rebel alliance conducting the offensive that began on November 27 is led by HTS, which is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda but has sought to moderate its image in recent years.Fearing the rebels' advance, tens of thousands of members of Assad's Alawite minority were fleeing Homs on Thursday, residents and the Observatory said.Khaled, who lives on the city's outskirts, told AFP that "the road leading to (coastal) Tartus province was glowing... due to the lights of hundreds of cars on their way out".Homs was the scene of a months-long government siege of opposition areas and deadly sectarian attacks in the early years of the civil war.Early in the war, which began with Assad's brutal crackdown on democracy protests, activists referred to the city as "the capital of the revolution" against the government.- 'Extremely afraid' -Haidar, 37, who lives in an Alawite-majority neighbourhood, told AFP by telephone that "fear is the umbrella that covers Homs now"."I've never seen this scene in my life. We are extremely afraid, we don't know what is happening."After the government lost control of Aleppo and Hama, air strikes targeted a bridge on the highway linking Hama and Homs, the Observatory said.But on Friday, the rebel alliance "entered the cities of Rastan and Talbisseh" on the main road between Hama and Homs, the monitor added, saying that the factions were faced with "a total absence" of government forces.The Syrian defence ministry said the army launched strikes against "terrorist" fighters in Hama province.The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, said 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed since the offensive began last week.The United Nations said that the violence has displaced 280,000 people, warning that numbers could swell to 1.5 million.Many of the scenes witnessed in recent days would have been unimaginable earlier in the war.The rebels announced on Telegram their capture of Hama following street battles with government forces, describing it as "the complete liberation of the city".Rebel fighters kissed the ground and let off volleys of celebratory gunfire as they entered the city on Thursday.Many residents turned out to welcome the rebel fighters. An AFP photographer saw some residents set fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall.The army admitted losing control of the city, though Defence Minister Ali Abbas insisted that the army's withdrawal was a "temporary tactical measure". - 'Massive blow' -In a video posted online, HTS leader Jolani said his fighters had entered Hama to "cleanse the wound that has endured in Syria for 40 years".He was referring to an army massacre in Hama in the 1980s that targeted people accused of belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood. In another message on Telegram congratulating "the people of Hama on their victory," he used his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, instead of his nom de guerre for the first time.Aron Lund, a fellow of the Century International think tank, called the loss of Hama "a massive, massive blow to the Syrian government".Should Assad lose Homs, it wouldn't mean the end of his rule, Lund said."But at that point, without Aleppo, Hama or Homs, and with no secure route from Damascus to the coast, I'd say it's over as a credible state entity," he added.UN chief Antonio Guterres said Thursday that the escalation in Syria is the result of a "chronic collective failure" of diplomacy.The rebels launched their offensive in northern Syria the same day a ceasefire took effect in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.Both Hezbollah and Russia have been crucial backers of Assad's government, but have been mired in their own conflicts in recent years.Israel's army said Friday it had conducted air strikes on Hezbollah "weapon-smuggling routes" on the Syria-Lebanon border, just over a week into the fragile ceasefire in their war.bur-ser/ami

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  • Syrian rebels capture key city of Hama in fresh blow to Assad

    AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) -Syrian rebels captured the city of Hama on Thursday, a major victory in a week-old lightning advance across northern Syria and a devastating new blow to President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies. After years locked behind frozen frontlines, the rebels have burst forth to mount the swiftest battlefield advance by either side since a rebellion against Assad descended into civil war 13 years ago. The capture of Hama gives them control of a strategic central city they never managed to seize before.

  • Islamist-led rebels capture key Syrian city of Hama

    Islamist-led rebels captured the central Syrian city of Hama on Thursday, days after seizing the country's commercial hub Aleppo in a lightning offensive against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.The rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched their offensive little more than a week ago, just as a ceasefire took hold between Israel and Assad's ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.Following overnight clashes, the rebels stormed Hama "from several sides" and engaged in street battles with Assad's forces, Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said.The rebels said they seized Hama's prison and released its inmates. By the afternoon, Syria's army admitted losing control of the city, strategically located between Aleppo and Assad's seat of power in the capital Damascus."Over the past few hours, with the intensification of confrontations between our soldiers and terrorist groups... these groups were able to breach a number of axes in the city and entered it," the army said in a statement, adding units had regrouped outside Hama.Aron Lund, a fellow of the Century International think tank, called the loss of Hama "a massive, massive blow to the Syrian government" because the army should have had an advantage there to reverse rebel gains "and they couldn't do it."In a video posted online, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani said his fighters had entered Hama to "cleanse the wound that has endured in Syria for 40 years", referring to a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982, which led to thousands of deaths."I ask God almighty that it be a conquest with no revenge," he added. The rapid fall of the city came despite shelling and strikes by the Syrian and Russian air forces, as reported by state media late Wednesday.Maya, a 22-year-old student who gave only her first name for security concerns, said earlier Thursday that she and her family were staying at home as the fighting raged outside."We have been hearing non-stop the sounds of explosions and shelling," she told AFP by telephone from Hama."We don't know what's going on outside."- Rebel leader tours citadel -The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, says 727 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed in Syria since the violence erupted last week.It marks the most intense fighting since 2020 in the civil war sparked by the repression of pro-democracy protests in 2011.Key to the rebels' successes since the start of the offensive last week was the takeover of Aleppo, which in more than a decade of war had never entirely fallen out of government hands.The HTS chief visited Aleppo's landmark citadel where images posted on the rebels' Telegram channel on Wednesday showed him waving to supporters from an open-top car. While the advancing rebels met little resistance earlier in their offensive, the fighting around Hama has been especially fierce.Assad ordered a 50-percent raise in career soldiers' pay, state news agency SANA reported, as he seeks to bolster his forces for a counteroffensive.Rebels drove back the Syrian armed forces despite the government's sending in "large military convoys", the Observatory said.The monitor said the fighting on Wednesday was close to an area mainly populated by Alawites, followers of the same offshoot of Shiite Islam as the president.- Risk of 'abuses' -The rebels launched their offensive in northern Syria on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took effect in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.Both Hezbollah and Russia have been crucial backers of Assad's government, but have been mired in their own conflicts in recent years.The United Nations said on Wednesday that 115,000 people had been "newly displaced across Idlib and northern Aleppo" by the fighting.Human Rights Watch warned the fighting "raises concerns that civilians face a real risk of serious abuses at the hands of opposition armed groups and the Syrian government".Until last week, the war in Syria had been mostly dormant for years, but analysts have said violence was bound to flare up as it was never truly resolved.Spearheading the rebel alliance is HTS, which is rooted in Syria's Al-Qaeda branch.The group has sought to moderate its image in recent years, but experts say it faces a challenge convincing Western governments it has fully renounced hardline jihadism.The United States maintains hundreds of troops in eastern Syria as part of a coalition formed against Islamic State group jihadists.Lund, the analyst, said HTS will now try to push further south towards Syria's third largest city, Homs.bur-lar/dv/it/kir

  • Syrian rebel advances tear at Assad's control as Iran races to send support

    BEIRUT/AMMAN/DUBAI (Reuters) -Syrian rebel forces advanced on the central city of Homs and Kurdish fighters seized effective control of the eastern desert on Friday, jolting President Bashar al-Assad's grip on power and triggering local revolts against his rule in the south. If Islamist insurgents captured Homs in their lightning new offensive, it would cut off the capital Damascus from the coast, a longtime redoubt of Assad's minority Alawite sect and where his Russian allies have a naval base and air base. In a parallel setback for Assad, a U.S.-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters took Deir el-Zor, the government's main foothold in the vast desert in the east of the country, three Syrian sources told Reuters on Friday.