The regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad appeared close to collapse on Saturday as rebels continued to make rapid advances across the country and said they were encircling the capital Damascus.
The leader of the hardline Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, which led the lightning rebel advance that began on November 27, congratulated his fighters and told them to continue.
"Damascus awaits you," said HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, commonly known as Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, in a statement on Telegram.
“You have brought happiness and joy to all the oppressed,” he added, telling rebels to “continue the path of liberation and freeing prisoners and breaking chains”.
“I urge you not to wait a single bullet except in the chests of your enemy,” the Islamist leader added.
In the town of Jarmana, just ten kilometres east of Damascus, , as rebels advanced nearby, according to ’s affiliate Syria TV.
, which in 2013 had been the site of a chemical weapons massacre by the regime, and chanting “Freedom! Freedom!”
There were reports that regime forces had also withdrawn from the towns of Kisweh and Qatana near Damascus.
Hussein Abdul Ghani, a spokesman for the rebels’ Military Operations Administrations said that the rebels were now implementing “the final stage of the encirclement of the capital Damascus”.
Rebel forces also announced that they had taken complete control of Daraa Province in the south after taking control of the regime’s major security centres in Daraa city and regime military bases in the town of Izraa.
Rebels are also advancing on Homs, Syria’s third largest city and also a former centre of anti-regime protest. Syria TV reported that rebels had stormed the regime’s Military Engineering Faculty and Military Security Branch in the town of Mushrifa northeast of Homs.
Amid the rebel advance, regime forces bombed the towns of Talbiseh and Dar Kabira north of Homs on Friday night, recently captured by rebels, killing 22 people and injuring over 100.
Assad 'still in Damascus'
The Syrian presidency on Saturday denied that President Bashar Al-Assad had left the country, amid reports that his influential wife Asma and their children had fled.
Iran, a key backer of the Assad regime, also denied reports that its embassy staff had evacuated Damascus, although The New York Times earlier reported that Iranian political and military officials were leaving Syria.
There has been a marked change of tone in the Iranian official narrative on Syria, with Iranian media no longer referring to rebels as “terrorists” but as “opposition” and Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, who recently visited Damascus, urging “political dialogue” between the regime and the opposition, AFP reported.
However, Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, recently weakened by a war with Israel, was sending 2,000 fighters to aid regime forces, according to three sources who spoke to AFP.