Thousands flee Homs as insurgents led by HTS advance on Syria's third-largest city

Thousands of people have fled the central Syrian city of Homs as insurgents seized two towns on its outskirts as they make their way towards the capital Damascus in a bid to overthrow long-time president, Bashar al Assad.

The move, reported by pro-government media and an opposition war monitor, is the latest in a lightning advance spearheaded by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group over the past week which has seen them seize Aleppo and Hama in the face of little to no resistance by government forces.

The HTS group has vowed to take Homs and from there plan to march to Damascus, Assad's seat of power.

Videos circulating online showed a highway jammed with cars full of people fleeing Homs, Syria’s third-largest city.

Homs, parts of which were controlled by insurgents until 2014, stands at an important intersection between Damascus and Syria's coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus, where Assad enjoys wide support.

Homs province is Syria's largest and borders Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan.

The insurgents took over the central towns of Rastan and Talbiseh, putting them just five kilometres from Homs, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor.

"The battle of Homs is the mother of all battles and will decide who will rule Syria," said Rami Abdurrahman, the Observatory's chief.

Pro-government Sham FM said the insurgents entered Rastan and Talbiseh without facing any resistance. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military.

The Observatory said Syrian troops had left Homs. But the military denied that in comments reported by the state news agency SANA, saying troops were reinforcing their positions in the city and were "ready to repel" any assault.

Multiple fronts

But pressure on the government is intensifying on multiple fronts in Syria.

In eastern Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces coalition said it had moved into the government-held half of the city of Deir el-Zour, apparently without resistance.

One of the main cities in the east, Deir el-Zour had long been split between the government on the western side of the Euphrates River and the SDF on the eastern side.

The SDF also said it took control of further parts of the border with Iraq. That appeared to bring it closer to the government-held Boukamal border crossing. The crossing is a vital for the government because it is the gateway to the corridor to Iran, a supply line for Iran-backed fighters, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

At the same time, insurgents seized Syria's sole crossing to Jordan, according to opposition activists. Jordan announced it was closing its side of the crossing. Lebanon also closed all but one of its border crossings with Syria.

Along with HTS, the fighters include forces of an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. 

Ankara has denied backing the offensive, though experts say insurgents would not have launched it without the country's consent.

After years of largely being bottled up in a northwest corner of the country, the insurgents burst out a week ago, taking Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, and have kept advancing since.

The sudden offensive has flipped the tables on a long-entrenched stalemate in Syria's nearly 14-year-old civil war.

HTS’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, told CNN in an interview from Syria on Thursday that Assad’s government was on the path to falling, propped up only by Russia and Iran.

"The seeds of the regime's defeat have always been within it," he said. "But the truth remains, this regime is dead."

Syria's military has not appeared to put up a cohesive counteroffensive against the opposition advances. SANA on Friday quoted an unnamed military official as saying the Syrian and Russian air forces were striking insurgents in Hama province, killing dozens of fighters.

Russian support and the war in Ukraine

A key question about Assad's ability to fight back is how much Syria's principal ally Russia, whose troops back government forces, will throw support his way at a time when it is tied up in the war in Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he planned to discuss developments in Syria with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts at a meeting Friday in the Qatari capital, Doha.

Meanwhile, Russia's embassy in Syria issued a notice reminding Russian citizens that they may use commercial flights to leave the country “in view of the difficult military-political situation.”

The opposition assault has struck a blow to Syria's already decrepit economy.

On Friday, the US dollar was selling on Syria’s parallel market for about 18,000 pounds, a 25% drop from a week ago. When Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011, a dollar was valued at 47 pounds.

The drop further undermines the purchasing power of Syrians at a time when the UN has warned that 90% of the population is living below the poverty line.

Syria's economy has been hammered for years by the war, Western sanctions, corruption and an economic meltdown in neighbouring Lebanon, Syria's main gateway to the outside world.