Syrian rebels advance close to Hama city, piling pressure on Assad and his allies

By Maya Gebeily and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) -Syrian rebels advancing against government forces pushed close on Tuesday to the major city of Hama, rebels and a war monitor said, after their sudden capture of Aleppo last week rocked President Bashar al-Assad.

Rebels and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said insurgents had captured villages including Maar Shahur a few miles north of the city. Syrian state media said reinforcements were arriving in the area.

An attack on Hama would ramp up pressure on Assad, whose Russian and Iranian allies have scrambled to support him against a reviving rebellion. The city has remained in government hands since civil war erupted in 2011.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in an Arabic-language interview that Tehran would consider sending troops to Syria if Damascus asked, and Russian President Vladimir Putin urged an end to "terrorist aggression" in Syria, RIA reported.

Iraq Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani said Baghdad would not be "a mere spectator" in Syria and blamed Israeli military strikes on the Syrian government for the rebel advance, his office said.

Compounding Assad's problems, fighters from a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition battled government forces in the northeast, both sides said, opening a new front along a vital supply route.

Last week's rebel seizure of Aleppo - Syria's largest city before the war - marked the biggest offensive for years.

The front lines of the conflict have been frozen since 2020 after Assad clawed back most of the country from rebels, thanks to help from Russian air power and military help from Iran and its network of regional Shi'ite militia groups.

Now, however, Russia has been concentrating on the war in Ukraine, while Israeli strikes over the past three months have decimated the leadership of Hezbollah, the strongest Iran-backed force fighting in Syria.

On Monday, hundreds of Iran-backed Iraqi militia fighters entered Syria to back up Syrian government forces, Iraqi and Syrian sources said, but Hezbollah does not plan to send forces now.

A rebel source said Iran-backed militia fighters were among the forces they were battling outside Hama.

In recent days, Russian and Syrian government warplanes have intensified airstrikes against rebels, both sides have said. Rescue workers have reported deadly strikes on hospitals in Aleppo and Idlib.

JOCKEYING FOR TERRITORY

Any sustained escalation in Syria risks further destabilising a region already alight from wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where a truce between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group took effect last week.

The retreat by Assad's forces over the past several days has led to jockeying for control among other groups that control pockets in the northwest, north and east.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group which controls territory in Syria's east with U.S. support, said early on Tuesday that its Deir al-Zor Military Council had "become responsible for protecting" seven villages previously held by the Syrian army.

The Deir al-Zor Military Council comprises local Arab fighters under the SDF, an alliance mainly led by a Kurdish militia, the YPG.

Syrian state media reported that the army and allied forces were repelling an SDF assault on the villages, the only Syrian government presence along the east bank of the Euphrates river, an area otherwise mostly held by the SDF.

A Syrian military officer said the SDF push was aimed at exploiting government forces' weakness after the rebel advance, and said the army and allied Iran-backed militia groups were sending reinforcements.

Airstrikes also targeted Iran-backed militia groups supporting Syrian government forces in the strategically vital region, a security source in eastern Syria and a Syrian army source said.

The U.S. military, which has a small number of troops based at a gas field in the area, carried out at least one strike in self defence overnight, a U.S. official said, adding it was not related to the ongoing rebel advances.

CROWDED BATTLEFIELD

The battlefield is crowded in northern Syria, with the U.S., Russia, Iran and Turkey all involved in the renewed fighting, underscoring the messy global politics at play.

On Monday, Iran said there would be a foreign ministers meeting with Turkey and Russia in Doha next weekend as part of a diplomatic process that had earlier been used to stabilise borders.

The SDF was the main Western-backed ground force in eastern Syria fighting Islamic State, which ran a jihadist mini-state there from 2014-17. Turkey says the SDF's main fighting force, the YPG, are Kurdish separatists it regards as terrorists, and sent troops across the frontier in 2017 to push them back.

Rebel advances in recent days have dislodged the YPG from areas in and near Aleppo, including Aleppo's Sheikh Maqsoud district and a corridor around Tel Refaat to the north.

The SDF presence in northeast Syria along much of the border with Iraq also complicates supply lines for Iran-backed regional militia groups supporting Assad. On Monday Reuters reported that hundreds of Iran-backed Iraqi fighters had crossed the border into Syria to help government forces.

Israel has regularly struck Iran-backed forces in Syria. Hezbollah said an Israeli strike near Damascus on Tuesday killed one of its senior officers liaising with the Syrian military. Israel's military said it does not comment on reports in foreign media.

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily in Beirut and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Additional reporting by Clauda Tanios in Dubai, Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara and Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Peter Graff and Jonathan Oatis)