ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Syrian government forces “suddenly” on Friday withdrew from the city of Deir Ezzor and Kurdish-led Democratic Forces (SDF) controlled the city, and its strategic military airport, as an Islamist-led rebel offensive dealt massive blows to President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, a war monitor reported.
"Syrian regime forces and commanders of Iran-backed allied groups suddenly withdrew from Deir Ezzor city and its countryside with columns of soldiers heading towards central Syria," Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, told AFP.
Upon the retreat of the Assad forces, the SDF forces controlled the oil-rich city of Deir Ezzor, as well as its strategic military airport.
The rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a major offensive more than a week ago, rapidly seizing the strategic cities of Aleppo and Hama from government control.
The SOHR reported on Friday that rebel fighters began advancing towards the country's third city Homs, despite the Damascus government taking measures to slow the rebel advance by targeting a key bridge on the highway linking the cities of Hama and Homs.
Rebels led by HTS have now "entered the cities of Rastan and Talbisseh" on the main road from the strategic central city of Hama to Homs, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), adding the rebels were just five kilometers from Homs.
Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the SDF, told reporters on Friday. they had not "taken any decision to fight against HTS, nor does the HTS have a similar plan.”
The US-backed Kurdish forces currently control the bulk of northeastern and eastern regions of Syria, amounting to a quarter territory of the country. Formed in 2015, the SDF is considered the Kurdish de facto army.
The SDF announced late Thursday that the Islamic State (ISIS) has seized a significant amount of territory in the desert areas of Homs and Deir Ezzor provinces, warning of the extremist group’s resurgence.
"There is a threat on the al-Hol camp,” Abdi said, "Today, Daesh [ISIS] had activities around the camp.”
Iraqis and Syrians constitute the bulk of some 40,000 ISIS-linked people who have been held at the al-Hol camp since the defeat of ISIS in 2019, with the local Kurdish authorities repeatedly calling on the international community to repatriate their nationals from the camp but to no avail.
ISIS took control of swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory in 2014, announcing their self-proclaimed caliphate with the city of Mosul as its capital. They were territorially defeated with assistance from the US-led coalition forces in Iraq by 2017 and in Syria by 2019.
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