Iran has started evacuating military commanders and other officials from Syria, The New York Times reported Friday, in a sign of Tehran’s wavering confidence in the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as disparate rebel forces eat away at his territory in the country’s north, east and south.
Russia and the United States also called on their citizens to leave Syria immediately amid the resurgent Syrian civil war, which on Friday saw rebels capture the southern Daraa province bordering Jordan.
Russia, Iran and Turkey are set to discuss the developments in a meeting Saturday in Qatar that could lead to a government without Assad, according to some analysts.
Starting Friday morning, Iran has been transferring civilians, military personnel, and some diplomats and their families to Iraq, Lebanon and the Syrian government’s stronghold in the country’s western coastal region, according to regional and Iranian officials cited by The Times.
Some officials were said to depart on flights to Tehran, while others left by land to Lebanon, Iraq and the Syrian port city of Latakia.
The report said Iran had issued evacuation orders to bases of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and to its embassy in Damascus.
The Iranian officials cited by The Times — two of them IRGC members — said two top generals of the Guard’s elite Quds Force, who were advising the Syrian military, fled to Iraq on Friday as rebel groups closed in on Homs and captured Deir el-Zour, the Assad regime’s foothold in Syria’s vast eastern desert.
Other military personnel remained in Iranian bases in Syria and were being transferred to Damascus and Latakia, the Iranian officials were cited as saying.
Opposition fighters, left, stand at the entrance of the provincial government office, where an image of Syrian President Bashar Assad is riddled with bullets on the facade, in the aftermath of the opposition’s takeover of Hama, Syria, December 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
The Times quoted Mehdi Rahmati, a prominent Iranian analyst, as saying: “Iran has realized that it cannot manage the situation in Syria right now with any military operation, and this option is off the table.”
“We cannot fight as an advisory and support force if Syria’s army itself does not want to fight,” he said.
Together with Russia and Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic has been a key supporter of Assad during the 13-year-long civil war.
Syria’s conflict killed more than 305,000 people between 2011 and 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Office said in 2022.
At least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed since the rebels’ offensive began last week, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The United Nations said the violence has displaced 280,000 people.
Amid the chaos, Israel said Friday that it was bolstering its military presence on the border with Syria.
Residents leave the city carrying their belongings in Hama, Syria, December 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
Rebel militias take Jordanian border region
The Britain-based, opposition-aligned Observatory said Syrian government forces on Friday had lost control of Daraa city, in the country’s south.
Daraa was dubbed “the cradle of the revolution” early in the civil war, after activists accused the government of detaining and torturing a group of boys for scribbling anti-Assad graffiti on their school walls in 2011.
While Aleppo and Hama, the two other main cities taken from government control in recent days, fell to an Islamist-led rebel alliance, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, according to the Observatory.
“Local factions have taken control of more areas in Daraa province, including Daraa city… they now control more than 90 percent of the province, as regime forces successively pulled out,” the war monitor, which relies on a network of sources around Syria, said late Friday.
Syria’s army said Saturday that it was redeploying in Daraa province and in neighboring Sweida, a Druze heartland which government officials reportedly fled on Friday as local opposition forces took control of several checkpoints.
Daraa province borders Jordan to the south. Opposition activists said insurgents had seized Syria’s sole crossing to Jordan, which announced the closure of its side of the crossing. Lebanon also closed all but one of its border crossings with Syria.
Despite a truce brokered by Russia, the Daraa province has been plagued by unrest in recent years, with frequent attacks, clashes and assassinations.
BREAKING: Jordan’s Interior Minister orders closure of Jaber border crossing with #Syria due to deteriorating security situation in southern Syria. Jordanians & Jordanian vehicles can return, but departures to Syria suspended. ????https://t.co/Yr2B103puc pic.twitter.com/XnC3HTsS4W
— Dana Zureikat Daoud دانا زريقات (@DanaZkat) December 6, 2024
Insurgents secure gains in Homs and Deir el-Zour
Farther north, rebel fighters took over the central towns of Rastan and Talbiseh, putting them 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Homs, the Observatory said.
Pro-government Sham FM said the insurgents entered the towns 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.
A Syrian army source said any rebel push from the north of Homs would face Iran-backed Hezbollah forces who were positioned to bolster government defenses.
The Islamist group leading the onslaught, a former al-Qaeda affiliate now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), made a last call on forces loyal to Assad in Homs to defect.
Thousands of people have fled Homs for government strongholds ahead of the opposition fighter’s approach. Should the Islamic insurgents capture Homs, they would solidify a chain of powerful positions from Aleppo on the border with Turkey — which backs some of the opposition forces, but not HTS — southward to Daraa.
There’s a traffic jam all the way from Homs to Tartous as regime supporters flee the advancing rebels. If Homs falls, Damascus is cut off from its heartland pic.twitter.com/zBgZk8ZdC0
— Liz Sly (@LizSly) December 5, 2024
Gaining Homs would also increase the rebels’ chances of isolating the seat of Assad’s regime in Damascus with the ability to block the route northwest from the capital to the sea.
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. The Observatory said government troops and their allies withdrew “suddenly” from the east and headed towards the oasis town of Palmyra, on the desert road to Homs.
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 vital for the Assad regime because Iran funnels weapons through it to Hezbollah.
The SDF, a US-backed adversary of Turkey, expressed readiness for dialogue with both Ankara and other rebels, saying the offensive heralded a new political reality for Syria.
Syrian Kurdish families, displaced from their homes in the Afrin region during the 2018 offensive by Turkey, return to their villages in the northern Syrian area of Afrin on December 5, 2024. (Rami al-Sayed / AFP)
Iran-Russia-Turkey meeting
The White House said Friday that it was closely monitoring developments in Syria.
In a call with his Turkish counterpart, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a “political solution to the conflict” and for the protection of civilians and minorities, his spokesperson said Friday.
Hakan Fidan, the Turkish foreign minister, told Blinken that Syria’s government should enter dialogue with the opposition and initiate a political process, a Turkish foreign ministry source said.
Fidan is set to discuss developments in Syria with his Russian and Iranian counterparts in a meeting over the weekend in the Qatari capital, Doha.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he planned to discuss the developments in Syria with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts at a meeting Friday in the Qatari capital, Doha.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan (R) shakes hands with Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (L) during their meeting at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, Turkey, March 1, 2024. (Handout / Turkish Foreign Ministry / AFP)
In an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, he said international actors were backing the insurgents’ advances and that he would discuss “the way to cut the channels of financing and arming them.”
Since 2017, the three countries have been partners in the Astana process seeking to end the civil war in Syria, even as they have supported opposite sides on the battlefield.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who this week called on Assad to “reconcile with his people,” said Friday that he “hoped the advance of the rebels would continue without incident,” openly identifying their objective as Damascus.
Turkey shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Syria and hosts nearly three million Syrian refugees.
Assad has rejected Erdogan’s recent attempts to meet, insisting that beforehand Turkish forces must leave the northwest of Syria, where they are deployed to fight Kurdish forces.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gives a press conference during the G20 Leaders’ Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on November 19, 2024. (Luis Robayo/AFP)
Iran, for its part, is irked by the lack of support shown by Assad after Israel in late October killed Hezbollah’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Analysts said the three-party meeting could spell the end of Assad’s power.
“Assad managed to piss everyone off, including Iranians and Russians and Turks, everyone, because he has been dragging his feet on efforts to reach a deal with both Turkey and others,” said Gonul Tol, Turkey director of the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Turkey and Russia could seek to promote a transition government without Assad but with some elements of his regime and the opposition, she said.
