Statue of former Syrian president toppled in Hama

The image is particularly symbolic: A statue of former President Hafez al-Assad, the father of Syria's current ruler Bashar, was toppled in Hama after Islamist-led rebels overran the country's fourth-largest city, video authenticated by AFP showed.

A machine's long mechanical arm tipped the towering statue over to cheers and cries of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) and "Thank God" from the crowd, along with a deafening sound of celebratory gunfire, the night-time footage published Thursday night on social media showed.

Separate footage from an AFP journalist on Friday showed a small truck pulling the statue's enormous, decapitated head -- pockmarked with holes -- along a road. The truck moved too fast for men trying to kick the head but others followed on motorbikes.

The images recall footage from 2003 when a US armoured vehicle toppled a statue of former dictator Saddam Hussein with the help of a crowd of jubilant Iraqis, on the day Baghdad fell to a United States and British-led military coalition.

Young men celebrated the rebels' sweep of Hama as part of a lightning offensive, yelling "freedom for eternity" from Assad, referring to the current president who before Hama had also lost control of Aleppo, Syria's second city, for the first time since the civil war began 13 years ago.

The fighters also paraded down one of Hama's wide streets in vehicles that appeared to be stained completely brown from desert dust, past a building bearing a mural of Bashar al-Assad.

His father, Hafez al-Assad, took power in a military coup in 1970 and his family, from the country's minority Alawite Muslim sect, has ruled the country ever since.

Bashar took over after his father died in 2000.

Syria's war began after the repression of anti-government protests in 2011 and spiralled into a complex conflict drawing in foreign armies and jihadists, killing more than half a million people.

After four years of relative calm on the front lines, the rebel alliance on November 27 began its offensive from its bastion in northwest Syria.

- Vow to topple government -

It is a stunning turn of events for Assad, who over the years had clawed back territory lost earlier in the conflict with support from allies Russia and Iran.

More than 800 people, mostly combatants, have been killed since the offensive began, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.

Rebels on Friday were closing in on third city Homs, around 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Hama.

After they seized Aleppo, images on social media showed people toppling a statue of Bashar al-Assad's late brother, Bassel, from atop a horse. They also broke the head off a bust of Hafez al-Assad, the images showed.

But the toppling of the Hama statue marked a bigger victory, as the rebels vowed to press on and also push over the government itself.