US sees increasing possibility that Syria’s Assad falls
The administration expects the Syrian rebels to capture the central city of Homs within days, if not sooner.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration believes the likelihood is increasing that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapses amid the lightning rebel offensive underway, a senior US official told Al-Monitor.
Thousands of Syrians fled Homs on Friday as a rebel alliance led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham advanced on the country’s third-largest city. The capture of Homs would deal another blow to the Assad government, which lost control of the major cities of Aleppo and Hama in the past week.
The US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Biden administration has assessed that the government-held city of Homs could collapse within days, before the rebels turn their sights on the capital of Damascus.
A different US official said they have “moderate confidence” Homs could fall as soon as Friday night.
The tumult in Syria comes nearly 14 years into the country’s civil war. Fighting between the Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian government and the rebel forces seeking to topple it has killed hundreds of thousands of people, spawned a new generation of extremist groups and caused the biggest displacement crisis since World War II.
Assad’s forces had managed to claw back most of the country — all but a pocket of rebel resistance in northwest Syria and a Kurdish stronghold in the semiautonomous northeast. The war had settled into a stalemate prior to the rebel offensive that began late last month.
A State Department spokesperson told Al-Monitor that the administration is “closely monitoring” the situation on the ground and “urges protection of civilians, including members of minority groups.”
The spokesperson reiterated calls for a political settlement consistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which in 2015 laid out a roadmap for a nationwide ceasefire, a new constitution and UN-supervised elections in Syria.
“Constant refusal by the Assad regime to engage in this process led directly to the events we are now witnessing,” the spokesperson said.
