“Just a matter of time” before Syria falls

Published 7 December 2024 at 16.01

Foreign. Egypt and Jordan call on Syrian President Bashar al Assad to leave Syria and form a government in exile, writes the Wall Street Journal. The countries believe that the government forces' defenses will soon collapse.

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The paper also states that Assad's wife and children are already safe in Russia due to the jihadists' advances . Other parts of the family have fled to the United Arab Emirates.

According to an expert WSJ spoke to, it is only a matter of time before the regime falls.

– If Homs falls, I have difficulty seeing how the regime will survive, says Jerome Drevon of the International Crisis Group.

Thousands of terrified Syrians fled Homs, the country's third-largest city, on Friday as a rebel alliance led by al-Qaeda's Syrian branch Hayat Tahrir al-Sham advanced, writes al Monitor.

If Homs falls, it would mean another heavy blow to the Assad regime, which has already lost control of the major cities of Aleppo and Hama in the past week.

An anonymous US official stated that the Biden administration now estimates that government forces could lose Homs within days, after which the rebels will likely turn their sights on the capital Damascus.

The situation in Syria is escalating after nearly 14 years of civil war. The conflict between the Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian government and the jihadist forces seeking to overthrow it has so far claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, created a new generation of extremist groups and caused the biggest refugee crisis since World War II.

Assad's forces have during the in recent years have retaken large parts of the country, except for a rebel-held area in northwestern Syria and a Kurdish stronghold in the semi-autonomous northeastern part of the country.

The war had reached a stalemate before the jihadists' offensive suddenly began at the end of last month.