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© Thomson Reuters 2024.Syrian rebels advance close to Hama city, piling pressure on Assad and his allies
By Maya Gebeily and Suleiman Al-Khalidi BEIRUT/AMMAN©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
26 Comments
JJE
This article is a little bit behind the curve, but as it hints, considerable Iraq/Iran based formations have arrived to back up Damascus. SAA is regrouping and heavy losses are being applied on the terrorist formations.
Moreover, Putin was on the horn with Erdogan last night, and it looks like the latter hopefully will come to his senses, so this mop-up operation can fully get underway.
These are illegal invasion-war-of-aggression occupation troops there without a valid UN permit. That makes Russian actions in Ukraine perfectly legitimate.
TaiwanIsNotChina
All is not well for the war crime buddies of Assad and Putin.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Not a war of aggression because Syria hosts actual terrorists and there has been no attempt to annex anything to the US. russia remains searching for whataboutisms that compare to its animal behavior.
JJE
More Russian subjects have been killed in terrorist attacks in Ukraine, than US citizens in Syria (having trouble actually finding any).
TaiwanIsNotChina
Yeah because you relabled every Ukrainian in the east a russian. Actual russians shouldn't even be in Ukraine.
Yrral
Taiwan, Ukrainian has thrown in the towel,on this lost cause ,you would be best channeling yourself for the legal fight for American resistance to Trump illegal agenda Google Ukraine Desertion
Aly Rustom
Getting more and more volatile by the day.
WoodyLee
If Israel and the U.S. provide the air coverage the rebels badly need then I am all for it. This Assad dictatorship must end, and this is the perfect time to do it.
WoodyLee
Who said that WW3 wont start in the middle east this time??
Say it again!!?
WoodyLee
Getting red of the Assad dynasty will give the Syrian People a breath of fresh air they been longing for since 1971.
fallaffel
Good question!
A: They aren't.
WoodyLee
3 hours ago,
News outlets are reporting that the rebels are about to enter the city of Hama, they overran Assad's Elite Tiger Forces and are roaring towards Hama city.
Toblerone
The anti- Assad mob makes me wonder. Women and girls in Syria have wonderful freedoms that are going to disappear should the IS/Al Quaeda affiliates you are salivating over take power. And that is just one example.
fallaffel
Well, it's also entirely possible to be anti-Assad (a brutal dictator) and anti-Islamic extremist. Nobody has much freedom in Syria... Do you support foreign meddling in the middle east?
Fos
Once again the warmongering of US military industrial complex trying to destabilize another area.
Funny that the article refers to the controversial US military base in Syria, Al-Tanf as a “gas field in the area”
https://thecradle.co/articles/us-troops-conduct-new-oil-theft-operation-in-northeast-syria
fallaffel
What do you want us to see in these photos/videos? Are the rebels using US weapons? I don't get how you connect the rebels' actions to Biden. It's more likely the US is helping the Kurdish rebel group in Syria.
Aly Rustom
As a poster with a Syrian passport, I agree with Woody on everything he said
Zaphod
WoodyLee
Are you joking? Do you not realize that these "rebels" are the same Sunni isamist headcutters that created ISIS?
Yes, Assads government is authoritarian, but his Alevite minority is rather secular has has been protecting minority rights. Replacing a secular minority goverment with a religionist majority is has never been a good idea in the region. Does Iraq ring a bell?
Zaphod
Aly Rustom
Yep, there are many determined Sunnis who think like that. That is the Middle East.
Aly Rustom
This has NOTHING to do with it.
Assad is an Alawite and is married to a Sunni woman, as is his brother Maher and MANY of his top leadership is Sunni as well.
dobre vam zajebava
again
they are NOT REBELS
they are TERRORISTS
stop your false narratives here.
Desert Tortoise
There are some of both. What you have are a mixture of local tribal militias many of whom have been fighting the Baathists and Assad's Alawyte clan since 1940, and you have international jihadists who are Sunni Muslim looking for any excuse to kill Shiites like Assad, the Alawytes and his Iranian and Hezbollah allies.
Please learn the history of this region. It was originally the Sunni aligned Muslim Brotherhood that was opposed to the secular, nationalist and socialist Baath Party. Hama and Aleppo have been long time strongholds of conservative Sunni power in Syria, led until the 1980s primarily by the Muslim Brotherhood. When Assad came to power in a coup he removed all Sunni Muslims from the military and government. Later in his rule he began to harshly discriminate against Sunni Muslims at all levels of society. From 1963 on there were increasing violence and riots centered around Hama and Aleppo culminating in early 1982 when the Syrian Army laid siege to Hama, bombed it flat before the Army entered. Some 45,000 civilians were killed and another 15,000 - 17,000 disappeared. The Sunnis have never forgotten or forgiven.
When the Arab Spring uprisings swept the Arab World in 2011 the same old Sunni factions mobilized to sweep the Alawytes from power. Unfortunately it also attracted international jihadists from Al Qaida and IS who co-opted some of the local tribal militias and even attacked some of them. Assad brought in Iranian and Hezbollah fighters who in turn attracted even more Sunni jihadists to the fight. For a time Turkey was a major staging point for these jihadist until the chaos at their border became too much for them. That is when the Turks stood up their own proxy force in Northern Syria, the Syrian National Army SNA. The SNA is a confederation of local tribal militias that feud among themselves and often trade allegiances with A second group called HTS. HTS is a mash up of former Al Qaida aligned Nusra Front jihadists and tribal militias who allied themselves with them, unless their internal feuding leads one of more of the tribal militias to change sides to the SNA. Of the two HTS seems to be the most organized and effective. Turkey officially supports the SNA and tolerates HTS, but many say HTS could not have moved on Aleppo without significant Turkish help. The Turks for their part look to HTS and SNA to drive the Kurds out of northern Syria.
The Kurds too have their own little autonomous area up in the far northeast working with US forces. They may become significant soon if Iran tries to move troops across Iraq into Syria as the Kurds and US forces sit right on the route they would have to use.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Sources or the usual nonsense.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Try again with a real news organization.