BEIRUT: Thousands of people fled the central Syrian city of Homs, the country’s third largest, as insurgents seized two towns on the outskirts Friday, positioning themselves for an assault on a potentially major prize in their march against President Bashar Assad.
The move, reported by pro-government media and an opposition war monitor, was the latest in the stunning advances by opposition fighters over the past week that have so far met little resistance from Assad’s forces. A day earlier, fighters captured the central city of Hama, Syria’s fourth largest, after the army said it withdrew to avoid fighting inside the city and spare the lives of civilians.
The insurgents, led by the jihadi Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group, or HTS, have vowed to march to Homs and the capital, Damascus, Assad’s seat of power. Videos circulating online showed a highway jammed with cars full of people fleeing Homs, a city with a large population belonging to Assad’s Alawite sect, seen as his core supporters.
If Assad’s military loses Homs, it could be a crippling blow. The city, parts of which were controlled by insurgents until 2014, stands at an important intersection between Damascus and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus, where Assad enjoys wide support. Homs province is Syria’s largest in size and borders Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan.
Pressure on the government intensified from multiple directions.
Opposition protesters stormed security posts and army positions in the southern province of Sweida, opposition activists said. US-backed Kurdish forces who control eastern and northeastern Syria began to encroach on government-held territory.
Offensive leaves Assad reliant on Russia
After years of largely being bottled up in a northwest corner of the country, the insurgents burst out a week ago, captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, and have kept advancing since. Government troops have repeatedly fallen back.
The sudden offensive has flipped the tables on a long-entrenched stalemate in Syria’s nearly 14-year-old civil war. Along with HTS, the fighters include forces of an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Turkiye has denied backing the offensive, though experts say insurgents would not have launched it without the country’s consent.
HTS’s leader, Abu Mohammad Al-Golani, told CNN in an exclusive interview Thursday from Syria that Assad’s government was on the path to falling, propped up only by Russia and Iran.
“The seeds of the regime’s defeat have always been within it,” he said. “But the truth remains, this regime is dead.”
A key question about Assad’s ability to fight back is how much top ally Russia — whose troops back Assad’s forces — will throw support his way at a time when it is tied up in the war in Ukraine.
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.
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.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s embassy in Syria issued a notice reminding Russian citizens that they may use commercial flights to leave the country “in view of the difficult military-political situation.”
The foreign ministers of Iran, Iraq and Syria — three close allies — gathered Friday in Baghdad to consult on the rapidly changing war. Syrian Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh said the current developments may pose “a serious threat to the security of the region as a whole.”
Assad opponents move in center, south and east
The insurgent fighters on Friday took over the central towns of Rastan and Talbiseh, putting them 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Homs, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor.
“The battle of Homs is the mother of all battles and will decide who will rule Syria,” said Rami Abdurrahman, the Observatory’s chief.
Pro-government Sham FM said the insurgents entered Rastan and Talbiseh 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.
In eastern Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces coalition said it had moved into the government-held half of the city of Deir Ezzor, apparently without resistance. One of the main cities in the east, Deir Ezzor had long been split between the government on the western side of the Euphrates River and the SDF on the eastern side.
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 a vital for the government because it is the gateway to the corridor to Iran, a supply line for Iran-backed fighters, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
At the same time, insurgents seized Syria’s sole crossing to Jordan, according to opposition activists. Jordan announced it was closing its side of the crossing. Lebanon also closed all but one of its border crossings with Syria.
Worsening economy could hurt Assad’s war effort
The opposition assault has struck a blow to Syria’s already decrepit economy. On Friday, the US dollar was selling on Syria’s parallel market for about 18,000 pounds, a 25 percent drop from a week ago. When Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011, a dollar was valued at 47 pounds.
The drop further undermines the purchasing power of Syrians at a time when the UN has warned that 90 percent of the population is below the poverty line.
Syria’s economy has been hammered for years by the war, Western sanctions, corruption and an economic meltdown in neighboring Lebanon, Syria’s main gate to the outside world.
Damascus residents told The Associated Press that people are rushing to markets to buy food, fearing further escalation.
The worsening economy could be undermining the ability of Syria’s military to fight, as the value of soldiers’ salaries melts away while the insurgents are flush with cash.
Syria’s military has not appeared to put up a cohesive counteroffensive against the opposition advances. SANA on Friday quoted an unnamed military official as saying the Syrian and Russian air forces were striking insurgents in Hama province, killing dozens of fighters.
Syria’s defense minister said in a televised statement late Thursday that government forces withdrew from Hama as “a temporary tactical measure” and vowed to gain back lost areas.
“We are in a good position on the ground,” Gen. Ali Mahmoud Abbas said, saying troops remained “at the gates of Hama.” He spoke before the opposition advanced further south toward Homs.
He said the insurgents, whom he described as “takfiri” or Muslim extremists, are backed by foreign countries. He did not name the countries but appeared to be referring to Turkiye and the United States.
Thousands flee Homs as Syrian militants push on lightning offensive
https://arab.news/62paf
Thousands flee Homs as Syrian militants push on lightning offensive

- Militants have captured two major cities so far and are now thrusting toward Homs
- Seizing Homs would cut off Damascus from the coast, a longtime redoubt of Bashar Assad
UN urges more support to speed up Syria refugee returns

- According to UNHCR, some 13.5 million Syrians remain displaced internally or abroad
- Wide scale destruction, including to basic infrastructure, remains a major barrier to returns
DAMASCUS: UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi has urged more international support for Syria to speed up reconstruction and enable further refugee returns after some 14 years of civil war.
“I am here also to really make an appeal to the international community to provide more help, more assistance to the Syrian government in this big challenge of recovery of the country,” Grandi told reporters on Friday on the sidelines of a visit to Damascus.
Syrians who had been displaced internally or fled abroad have begun gradually returning home since the December overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, whose brutal repression of peaceful anti-government protests in 2011 triggered war.
But the wide-scale destruction, including to basic infrastructure, remains a major barrier to returns.
Grandi said over two million people had returned to their areas of origin, including around 1.5 million internally displaced people, while some 600,000 others have come back from neighboring countries including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkiye.
“Two million of course is only a fraction of the very big number of Syrian refugees and displaced, but it is a very big figure,” he said.
According to UNHCR, some 13.5 million Syrians remain displaced internally or abroad.
Syria’s conflict displaced around half the pre-war population, with many internally displaced people seeking refuge in camps in the northwest.
Grandi said that after Assad’s toppling, the main obstacle to returns was “a lack of services, lack of housing, lack of work,” adding that his agency was working with Syrian authorities and governments in the region “to help people go back.”
He said he discussed the importance of the sustainability of returns with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani, including ensuring “that people don’t move again because they don’t have a house or they don’t have a job or they don’t have electricity” or other services such as health.
Sustainable returns “can only happen if there is recovery, reconstruction in Syria, not just for the returnees, for all Syrians,” he said.
He added that he also discussed with Shaibani how to “encourage donors to give more resources for this sustainability.”
With the recent lifting of Western sanctions, the new Syrian authorities hope for international support to launch reconstruction, which the UN estimates could cost more than $400 billion.
Water levels plummet at drought-hit Iraqi reservoir

- Visible cracks have emerged in the retreating shoreline of the artificial lake, which lies in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region and was created in the 1950s
DUKAN: Water levels at Iraq’s vast Dukan Dam reservoir have plummeted as a result of dwindling rains and further damming upstream, hitting millions of inhabitants already impacted by drought with stricter water rationing.
Amid these conditions, visible cracks have emerged in the retreating shoreline of the artificial lake, which lies in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region and was created in the 1950s.
Dukan Lake has been left three quarters empty, with its director Kochar Jamal Tawfeeq explaining its reserves currently stand at around 1.6 billion cubic meters of water out of a possible seven billion.
That is “about 24 percent” of its capacity, the official said, adding that the level of water in the lake had not been so low in roughly 20 years.
Satellite imagery analyzed by AFP shows the lake’s surface area shrank by 56 percent between the end of May 2019, the last year it was completely full, and the beginning of June 2025.
Tawfeeq blamed climate change and a “shortage of rainfall” explaining that the timing of the rains had also become irregular.
Over the winter season, Tawfeeq said the Dukan region received 220 millimeters (8.7 inches) of rain, compared to a typical 600 millimeters.
Upstream damming of the Little Zab River, which flows through Iran and feeds Dukan, was a secondary cause of the falling water levels, Tawfeeq explained.
Also buffeted by drought, Iran has built dozens of structures on the river to increase its own water reserves.
Baghdad has criticized these kinds of dams, built both by Iran and neighboring Turkiye, accusing them of significantly restricting water flow into Iraq via the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Iraq, and its 46 million inhabitants, have been intensely impacted by the effects of climate change, experiencing rising temperatures, year-on-year droughts and rampant desertification.
At the end of May, the country’s total water reserves were at their lowest level in 80 years.
On the slopes above Dukan lies the village of Sarsian, where Hussein Khader Sheikhah, 57, was planting a summer crop on a hectare of land.
The farmer said he hoped a short-term summer crop of the kind typically planted in the area for an autumn harvest — cucumbers, melons, chickpeas, sunflower seeds and beans — would help him offset some of the losses over the winter caused by drought.
In winter, in another area near the village, he planted 13 hectares mainly of wheat.
“The harvest failed because of the lack of rain,” he explained, adding that he lost an equivalent of almost $5,700 to the poor yield.
“I can’t make up for the loss of 13 hectares with just one hectare near the river,” he added.
The water shortage at Dukan has affected around four million people downstream in the neighboring Sulaimaniyah and Kirkuk governorates, including their access to drinking water.
For more than a month, water treatment plants in Kirkuk have been trying to mitigate a sudden, 40 percent drop in the supplies reaching them, according to local water resource official Zaki Karim.
In a country ravaged by decades of conflict, with crumbling infrastructure and floundering public policies, residents already receive water intermittently.
The latest shortages are forcing even “stricter rationing” and more infrequent water distributions, Karim said.
In addition to going door-to-door to raise awareness about water waste, the authorities were also cracking down on illegal access to the water network.
In the province of roughly two million inhabitants, the aim is to minimize the impact on the provincial capital of Kirkuk.
“If some treatment plants experience supply difficulties, we will ensure that there are no total interruptions, so everyone can receive their share,” Karim said.
Israel military says hit Hezbollah site in south Lebanon

- The military said the site was used by Hezbollah “to advance terror attacks against Israeli civilians”
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Saturday its navy hit a Hezbollah “infrastructure site” near the southern Lebanese city of Naqoura, a day after Israel’s foreign minister warned the Lebanese armed group against entering the Iran-Israel war.
“Overnight, an Israeli Navy vessel struck a Hezbollah ‘Radwan Force’ terrorist infrastructure site in the area of Naqoura in southern Lebanon,” the military said in a statement.
The military said the site was used by Hezbollah “to advance terror attacks against Israeli civilians.”
In a separate statement on Saturday, the military said it had “struck and eliminated” a Hezbollah militant in south Lebanon the previous day, despite an ongoing ceasefire between both sides.
In a statement carried by the official National News Agency, Lebanon’s health ministry said late on Friday that one person was killed in a “strike carried out by an Israeli enemy drone on a motorcycle” in the same south Lebanon village.
The November ceasefire aimed to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which sparked months of deadly hostilities by launching cross-border attacks on northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Lebanon’s army, which has been dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure as part of the truce, said earlier in June that the Israeli military’s ongoing violations and “refusal to cooperate” with the ceasefire monitoring mechanism “could prompt the (Lebanese) military to freeze cooperation” on site inspections.
Israeli military kill head of Palestine corps in IRGC’s overseas arm – defense minister

- Veteran commander, Saeed Izadi, led the Palestine Corps of the Quds Force
- The Quds Force built up a network of Arab allies known as the Axis of Resistance
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that the military had killed a veteran commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ overseas arm, in a strike in an apartment in Iran’s Qom.
The veteran commander, Saeed Izadi, led the Palestine Corps of the Quds Force, Katz said in a statement.
There was no confirmation from the IRGC.
The Quds Force built up a network of Arab allies known as the Axis of Resistance, establishing Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1982 and supporting the Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
But Iran-aligned network has suffered major blows over the last two years, as Israeli offensives since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel have weakened both the Palestinian group and Hezbollah.
Katz said Izadi financed and armed Hamas during the initial attacks, describing the commander’s killing as a “major achievement for Israeli intelligence and the Air Force.”
Izadi was sanctioned by the US and Britain over what they said were his ties to Hamas and Palestinian militant faction Islamic Jihad, which also took part in the October 7 attacks.
Iran’s FM arrives in Istanbul for Arab League meeting

- Around 40 diplomats are slated to join the weekend gathering of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation
ISTANBUL: Iran’s foreign minister arrived in Istanbul on Saturday, Tasnim news agency reported, for a meeting with Arab League diplomats to discuss Tehran’s escalating conflict with Israel.
Around 40 diplomats are slated to join the weekend gathering of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), as Israel and Iran continue to exchange missile strikes.
“The Foreign Minister arrived in Istanbul this morning to participate in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Foreign Ministers’ meeting,” Tasnim reported.
It comes after Araghchi met with his counterparts from Britain, France and Germany in Geneva on Friday.
“At this meeting, at the suggestion of Iran, the issue of the Zionist regime’s attack on our country will be specifically addressed,” said Iranian foreign Abbas Araghchi, according to the news agency.
Israel began its assault in the early hours of June 13, saying Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, triggering an immediate retaliation from Tehran in the worst-ever confrontation between the two arch-rivals.
Earlier on Friday, Araghchi said Tehran was ready to “consider diplomacy” again only if Israel’s “aggression is stopped.”
The Arab League ministers are expected to release a statement following their meeting, the Turkish state news agency Anadolu said.