Thousands of people have fled the Syrian city of Homs as rebel fighters pushed further south with their rapid assault on government forces, a leading monitoring group said. If the strategically important municipality were to fall, it would leave three of the country’s five largest cities in the hands of the forces led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and no major cities between rebel forces and the Syrian capital of Damascus. In less than two weeks they have already captured the second city of Aleppo in the north, as well as the central city of Hama — where government forces were forced out Thursday. “Our forces continue to advance towards the city of Homs at a steady pace, thanks to God, after the arrival of convoys carrying hundreds of displaced people from Homs to deter Assad’s aggression against their city,” said Hassan Abdul-Ghani, senior commander of the HTS-led forces on Friday in a post on X. With his forces nearing, thousands of people had fled towards western coastal regions, a stronghold of the government where fighting has remained less fierce than in other parts of the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday.

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Persons: “, ”, Hassan Abdul, Ghani Organizations: Syrian, Human Rights Locations: Syrian, Homs, Damascus, Aleppo, Hama —