Rebel forces took over the Syrian city of Hama on Thursday, the second major city lost to the rebels since the long-simmering civil war reignited last week.
Militant forces led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) moved into Hama on Thursday, representatives of HTS and the Syrian government told NBC News. The fall of Hama to the rebels, the fourth-largest city in Syria, comes after HTS took the city of Aleppo in a surprise attack last week.
A commander of the rebel forces, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, said that HTS militants took the city and “entered the Hama Central Prison and freed hundreds of unjustly imprisoned individuals.”
Syria’s defense ministry said in a statement posted online that regime forces pulled out of the city “to safeguard the lives of the civilian population in Hama and to avoid involving them in urban combat, the military units stationed there have redeployed and repositioned outside the city.”
HTS, or the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant, began as the al-Qaeda-affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra before breaking away from the terror group. HTS was classified as a terror group by the United States in 2018. The group has received support from Turkey in its civil war against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has received support from Russia, Iran, and Iran’s terror network.
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Hama, never before taken by the rebels, is strategically important to the war effort because of its military resources, according to experts. It is also roughly 30 miles from the centrally-located city of Homs.
Though Assad’s regime is backed by states hostile to U.S. interests, Iran and Russia, and the rebel forces are backed by a NATO member, Turkey, the United States has not supported either side in the civil war. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan suggested earlier this week that neither side is positive for U.S. interests in the region.
“It’s a complicated question because the group at the vanguard of this rebel advance, HTS, is actually a terrorist organization designated by the United States. So, we have real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organization,” Sullivan said. “At the same time, of course, we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government – backed by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah – you know, are facing certain kinds of pressure. So, it’s a complicated situation, it’s one we are monitoring closely, and we are staying in close touch with regional partners about it.”
Israel, arguably the strongest U.S. ally in the Middle East, has taken a similar approach. The best outcome from the civil war, according to Israeli officials, is for the two sides to wear each other down so neither is a threat to the Jewish state.
“It’s entirely clear to us that one side are Salafi jihadists and the other side is Iran and Hezbollah,” an Israeli official told The Times of Israel. “We want them to weaken one another.”
“We are prepared for any scenario, and we will act accordingly,” the official said.