The city of Homs has witnessed an outpouring of emotions this evening. Many are celebrating what they believe to be the imminent fall of the Assad regime, and others have begun tearing down images of the president. Here is a clip we’ve looped from the centre of Homs, filmed at the Officers’ Club hotel.

It is approaching 1am in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City, and 2am in Damascus.

• Syrian rebel commander Hassan Abdul Ghany said early on Sunday that insurgent forces “fully liberated” Syria’s central city of Homs, Reuters confirms. Homs is a city of strategic and hugely symbolic importance to the militants and to the opposition as a whole.

• Syrian opposition forces have begun to encircle the capital city of Damascus after a lightning offensive brought rebel factions to Bashar al-Assad’s doorstep and led the president’s office to deny he had already fled the country.

• Government forces have withdrawn from much of the central city of Homs, according to a Syrian opposition war monitor and a pro-government media outlet.

• Speaking in Doha, the UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said he secured the joint agreement from the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Russia to hold urgent talks in Geneva with a date to be agreed shortly.

• Protesters brought down the statue of the late father of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a main square in Jaramana suburb, nearly 10km from the centre of Damascus.

• The UN in Syria denied rumours that it is evacuating all staff from the country, but confirmed that it is “strategically reducing its footprint by relocating non-critical staff outside the country”.

• At least 30 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza on Saturday, according to local health officials.

• Lebanon’s health ministry said on Saturday that Israeli airstrikes had killed six people in the country’s south, just 10 days into a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.

Al Jazeera Mubasher has been broadcasting live footage early Sunday of crowds gathered in the city centre of Homs near the historic clock tower celebrating the city’s capture by rebel forces.

Syrian opposition forces have begun to encircle the capital city of Damascus after a lightning offensive brought rebel factions to Bashar al-Assad’s doorstep and led the president’s office to deny he had already fled the country.

The advance came just a week after Islamist insurgents led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) retook Aleppo in northern Syria, inspiring rebel factions all across the country to rise up against the Syrian army.

Overnight, opposition factions in the southern provinces of Daraa and Suwayda routed government forces and took control over wide swathes of the district. By the afternoon, opposition fighters had entered Daraya, about 5 miles from the centre of the capital. East of Damascus, members of the Free Syrian Army took control over the ancient city of Palmyra.

As rebels advanced from the south and east towards the capital city, forces led by HTS began fighting the Syrian army in the central Syrian city of Homs. Homs is a strategic asset for the Syrian government, linking it to Tartous and Latakia – provinces where Assad has traditionally enjoyed strong support.

Syrian state media reported that government forces were concentrating on stopping HTS’s advance in Homs, carrying out heavy airstrikes on rebel forces there and sending reinforcements to the central Syrian city.

If Homs were to fall to the rebels, the government would be besieged in Damascus. Opposition forces would be advancing from the north, south and east of the country.

The government in neighbouring Iraq said that 2,000 Syrian soldiers had fled across their border. Al Jazeera showed footage of Syrian tanks and other military vehicles packed with soldiers crossing into Iraq.

Read the latest developments coming from Syria here:

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, leader of HTS, the armed group spearheading the charge against the Assad regime, has urged his fighters to “show mercy” and “protect those who surrender” in a video message.

Jolani said his group was in the “final moments” before the capture of Homs, adding that it would be a “historic event”.

It would be the third major city HTS has captured since its fighters fanned out from Idlib at the end of November.

Rebel leader says insurgents combing Homs after government army flees

Ruth Michaelson

An insurgent commander said that forces spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham are combing Homs after forces loyal to Damascus have fled.

“An incursion into the neighbourhoods of the city is now underway and we are combing it in preparation for declaring it completely liberated,” said Lt Col Hassan Abdul-Ghani in a statement.

Homs is a city of strategic and hugely symbolic importance to the militants and to the opposition as a whole. The city is a key juncture on the highway that leads to the capital Damascus, connecting it with coastal regions traditionally loyal to Assad.

It also saw some of the fiercest fighting in the early years of Syria’s civil war, when rebels battled to seize neighbourhoods from president Bashar al-Assad’s control.

The loss of Homs would mean that Syria’s major provincial capitals would no longer be controlled by Assad’s regime in Damascus, fundamentally altering his grip on the country his family has ruled for decades.

AP has a quick snap that government forces have withdrawn from much of the central city of Homs, according to a Syrian opposition war monitor and a pro-government media outlet.

More details soon …

Syrian opposition media reports that Syrian government forces have withdrawn from Homs city and fighters from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have entered the city proper.

Videos showed members of state security branches fleeing their posts in Homs before the rebel advance. Syrian state media did not acknowledge the loss of the city, but said that HTS fighters had entered the city’s suburbs and outlying villages.

If Homs were to fall to rebels, Damascus would be cut off from Tartous and Latakia – coastal provinces where Bashar al-Assad has historically enjoyed strong support. Rebel forces would then be approaching the country’s capital city from the north from Homs, from the south from Daraa and Suwayda province and from the east from the ancient city of Palmyra.

Residents of al-Rukban camp rejoiced on Saturday night, after the Syrian army soldiers which had enforced a more than six-year-long siege on the camp abandoned their positions and fled.

Al-Rukban, a camp formed in 2014 in the arid no man’s land between Syria and Jordan, houses about 10,000 refugees who fled the Syrian government’s crackdown on protesters during the country’s revolution. In 2018, the Syrian army and the Jordanian government imposed a siege on the camp, forcing residents to survive on meager amounts of food brought in periodically by a few smugglers.

“I cannot describe the feelings, the words don’t exist. I will be able to return to my village after 14 years,” said Yasser, a resident of the camp originally from a village outside Homs in central Syria speaking under a pseudonym in case government forces returned. Yasser had read a few hours earlier that the Syrian army had been driven out of his home town by rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as part of its attempt to take Homs city.

Pictures sent to the guardian showed Syrian army vehicles, tanks and artillery abandoned where soldiers had fled or had been killed by members of the Free Syrian Army. The Free Syrian Army had patrolled the 55-kilometer demilitarized zone around the camp, supervised by US forces as part of its global coalition to defeat the Islamic State.

On Saturday, the Free Syrian Army had broken out of the demilitarized zone, killing the remaining Syrian army soldiers and capturing the ancient city of Palmyra.

Leaving al-Rukban had been a dream for Yasser and for the other camp residents. Living conditions in the camp had deteriorated in recent years, with food and medical supplies scarce. Syrian soldiers had tightened their siege on the camp, preventing smugglers from reaching the camp. During the last survey of a UN clinic before it closed down in 2020, almost 100% of children under five who went to the clinic were malnourished.

Still, camp residents had to wait before they could return home. The area around the demilitarized zone had been heavily mined, and would take some time to clear.

“We have to wait around 20 days. I will be counting every second,” Yasser said.

Robert Mackey

As government forces withdraw from cities and towns across Syria, there is a scramble to preserve documents that could be used to hold members of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to account for crimes against humanity. The Syrian journalist Qusay Noor points to video that appears to show “a huge warehouse of records and reports on citizens in the Political Security Branch” in the city of Suwayda.

But, according to Rim Turkmani, director of the Syria conflict research programme at the London School of Economics: “The notorious State Security branch of Mukhabarat in Homs has evacuated its building, setting tons of documents – evidence of their crimes – ablaze on the roof. Friends in the city witnessed the evacuation from their balconies, and now, many in Homs are overwhelmed with tears of relief and joy.”

“As opposition forces continue to take control of key sites across Syria – central offices, prisons, political, intelligence offices, and military branches – we are witnessing a historical moment in the search for justice!” Rawan Shaif of Amnesty International notes on Bluesky. “These documents are not just pieces of paper – they are the threads that connect us to the past and to the hope for accountability. They hold the potential to expose the full extent of the crimes committed and the perpetrators behind them. They are essential for holding individuals, command, and perpetrators accountable and ensuring that justice is pursued. But the road ahead requires preservation; these materials, these records and accounts, must be safeguarded, archived, and kept secure. Some incredibly emotional times ahead, but the work is just beginning.”