Syrian government forces and rebels battle near Hama city as civil war reignites
Rebels try to advance on Syria’s fourth-largest city after their sudden capture of Aleppo last week rocked President Bashar al-Assad
A Syrian war monitor said on Wednesday that government forces launched a counteroffensive near Hama, pushing back Islamist-led rebels seeking to advance on the key central city.
Hama was a bastion of opposition to the government of President Bashar al-Assad early in the country’s civil war, which erupted in 2011.
It was also the scene of a massacre in the 1980s under the rule of Assad’s father, whose scars have yet to heal even four decades on.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that “after midnight, regime forces launched a counter-attack” with air support on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels and allied factions near Hama.
Government forces pushed HTS away from the provincial capital by about 10km (six miles), the Observatory said, reporting “fierce battles” as rebels “failed to control” an area near the city.
In a sudden flare-up in Syria’s 13-year civil conflict, Islamist-led rebels and allied fighters last week launched a lightning offensive from their bastion in the northwest, marching on neighbouring Aleppo province and taking the country’s second city from government control.
