The collection of rebel groups fighting to depose President Bashar al-Assad of Syria pushed further south on Friday toward a major city en route to the capital, as the government’s chief patron, Iran, moved to evacuate military commanders and other personnel from the country.
The rebels’ stunningly rapid gains spread alarm to neighboring countries, prompting border closures to guard against the prospect of further chaos as Mr. al-Assad’s authoritarian government lost more of its grip over swaths of the country.
And in another sign of the government’s loosening control, a Kurdish-led force backed by the United States, which is separate from the rebels advancing on Homs, said it had deployed in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour, which the government had previously held.
Taken together, the battlefield gains present the most serious challenge in years to Mr. al-Assad’s power.
But perhaps most significant was the withdrawal of Iranian personnel after more than a decade of staunch support for Mr. al-Assad. Those evacuated included top commanders of Iran’s powerful Quds Forces, the external branch of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to Iranian and regional officials.
Evacuations were ordered at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, and at bases of the Revolutionary Guards, Iranian and regional officials said. Iranians began to leave Syria early Friday, the officials said, heading toward Lebanon and Iraq.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Damascus could soon be under threat. A senior State Department official said Mr. al-Assad needed ground forces and that Iran would be hesitant to provide any.
The U.S. Embassy in Damascus on Friday urged Americans “to depart Syria now while commercial options remain available in Damascus.”
“The bottom line,” said Mehdi Rahmati, a prominent Iranian analyst, “is that Iran has realized that it cannot manage the situation in Syria right now with any military operation and this option is off the table.”
Despite being largely overshadowed by the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, the Syrian civil war never ended and instead fell into a protracted stalemate. Diplomatic efforts to find a political solution have been stagnant for years.
The coalition of advancing rebels is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group previously affiliated with Al Qaeda. Although it split with Al Qaeda in 2016 and has attempted to gain international legitimacy, it is still designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations.
The group’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, said in an interview with The New York Times this week that his goal was to “liberate Syria from this oppressive regime.”
The reactions on Friday of Syria’s neighbors appeared to reflect the deep concerns about the spiraling and unpredictable war.
Lebanon announced on Friday that it was closing all land borders with Syria except for one that links Beirut with Damascus. Israel said it would reinforce “aerial and ground forces” in the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria after the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.
Jordan closed a border crossing with Syria on Friday after insurgents captured the area on the Syrian side, Jordan’s Interior Ministry said in a statement.
And beyond the main rebel advances, the Assad government appeared to be losing other pockets of territory. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitoring group, said that the city of Sweida, south of Damascus, was no longer under government control.
The Damascus embassy of Russia — one of Syria’s most important allies — issued a statement warning Russians of “the difficult military and political situation in Syria.” The embassy reminded Russians “of the opportunity of leaving the country on commercial flights through operating airports.”
The sudden rebel advance, launched last week, has abruptly changed the landscape of the 13-year civil war.
The rebels have swept through major cities like Aleppo and Hama and captured a significant amount of territory across four provinces, while government forces seemed to put up little resistance.
U.S. officials have been surprised by the rebels’ progress so far, and had not assessed that the Assad government’s control on Aleppo was so weak. They said the rebels appear to have quickly taken advantage of the chaos created by their offensive, whose success likely exceeded their own expectations.
If the rebels gain control of Homs, it would be a significant turn in fortunes for Mr. al-Assad. The city sits at the crossroads of major highways, including one that leads to Damascus. Without Homs, the government would lose a key buffer between rebel-held areas in the northwest and Damascus farther south.
Early in the civil war, parts of Homs fell to the rebels. Over the years, government forces besieged and bombarded rebel-held areas to wrest them back, devastating parts of the city.
The opposition fighters heading toward Homs on Friday came out of Hama, the city they breached just a day earlier.
While the rebels say their goal is to oust Mr. al-Assad, it is not clear what would happen if he were to fall. Many in the international community had come to grudgingly accept him as Syria’s leader, even after he violently crushed his country’s opposition and used internationally banned chemical weapons.
For them, Mr. al-Assad offered a semblance of control, while a rebel takeover threatened more uncertainties in a region already in upheaval. Some Arab states last year normalized diplomatic relations with the Assad regime after shunning his government for years.
Publicly, American officials have been cautious about Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. But inside the U.S. government, some officials said they believe the group’s turn to a more pragmatic approach was genuine, adding that its leaders know they cannot realize aspirations to join or lead the Syrian government if the group is seen as a jihadist organization.
The group has retained its identity as a conservative Islamist organization, but it has shown itself to be pragmatic while governing Idlib, in northwestern Syria, U.S. officials said. In areas it has taken over, officials said, it has quickly focused on providing services to civilians.
In a briefing for reporters this week, Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an opposition group that works with the U.S. military, praised the group for turning on Aleppo’s electricity soon after it occupied the city.
Mr. Moustafa said it was wrong to tie the group to its jihadist roots, insisting that it was not affiliated with terror groups. He urged the United States to give its full-throated support to the push against Mr. al-Assad, saying the offensive was in U.S. national interests.
“Everyone should see this as Iran losing in Syria,” he said.
The rebel advance struck at a moment of weakness for Mr. al-Assad’s allies: Iran’s power has been curtailed by its conflict with Israel, and Russia’s military sapped by its invasion of Ukraine.
The Syrian government has relied on those countries and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — now battered by its own war with Israel — to fight the rebels.
Russian airstrikes to try to slow the recent rebel advance have been relatively sparse, in what analysts see as a sign of Russia’s limited ability to aid Mr. al-Assad.
The Syrian Observatory said Friday that a Russian convoy had fled Deir al-Zour, the eastern city where Kurdish forces were advancing, and was headed to Damascus.
On Friday, the Syrian military struck rebels and their vehicles both north and south of Hama with artillery, missiles and airstrikes, assisted by Russia. Dozens of opposition fighters were killed and wounded, according to Syrian state media.
The Syrian military, after withdrawing from Hama on Thursday following several days of fighting, issued an unusual statement explaining its pullback, saying that it was seeking to avoid battles that would endanger civilians.
But sacrificing Hama also enables the Assad government to shift its limited military forces to areas it regards as more important, such as Homs.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who has backed some of the Syrian opposition, including rebel factions in the current offensive, said on Friday that he had been frustrated with Mr. al-Assad over his unwillingness to negotiate over Syria’s future. He issued a qualified approval of the rebel advance.
“Idlib, Hama, Homs, and the target, of course, is Damascus,” Mr. Erdogan told reporters following Friday prayers in Istanbul, according to Turkish state media. “The opposition’s march continues. Our wish is that this march in Syria continues without incident.”
But Mr. Erdogan also seemed to express concern about the rebel advances, calling them “problematic,” according to the Reuters news agency.
“These problematic advances continuing as a whole in the region are not in a manner we desire, our heart does not want these,” he said. “Unfortunately, the region is in a bind.”
The post As Syrian Rebels Advance, Iran Grows Nervous and Neighbors Close Their Borders appeared first on New York Times.
