In the luxurious palace of President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo Syrian rebels invaded on Sunday afternoon, according to newer Arab media reports, which have also not been confirmed. Earlier, there was even talk of an invasion of the Damascus palace.

The palace raid comes after a rapid advance by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist rebels on the city of Aleppo on Saturday. Videos of the rebels inside the palace were released.

Syrian rebels defended their gains in Aleppo on Saturday, a day after storming the city, as they pushed south toward Hama and claimed control of areas controlled by the Assad government along the way, the Washington Post reports in an analysis.

The rebel offensive, shocking in its speed, has posed the most serious challenge to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in years. Government forces, backed by Russia and Iran, in many places appeared to have retreated, or simply disintegrated. Videos posted by the rebels or opposition activists appear to show captured government soldiers in several places, including Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, and a military airbase in the northwestern province of Idlib.

“Assad’s forces are completely collapsing in northern and central Syria,” rebel commanders said in a WhatsApp message late Saturday.

The claim from the military operations room of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist rebel group leading the attack, could not be immediately verified.

However, the Syrian army, in a statement earlier on Saturday, said it was redeploying forces from areas under its control in Aleppo and Idlib provinces with the aim of “strengthening the defense lines in order to absorb the attack”.

The surprise attack by HTS sharply changed the long-standing front lines in Syria’s civil war, which began after an uprising against the Assad government in 2011. The rebels’ rapid advance from the rebel stronghold of Idlib has also posed a challenge to Assad’s main backers, Russia and Iran, at a time when they are preoccupied with conflicts in Ukraine and Lebanon.

Iran’s foreign minister was expected in Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Sunday, the Syrian state news agency reported. A senior Iraqi official said Baghdad was sending reinforcements to Iraq’s border with Syria “to prevent terrorist groups from infiltrating” the country. “These are precautionary measures because of the very worrying situation in Syria,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security issues.

Syrian rebels breached the western borders of Aleppo on Friday, according to video confirmed by the Washington Post. By nightfall, they were seen driving through the streets, honking and firing shots in celebration.

Rebel forces appeared on Saturday to have captured most of Aleppo, witnesses said, as thousands of civilians fled. Videos showed rebels at the city’s main airport and at the Acropolis, the medieval palace in the center of the city, according to videos verified by The Post.

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Abdulkafi Alhamdo, an opposition activist from Aleppo, told The Post late Saturday that government forces maintained control of only one area of ​​the city, a military academy. Alhamdo, an English teacher, had been exiled from the city since 2016, when government forces recaptured it from rebels.

He returned early Friday, he said, a few hours after the rebels entered. Since then, he had visited places he knew, such as the Acropolis and the dormitories of the University of Aleppo. There, he found tearful students worried about what the rebel invasion meant.

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“I told them I’m sure you’ll be safer, God willing,” he said. Assad and his government had “colonized their minds”, he argued, making them fear his opponents. The rebels were committed to treating people “with morals,” he was sure. “This is the most successful battle in the history of the revolution.”
But he added: “I can’t tell you that people were comfortable or happy at first.”

A priest in Aleppo said members of his parish had taken refuge in their church since Friday. “We hear banging in the distance, but we don’t know where it’s coming from,” said the priest, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.

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From the church, they could not see the gunmen roaming the streets – some of them hard-line Islamist militants who have brutalized religious minorities in Syria.

“Everything you heard, we lived,” said the priest.

The rebels, pushing south from Idlib, appeared to be recapturing several towns they had lost to the government in 2020. In a video posted on social media, a rebel describes his location in the town of Ltamena, just south of the border with Idlib. Late Saturday, HTS announced it had taken control of several areas on the outskirts of Hama, a government-held city.

At least four Syrian army armored vehicles gathered at a roundabout near the northern edge of the city of Hama, video posted on social media showed late Saturday.

The Syrian army said it was “ready to repel any terrorist attack” on the city. “We call on our fellow citizens not to believe the rumors and lies being spread about the situation on the ground,” it said.

Syria: Diplomatic alert for the 3rd ignition front in the Middle East