The opposition factions “are now 5 kilometers from the outskirts of the city of Homs,” and the Syrian army is bombing the Rastan Bridge

He explained, “The factions’ control of the city of Homs would cut off the road linking Damascus to the Syrian coast.”

For its part, the Syrian Ministry of Defense announced, on Friday, that “Army units are shelling with artillery and launching air strikes, with the support of Russia, which supports them, on opposition faction concentrations north and south of the city of Hama, hours after the city fell out of the control of the authorities.”

The ministry said in a statement, quoting a military source, “Our armed forces targeted, with artillery fire, missiles, and joint Syrian-Russian warplanes, terrorist vehicles and their gatherings in the northern and southern countryside of Hama, causing dozens of deaths and injuries among their ranks, and destroying several vehicles and vehicles.”

The leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, confirmed that “the goal of the opposition coalition in Syria, which is wresting another large city from government control this week, is to ultimately overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.”

In an interview with CNN, Al-Julani left no doubt that “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s ambitions are no less than putting an end to the Assad regime.”

In his first media interview in years, at an undisclosed location in Syria, he talked about plans to establish an institution-based government and “a council chosen by the people.”

Al-Julani added, “When we talk about goals, the goal of the revolution remains to overthrow this regime, and we have the right to use all available means to achieve this goal.”

He expressed his desire to see foreign forces leave Syria, and said: “I believe that once this regime falls, the issue will be resolved and there will no longer be a need for any foreign forces to remain in Syria.”

Al-Julani continued: “We are talking about a larger project, we are talking about building Syria, and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham is only part of this dialogue, and it may dissolve at any time. It is not an end in itself, but rather a means to perform a mission: confronting this regime.”

On Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein expressed Iraq’s deep concern about security developments in Syria.

During his meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Bassam Al-Sabbagh, Hussein noted that “Iraq is following developments in Syria with great interest because of their direct impact on the security and stability of the region.”

For his part, Al-Sabbagh explained that the concern is shared between the two countries, stressing that the current developments may pose a serious threat to the security of the region as a whole.

The two ministers stressed the importance of continuing consultation and coordination between the two countries to avoid repeating previous experiences and working to protect regional security, ensuring stability in the region and serving common interests.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Baghdad on Friday morning on an official visit.

A source told the BBC that Araqchi came from Tehran on an official one-day visit, during which he will meet with his Iraqi and Syrian counterparts to discuss the latest developments in the situation in Syria.

A tripartite meeting, Iraqi-Syrian-Iranian, is scheduled to be held in Baghdad later on Friday, to discuss the repercussions of the accelerating security events in Syria and their effects on the region.

The League of Arab States announced that the emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers, which was scheduled to be held next Sunday at the headquarters of the League’s General Secretariat, has been postponed to a later date to discuss several files, including the latest developments in Syria.

In a related development, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Friday that the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Russia will meet in Doha on Saturday to discuss the rapid progress made by the opposition in Syria.

Homs is located about 40 kilometers south of the city of Hama, and opposition activists call it the “capital of the revolution,” after it “witnessed the largest popular anti-regime demonstrations in 2011.”

During the first years of the conflict, the city witnessed battles between opposition factions and the Syrian army, which “in 2014 was able to control its entirety after the opposition forces withdrew from its old neighborhoods under a settlement agreement that followed two years of siege and bombing.”

The opposition forces then headed to the Al-Waer neighborhood with thousands of civilians, before they withdrew from it in 2017 according to a settlement agreement with the government.

During the first years of the conflict, some of these neighborhoods witnessed bloody bombings, and on April 29, 2014, at least one hundred people were killed, most of them civilians, according to a tally by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights at the time, in a double bombing claimed by the Al-Nusra Front at the time (before its disengagement from Al-Qaeda and its merger with Other factions under the name Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) in a neighborhood with an Alawite majority.

The battles between the opposition factions and the Syrian army have resulted in the displacement of 280,000 people since November 27, when the surprise attack by these factions in Syria began, according to what the United Nations announced on Friday, which fears that this number will rise to 1.5 million.

Samer Abdel Jaber, Director of Emergency Coordination at the World Food Program, said during a press conference in Geneva, “The numbers available to us are 280,000 people since November 27. This number was updated yesterday evening (Thursday). It does not include people who fled Lebanon during the recent escalation.” In the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

The Syrian army launched air strikes on Friday targeting a strategic bridge linking the city of Hama, which was controlled by opposition factions, to the city of Homs, which the regime seeks to prevent from falling out of its control.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, “Warplanes targeted with air strikes the Al-Rastan Bridge, which connects the city of Homs to Hama, to cut off the road between Hama and Homs and secure the city of Homs.”

The Observatory stated that “regime forces transferred more than 200 military vehicles loaded with weapons and equipment to the city of Homs, to strengthen their positions in the Al-Waer area and near the military colleges.”

On Thursday, Syrian opposition factions took control of the city of Hama, the fourth largest city in Syria in terms of population, days after they took control of Aleppo as part of a surprise attack.

The Syrian army acknowledged its loss of the strategic city of Hama, announcing in a statement in which it said: “During the past hours, with the intensification of confrontations between our soldiers and terrorist groups… these groups were able to penetrate and enter several axes in the city,” adding: “The military units stationed there have redeployed and positioned themselves outside the city.” “City.”

Syrian Defense Minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas said in a televised statement on Thursday evening, “What happened in the city of Hama today is a temporary tactical measure, and our forces are still in the vicinity of the city of Hama.”