Syria's Bashar Assad regime was at stake as Syrian anti-regime forces rallied toward the capital Damascus after capturing the key city of Homs on Saturday.
Since the groups swept into Aleppo a week ago, regime defenses have crumbled at a dizzying speed as anti-regime fighters seized a string of major cities and rose up in places where the rebellion had long seemed over.
The twin threats to strategically vital Homs and the capital Damascus now pose an existential danger to the Assad family's five-decade reign over Syria and the continued influence there of its main regional backer Iran.
A Homs resident, and army and opposition sources said the fighters had breached government defenses from the north and east of the city. A commander said they had taken control of an army camp and villages outside the city.
State television reported that the insurgents had not penetrated Homs although it said they were on the city outskirts, where it said the military was striking them with artillery and drones.
Anti-regime forces have seized almost the entire southwest within 24 hours, and they have advanced to within 30 kilometers (20 miles) of Damascus as government forces fell back, sources said.
Underscoring the possibility of an uprising in the capital, protesters took to the streets in several Damascus suburbs, ripping up Assad posters and tearing down a statue of his father, Hafez Assad, uncontested by army or police. Some were joined by soldiers who had changed into civilian clothes and deserted, residents said.
However, the state news agency reported that Assad remains in Damascus and the military said it was reinforcing around the capital and south.
The pace of events has stunned Arab capitals and raised fears of a new wave of regional instability.
Syria's civil war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against Assad's rule, dragged in big outside powers and sent millions of refugees into neighboring states.
Assad had long relied on allies to subdue the rebels, with bombing by Russian warplanes while Iran sent allied forces including Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iraqi militia to bolster the Syrian military and storm anti-regime strongholds.
But Russia has been focused on the war in Ukraine since 2022 and Hezbollah has suffered big losses in its own grueling war with Israel, significantly limiting its ability or that of Iran to bolster Assad.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said the U.S. should not be involved in the conflict and should "let it play out."
The foreign ministers of Russia, Iran and Türkiye met Saturday and agreed on the importance of Syria's territorial integrity and restarting a political process.
However, there was no indication they agreed on any concrete steps, with the situation inside Syria changing by the hour.
Russia has a naval base and airbase in Syria that have not only been important for its support of Assad but also for its ability to project influence in the Mediterranean and Africa.
Moscow has been supporting regime forces with intense airstrikes but it was not clear if it could easily step up this campaign.
Iran has said it would consider sending forces to Syria but any immediate extra assistance would likely depend on Hezbollah and Iraqi militias.
The Lebanese group sent some "supervising forces" to Homs on Friday but any significant deployment would risk exposure to Israeli airstrikes, Western officials said.
Iran-backed Iraqi militias are on high alert, with thousands of heavily armed fighters ready to deploy to Syria, many of them amassed near the border. Iraq does not seek military intervention in Syria, a government spokesman said Friday.
Britain warned Assad that any chemical weapons use was a red line and would be met with "appropriate action."
The Homs resident said he had seen the rebels advance past a Syrian Air Force base in the north of the city that was considered a major defensive area. The resident later said fighting was audible in the city outskirts.
An opposition figure in touch with rebel command and a Syrian army source both also said the anti-regime forces were inside the city.
Seizing Homs, an important crossroads between the capital and the Mediterranean, would cut off Damascus from the coastal stronghold of Assad's minority Alawite sect, and from Russia's air and naval base.
In the south, the rapid collapse of government control could allow a concerted assault on the capital, the seat of Assad's power, where residents said electricity cut out on Saturday.
The regime military pulled back as far as Saasa 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Damascus to regroup, a Syrian army officer said.
Jarmana, where protesters pulled down a statue of Hafez Assad, is in the city's southern suburbs. Soldiers were deserting in the former rebel stronghold of Daraya and in Mezzeh, near a major airbase, residents said.
The main anti-regime group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, said it had a duty to protect governmental, international and U.N. offices in Syria.
In a sign of government forces' collapse in the east, around 2,000 Syrian soldiers crossed the border into Iraq to seek sanctuary, the mayor of Iraqi border town al-Qaem said.
Earlier the SDF terrorist group had captured eastern Deir ez-Zour on Friday, jeopardizing Assad's land connection to allies in Iraq.
