Syria insurgents say have entered Hama after fierce fighting

Syrian insurgents said Thursday they have entered parts of the central city of Hama after three days of intense clashes with government forces on its outskirts, part of an ongoing offensive in which they seized Syria's largest city of Aleppo.

Syrian state media confirmed violent clashes between government forces and opposition gunmen on the eastern outskirts of Hama city but denied that the insurgents had breached it. Hama is one of the few cities that remained under full government control during Syria's conflict, which broke out in March 2011. Its capture would be a major setback for President Bashar Assad.

The offensive is being led by the jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham as well as an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Their sudden capture of the northern city of Aleppo, an ancient business hub, was a stunning prize for Assad's opponents.

It was the first opposition attack on the city since 2016, when a brutal Russian air campaign retook it for Assad after rebel forces had initially seized it. Intervention by Russia, Iran and Iranian-allied Hezbollah and other militant groups has allowed Assad to remain in power.

The latest flare-up in Syria’s long civil war comes as Assad’s main regional and international backers are preoccupied with their own wars.

The insurgents claimed on their Military Operations Department channel on the Telegram app that they have entered Hama and are marching toward its center.

“Our forces are taking positions inside the city of Hama,” the channel quoted a local commander identified as Maj. Hassan Abdul-Ghani as saying.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said gunmen have entered parts of the city, mainly the neighborhoods of Sawaaeq and Zahiriyeh to the northwest. It added that gunmen are also on the edge of the northwestern neighborhood of Kazo.

“If Hama falls, it means that the beginning of the regime’s fall has started,” the Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, told The Associated Press.

Hama is a major intersection point in Syria that links that country’s center with the north as well the east and the west. It is about 200 kilometers north of the capital, Damascus, Assad’s seat of power. Hama province also borders the coastal province of Latakia, a main base of popular support for Assad.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the offensive, which began Nov. 27.

- UN says over 115,000 people displaced by Syria fighting -

More than 115,000 people have been "newly displaced" in Syria’s Idlib and Aleppo provinces, a U.N. official said, following the rebel offensive in the north.

"It’s been one week since the conflict escalated in Syria. More than 115,000 people have now been newly displaced across Idlib and northern Aleppo," U.N. deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, David Carden, said in a statement to AFP following a visit to Idlib.

- Islamist chief Jolani visits Aleppo citadel -

The head of Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the rebel offensive that captured Syria’s second city Aleppo last weekend, visited its landmark citadel on Wednesday.

Images posted on the rebels’ Telegram channel showed Abu Mohammed al-Jolani waving to supporters from an open-top car as he visited the historic fortress.