Insurgents who overthrew the Syrian government said Tuesday that they have wrested control of the eastern city of Deir Ezzor after intense battles with a Kurdish-led, US-backed force.
Hassan Abdul-Ghani, a senior commander of the jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which leads the insurgent alliance, said that the rebel forces completely took control of the city.
A member of HTS said in a recorded video that the group would soon conduct a thorough sweep of the city’s neighborhoods to secure the area, adding that the strategic nearby town of Boukamal has also fallen to opposition forces.
“We will advance toward Raqqa and Hasakah and other areas in eastern Syria,” the HTS fighters said.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had only held the city for a few days. The SDF said it deployed to Deir Ezzor and west of the Euphrates River on Friday, replacing Syrian government forces.
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At the time, the SDF said its fighters were not in control of the Boukamal border crossing with Iraq, which Israel has struck numerous times over the years to thwart arms transfers to Iran-linked groups.
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi, speaks during a press conference in Syria’s northeastern city of Hasakeh on December 6, 2024. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)
The Assad regime, which fell on Sunday after a lightning offensive by rebel forces, was an ally of the Iranian regime, and a part of its so-called Axis of Resistance against Israel.
For many years, Syria was used as a throughway for Iranian weapons, en route to terror groups including Hezbollah in Lebanon, with which Israel entered a shaky ceasefire last month.
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Following the regime’s fall, Israel moved to destroy regime weapons sites before they could fall into the hands of forces hostile to the country, with the military estimating Tuesday it had destroyed some 70-80 percent of the former regime’s strategic military capabilities.
Earlier Tuesday, top US military commander for the Middle East Gen. Erik Kurilla visited with US military commanders and troops as well as the SDF.
It wasn’t clear if he met with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi, and US Central Command did not respond to a request for details about his visit or with whom he met. US officials said they did not know what his message to the SDF was.
The US has about 900 troops in Syria, including forces working with Kurdish allies in the northeast to prevent any resurgence of the Islamic State group.
In a press release, Central Command said Kurilla received an “assessment of force protection measures, the rapidly evolving situation, and ongoing efforts to prevent ISIS from exploiting the current situation.”
Kurilla then went on to Iraq, where he met with leaders in Baghdad.
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This handout image made available by the Telegram channel of the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria’s new transitional prime minister Mohammad al-Bashir chairing a meeting of the new cabinet in Damascus on December 10, 2024. (Stringer/SANA/AFP)
The caretaker Syrian government, which will oversee the country’s affairs until March, held its first meeting Tuesday since overthrowing Assad.
It was attended by the departing Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi Jalali and other ministers along with new Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir. He had led the so-called “salvation government” in areas controlled by HTS-led rebel groups that have taken control of much of the country.
“We were tasked by the general command with managing the affairs of the Syrian government during a transitional period,” Bashir said in a statement following the meeting in Damascus. He added that he hopes ministers in the former Syrian government will assist the new government during this transitional period.
“The caretaker government was formed from a number of ministers of the revolutionary government, which is the Syrian Salvation Government, and this government is a temporary caretaker government that will last until March 2025, until the constitutional issues are resolved,” Bashir said.