After seizing control of two key towns on the route that connects it to Hama, rebels were only five kilometres (three miles) from the third city, Homs, according to a war monitor for Syria on Friday.
After taking control of the towns of Rastan and Talbisseh, “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions have reached five kilometres from the outskirts of Homs city,” according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The rebels would be able to “cut off the main road leading to the Syrian coast,” which is the stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority.
