Syria updates: Assad forces lose ground on multiple fronts

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for protecting civilians and minorities in Syria during a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Friday.

"Secretary Blinken emphasized the importance of protecting civilians, including members of minority groups, across Syria," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

Blinken and Fidan also discussed the need for a political solution in Syria, according to the State Department, Miller added.

US citizens in Syria should leave the country immediately, the State Department said late on Friday.

The announcement comes as Islamist-led rebels continue their offensive against President Bashar Assad's forces.

"The security situation continues to be volatile and unpredictable with active clashes between armed groups throughout the country," the State Department said in a security alert posted on social media.

"The department urges US citizens to depart Syria now while commercial options remain available."

US citizens who choose not to leave Syria or are unable to do so should have emergency plans in place and be prepared to shelter in place for extended periods of time, the department added.

The Syrian government lost control Friday of the symbolic southern city of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"Local factions have taken control of more areas in Daraa province, including Daraa city... they now control more than 90% of the province, as regime forces successively pulled out," the UK-based war monitor said.

Rebel sources told the Reuters news agency that a deal was reached to allow senior army officials serving in the city to leave with safe passage to Damascus.

Daraa province was the cradle of the 2011 uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad, but it returned to government control in 2018 under a ceasefire deal brokered by Russia.

At least 370,000 people have been displaced by fighting in Syria since November 27, the UN secretary-general's spokesperson said Friday, as rebel forces continue to gain ground.

"Since the escalation of hostilities, at least 370,000 men, women and children, boys and girls, have been displaced, including 100,000 who left their homes more than once," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

"Most of the displaced are women and children."

The fighting has also caused damage to infrastructure and disrupted the flow of urgently needed aid.

Dujarric said that emergency shelters are reaching their limits and as a result, people have resorted to sleeping on the streets or in their cars in sub-zero temperatures as winter sets in.

After the bloody Battle of Aleppo dragged on for years, it was arguably Russia's military involvement, particularly from the air, that turned the tide for Assad's forces.

Once more the Syrian government does not control its second-largest city in the north. 

But now, unlike at the end of 2016, Russian forces are heavily engaged in Ukraine. Does that change their capacity to assist, and how great was it in the first place? 

Read the full story here. 

Wladimir van Wilgenburg writes for the monthly English-language magazine the Kurdistan Chronicle based in Erbil in Iraq. He spoke to DW TV about the developments.  

"It seems it's a matter of time before they take the town," he said of the HTS advance on Homs, although he did note Syria was trying to relocate forces to slow the rebels' march south and reinforce Damascus.

For more on his thoughts on Syrian army withdrawals in other parts of the country, or what the rebel fighters might want or do if they get their wish and reach Damascus and topple Assad, watch the full interview here. 

The strain on Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces amid the rapid advance of Turkish-backed Islamist rebels to the north of Damascus began to show in other parts of the country on Friday. 

With Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces nearing the country's third-largest city, Homs, and threatening to try to cut the capital off from its own coastline and ports, other armed groups took control of government facilities in several provinces. 

First, the Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) said its forces had taken up positions in the few parts of Deir el-Zour city and the province of the same name that it did not previously control. 

Observers reported seeing large columns of Syrian troops departing the city in the direction of Homs and Damascus.

Later on Friday, first reports of armed groups seizing government facilities to the south of Damascus, in Daraa and Sweida provinces, began to emerge from groups like the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights now also reports Assad forces and officials abandoning facilities in the southern governorate of Sweida. 

Local insurgents attacked and gained control of a prison, police and military facilities and offices of Assad's Baath party in or near the city of Sweida, the province's capital, the Observatory said. 

The UK-based Observatory, which relies on a network of local contacts inside war-torn Syria, has long been a core source of information on the country's civil war. 

Sweida borders Daraa in Syria's southwest, where local fighters have similarly seized some facilities and a border crossing to Jordan as Assad's forces withdraw or relocate. 

Both these regions are to the south of Damascus, while the bulk of the fighting has been to its north in recent days.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance led by Kurdish fighters, which had long controlled most of northeastern Syria, advanced into areas of Deir el-Zour province formerly held by Assad's forces on Friday. 

"In order to protect our people, our Deir el-Zour Military Council fighters were deployed in Deir el-Zour city and west of the Euphrates River," the Arab-majority council affiliated with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said in a statement.

Prior to the movements of the last few days, SDF controlled the parts of the region east of the Euphrates. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported columns of Assad forces moving southwest out of the region, headed for the historical desert city of Palmyra along a route that would lead to the capital. 

The oil-producing region of Deir el-Zour borders Iraq and had been a key point of entry for Iranian-backed groups from Iraq fighting alongside Assad's forces.

Armed groups have reportedly taken control of the Nassib-Jaber border crossing with Jordan in Syria's southern Daraa province, to the south of the capital Damascus, the head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told the AFP.

This comes as Assad's forces scrambled to react to the advance to the capital's north. 

"Armed factions seized control of the Nassib border crossing with Jordan, as well as nearby checkpoints and towns," Rahman said. 

Daraa Governorate in southwestern Syria was a rebel bastion at the height of the civil war in the early 2010s.

Reuters news agency cited two rebel sources as saying local fighters and former rebels overran one of the main military bases in the region, known as Liwa 52, near the town of Herak.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Baghdad on Friday for talks with his Iraqi and Syrian counterparts.

He alleged that Islamists, Israel and the US had conspired and "hatched a long-term plot to foment chaos and violence in the region."

"If Syria becomes a safe place for terrorists with the return of  ISIS and other terrorist groups, it will create a great threat to the region," Araghchi told reporters in Baghdad.

Araghchi has visited Syria, Turkey and Iraq in recent days to discuss developments in Syria. 

Iraq's Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said that "all Iraqi security forces are on high alert." 

"We stress the need to protect Iraqi territory and borders and distance Iraq from any terrorist attacks," Hussein said. 

Lebanon's General Security Directorate said the country was closing all land border crossings with Syria, except for a main one along a highway linking the capitals of Beirut and Damascus. 

That crossing is situated well to the south of the areas most hotly contested at present.

The decision from the agency in charge of the borders came hours after an Israeli airstrike damaged the Arida border crossing with Syria in north Lebanon, just days after it was reopened.

Israel's military said it had targeted Hezbollah "weapons-smuggling routes."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday he hoped Syrian rebels would continue making gains, and said he believed it was clear they were trying to move on the capital. 

"So far Idlib, Hama and Homs, and of course the objective, Damascus," Erdogan said. "The advances of the opposition are continuing as of now... Our hope is that this march in Syria continues without any issues." 

Turkey, which has backed the opposition, said it would hold weekend talks in Qatar with Russia and Iran, key backers of Assad, to discuss developments in Syria.

The rebels securing Homs and its wider surroundings, in particular, could prove problematic for Assad and his forces. Doing so could cut the capital off from Syria's coastline and ports.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for an independent investigation into the deaths of two journalists in northern Syria during the rapid rebel advance. 

The head of RSF in Germany, Anja Osterhaus, said crimes against war correspondents "cannot go unpunished."  

Award-winning photojournalist Anas Alkharboutli, who was working for German news agency DPA, was killed during an airstrike near the city of Hama on December 4. 

Mustafa al-Kurdi, working for Turkish state media TRT and for Focus Aleppo, was killed in Aleppo on November 30. RSF said he was shot by forces loyal to Assad while in a car.

"The heinous murders of Anas Alkharboutli, killed in an air strike, and Mustafa al-Kurdi, murdered by Bashar al-Assad's army, both took place as fighting between opposition groups and the regime's forces began," Jonathan Dagher, the head of RSF's Middle East Desk, said. 

"Independent investigations must be launched immediately to determine who is responsible for these crimes and bring them to justice," he said. 

Dagher also said that Assad's dictatorship was "responsible for the vast majority of the deaths of 194 journalists massacred in the line of duty since the start of the 2011 revolution and the war that followed." 

Jordan has closed its only border crossing into Syria, the kingdom's interior minister said on Friday.

Mazen al-Faraya announced "the closure of the Jaber border crossing opposite the Syrian Nassib crossing as a result of the surrounding security conditions in Syria's south."

Jordanians and Jordanian trucks would still be allowed to return via the crossing, officials said. But no one would be allowed to cross into Syria.