BEIRUT — Weakened Syrian rebels are making their last desperate stand in Homs, as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad launch their harshest assault yet to expel them from the central city, once known as the capital of the revolution.
Some among the hundreds of rebels remaining in the city talk of surrender, according to opposition activists there. Others have lashed back against the siege with suicide car bombings in districts under government control. Some fighters are turning on comrades they suspect want to desert, pushing them into battle.
“We expect Homs to fall,” an activist who uses the name Thaer Khalidiya said in an online interview. “In the next few days, it could be under the regime’s control.”
The fight for Homs underscores Assad’s determination to rout rebels ahead of presidential elections now set for June 3, which rebels and the United States have characterized as a farce.
Assad’s forces are building on gains elsewhere — they have been able to almost clear rebels from a broad swath of territory. Rebels also have capitulated in several towns around Damascus after blockades that caused widespread hunger and suffering.
“A total loss of Homs would represent a serious loss to the opposition,” said Charles Lister of the Brookings Doha Center. “The military has maintained a steadily significant focus on Homs precisely due to this importance. This has been all been part of a very conscious strategy of encircling, besieging and capturing areas of strategic importance,” particularly urban areas.
An activist in Homs, Abu Rami, said rebels wanting to leave had weakened the spirits of others struggling to bear the blockade.
“They tempted them with food and drink, and saying, ‘Don’t you want to see your families?’ ” he said over Skype. “(It) really did weaken hundreds of them, and it affected the morale of the rest of the rebels.”
Khalidiya said Homs is lost, and now they have to save the fighters.
“We are more scared that the regime (forces) will kill everybody than we are worried about the fall of Homs.”
