Syrian rebels capture second major city as army withdraws from Hama

Vocabulary: 240, Words: 481

1Syria’s army said it is withdrawing from Hama, a symbolic and strategically important central city, marking a second major gain for a newly formed rebel coalition that also captured Aleppo last week.

2“Over the past few hours, with the intensification of confrontations between our soldiers and terrorist groups and the rise of a number of martyrs in our ranks, these groups were able to penetrate several parts of the city and entered it,” the Syrian military said in a statement carried by state news outlet SANA.

3Rebels said they freed hundreds of those “wrongfully detained” from the central prison.

4Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, was recaptured last week by rebel groups after a surprise offensive overran President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and allied militias.

5The offensive was a major setback for Assad and his backers in Iran and Russia, and has reignited a civil war that had been largely dormant for years.

6Hama is strategically located at a key crossroads in western-central Syria, providing direct supply lines between the capital Damascus and Aleppo. 7Rebels had been unable to capture the city since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.

8Abu Mohammad Al Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) – the main rebel group leading the offensive – said his forces entered Hama to “cleanse a 40-year-old wound.”

9Related article Syrian rebels have taken Aleppo, the country’s second biggest city. 10Here’s who they are

14The city holds symbolic significance as it was the site of one of the country’s largest and most brutal massacres in 1982, when President Hafez al-Assad – the current ruler’s father – ordered his military to quash a revolt. 15A 1983 Amnesty International report put the death toll on both sides as between 10,000 and 25,000.

16HTS was formed by Jolani after he dismantled Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate al-Nusra Front in 2016 over ideological differences. 17Jolani then formed HTS in early 2017 and has attempted to rebrand it into a moderate Islamist group.

18Despite Jolani’s effort to distance his new group from al Qaeda and ISIS, the United States designated the HTS a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2018 and placed a $10 million bounty on him.

19The rebels vowed to advance further south, to the city of Homs, another major city about 165 kilometers (100 miles) from the capital Damascus.

20“Our heroic people in Homs, your time has come. 21Declare it a revolution against oppression and tyranny,” said Hassan Abdulghani, the spokesperson for the rebels.

22Syria’s civil war began during the 2011 Arab Spring as the government suppressed an uprising against Assad, who has been president since 2000. 23The country plunged into a full-scale civil war as the protests turned into an armed rebellion.

24Hama was the site of some of the first protests against the Syrian regime during the Arab Spring.

25This is a developing story and will be updated.

from CNN