ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We begin this hour in Syria.
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SHAPIRO: In this footage posted to social media, a woman runs into the street in the city of Hama, cheering and weeping with joy. "Thank God. Thank God," she cries, gripping a banner of the Syrian flag.
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SHAPIRO: Hama was once the scene of one of the darkest chapters in Syrian history. In 1982, the Syrian government massacred thousands of people when it sent in troops to crush a rebellion. But this week, people openly celebrated the city's slip from the regime's control.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Until about a week ago, Syria's bloody civil war was at a stalemate after leaving hundreds of thousands of people dead and millions displaced. President Bashar al-Assad's government appeared to control much of the country. But six days ago, in the city of Aleppo...
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CHANG: Cheers of triumph, the scene of rebel soldiers chanting at the historic Citadel of Aleppo. Opposition forces mobilized and eventually took the city in a matter of days after years of regime control.
SHAPIRO: And to the surprise of everyone, government forces retreated, leaving the streets of Aleppo calm, according to Syrian journalist Sara Kassim.
SARA KASSIM: I've seen people walking in the streets as normal, without any scenes of war or without any scenes of blood, without any scenes of violence. They are buying bread, buying in the shops and the markets, buying vegetables. They are doing their routine - their daily routine.
SHAPIRO: Rebel forces then headed south in the direction of the capital, Damascus. Along the way, they've released thousands of opposition supporters who had been imprisoned for years. On Thursday, they seized Hama, and rebels are now moving toward Syria's third-largest city, Homs. NPR's Ruth Sherlock has been following the developments. Hi, Ruth.
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: In just a week, the rebels have taken two major cities and are closing in on a third. Bring us up to date.
SHERLOCK: Well, Ari, yeah, I mean, just to give you a sense of how quickly this is happening, the Syrian opposition forces seem to be making gains literally hour by hour. So like you said, the focus now is on Homs. That's this city in central Syria, and it's really key for the survival of the Assad regime. That's because it cuts the capital, Damascus, off from the coastal province of Latakia, and Lataka is the heartland for the regime. This is where the government's ally, Russia, also controls a major naval base and air base. And while all this is happening and the government is fighting to hold Homs, we're also hearing that the regime has been retreating in other areas - in the northeast region in Deir el-Zour (ph) and in the southern province of Deraa. And there, rebels have advanced on the border crossing with Jordan, and they've overrun a major Syrian army base. We're also hearing of spontaneous rebellions, with people picking up arms to join the opposition, and all of this has just happened today.
SHAPIRO: This has been so much so quickly. What does it mean for the regime? Could the Assad government actually fall? Could the rebels take Damascus?
SHERLOCK: Well, look, there is no doubt that the regime is fighting for its survival at this point. There have been some airstrikes on rebel positions around Homs, and the Syrian military says it's deployed steady and solid defenses to protect the city. But that's not clear, you know, how long these defenses will last. Other towns on the approach to Homs have fallen almost without a fight. And Syrians I've been speaking to today around Homs area are saying that the government is going door to door. Regime officials are going door to door, trying to shore up local support, even apparently currying favor with people they've previously imprisoned for opposing the regime.
SHAPIRO: Wow.
SHERLOCK: And Syrians there say, yeah, this kind of smacks of desperation. And now there have been signs that Iran is sending more military equipment and militiamen to Assad's aid. But the real question here is about Assad's other ally, Russia. And U.S. officials have told NPR that there are indications that Russia may start leaving, with reports that some Russian ships have gone out to sea for their own protection and other reports that they've not deployed, you know, more fighter jets to help the Assad regime.
SHAPIRO: Wow. One reason this is so striking is that, in recent years, there was a sense that Bashar al-Assad had won the war. So why have the rebels suddenly been able to make these gains now?
SHERLOCK: Look, it's a lot of different factors. One is that Assad's allies, Russia and Iran, that really helped prop up the regime - they've been distracted by other conflicts. So Israel has heavily bombarded Iran's militia, Hezbollah, in Syria and in Lebanon, and Russia's war with Ukraine has been a drain on its resources. And then there's the fact that the rebel militias that are fighting now - in particular, this main Islamist group, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS - they've had years to try to get trained and get armed, and they've become quite a formidable fighting force, training during these years of stagnation of the Syrian Civil War.
And it's also that the Assad regime has been crippled by the conflict. You know, many say it's less a government and more a mafia these days. It's relied a lot on drug smuggling for funds, and the economy in government-held areas is destroyed. In fact, life for Syrians there is, in some ways, harder than even at the height of the conflict now. It's hard to find jobs. It's hard to get supplies of many, many different things. One Syrian businessman in Damascus I spoke with who's well connected to the regime describes the regime as rotten. And he says, you know, when there's absolute corruption in a society, it cannot survive.
SHAPIRO: As you mentioned, there are other conflicts in the Middle East right now. If the Assad regime falls, what are the implications for the rest of the region?
SHERLOCK: Well, the implications are huge. You know, this really is a tectonic shift. Assad's falling would be a huge setback for Iran, who uses Syria as a key route to supply Hezbollah, its proxy in Lebanon, with weapons and fighters. And it would be a major blow for Russia that's been trying to build its presence in the Middle East. It's invested a lot in Syria, and it holds this naval base in Tartus that gives it a port on the Mediterranean Sea. And this all makes Turkey, to the north, a much more powerful player in the region. Turkey has funded and trained some of the rebel forces that are fighting now, so this gives them a seat at the table in what comes next in Syria.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Ruth Sherlock. Thank you.
SHERLOCK: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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