People near one of Hama's water wheels after the capture of the central Syrian city by Islamist rebels, Dec. 6, 2024. (Credit: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP)
Syria's army said it was redeploying in two southern provinces on Saturday, after a war monitor reported government forces had lost control of most of Daraa province, the cradle of the country's 2011 uprising.
"Our forces operating in Daraa and Sweida are redeploying and repositioning and establishing a ... security cordon in that direction after terrorist elements attacked remote army checkpoints," the General Command of the Army and Armed Forces said in a statement carried by state media.
On Friday evening, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) war monitor said local factions had taken control of more than 90 percent of Daraa, including the eponymous city.
In neighboring Sweida, the Britain-based SOHR and local media said the governor, the police and prison chiefs, and the local ruling Baath Party leader had left their offices as local fighters took control of several checkpoints.
The army's statement said it was "beginning to regain control in Homs and Hama provinces in the face of terrorist organiZations," as rebels who launched a stunning offensive last week, taking key cities Aleppo and Hama, battled troops near Homs.
Sweida is the heartland of Syria's Druze minority and has witnessed anti-government demonstrations for more than a year.
Damascus has turned a blind eye to tens of thousands of Druze men refusing to undertake compulsory military service. The vast majority of them have not taken up arms against the government.
Daraa was dubbed "the cradle of the revolution" early in Syria's civil war, after activists accused the government of detaining and torturing a group of boys for scribbling anti-Assad graffiti on their school walls in 2011.
However, Daraa returned to government control in 2018 under a cease-fire deal brokered by Russia. Former rebels there who accepted the 2018 deal were able to keep their light weapons.
Daraa province has been plagued by unrest in recent years, with frequent attacks, armed clashes and assassinations, some claimed by the Islamic State group.
While Aleppo and Hama, the two other main cities taken from government control in recent days, fell to an Islamist-led rebel alliance, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, according to the SOHR.
"Local factions have taken control of more areas in Daraa province, including Daraa city ... they now control more than 90 percent of the province, as regime forces successively pulled out," the SOHR, which relies on a network of sources around Syria, said late Friday.
Daraa province borders Jordan.
On Friday, Jordan closed its only passenger and commercial border crossing into Syria, the interior ministry said.
A Syrian army source told Reuters that armed groups had been firing at Syria’s Nassib border crossing into Jordan. "Armed groups who infiltrated the crossing attacked Syrian army posts stationed there," the source added.
He said dozens of trailers and passengers were now stranded near the area.
Jordan's interior minister said Jordanians and Jordanian trucks would be allowed to return via the crossing, known as the Jaber crossing on the Jordanian side, while no one would be allowed to cross into Syria