Syrian Army withdraws from Damascus Airport

Damascus International Airport was evacuated of all employees and all flights were cancelled, Sham FM station said.

This comes at a time when armed opposition factions said that they had begun entering the capital Damascus without any indication of the army's deployment.

Media loyal to the armed factions announced, Sunday, the start of the withdrawal of government forces from Damascus International Airport "suddenly", after the armed opposition took full control of the city of Homs, from which the Syrian army forces withdrew.

After the armed factions announced their full control of the city of Homs, the third largest city in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, at dawn on Sunday, the withdrawal of government forces from Damascus International Airport.

The director of the observatory, Rami Abdul Rahman, explained that "orders were issued to the military and officers at the airport to leave their positions for the capital.

On Saturday evening, the armed factions announced their complete control over the city of Homs. This came after they announced a few hours ago that they had penetrated Homs and begun combing its neighborhoods, in addition to releasing more than 3,500 prisoners from the Homs Central Prison located north of the city.

Government forces withdrew from positions in Homs in agreement with the factions on safe corridors.

It is noteworthy that controlling Homs means cutting off the capital Damascus from the Syrian coast, where the Alawite sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs is concentrated, and which includes a naval base and a Russian air base.

Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and the armed factions had taken control of the city of Aleppo a few days ago, then Hama. Local armed factions also took control of Daraa in the south of the country, in addition to Sweida.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish "Syrian Democratic Forces", supported by the United States, took control of Deir ez-Zor Governorate.