Rebels are ‘marching to Homs’, says Syrian activist

We spoke to Hamza Al Kateeb, a Syrian doctor and activist, who lived through much of the siege of Aleppo and began by asking if he was surprised by the rebels’ advance.

Hamza Al Kateeb: I’m sure those days were like the last kind of two weeks for us in Aleppo during the siege. And it was a surprise because since then, we as Syrians, we were certain that we were let down by the international community. We were let down by any source of hope, of accountability, of all the displacement, the war crimes, the attacks on health care facilities. We were left alone. And all the conversation about normalisation back with the Assad regime from the EU, Italy has re-opened their embassy a few weeks ago, Turkey, the Arab League and we felt here that no one kind of cared about the suffering or the war crimes. And this really changed a lot.

Ayshah Tull: Do you think the next city on the road to Damascus is Homs? Can you see that falling as well? Do you think that’s on the horizon?

Hamza Al Kateeb: If you asked me a month from now, I would say there is no light at the end of the tunnel and just have to raise our voices outside as the diaspora who had to leave our homes. But now I can see myself and my family even returning. They’re marching now to Homs. There are Russian air strikes on some bridges that connect Hama to Homs. So they’re also anticipating that. And the military operation in Syria has announced that their next stop will be Homs. So if Aleppo, then Hama, now it feels like everything is possible.

Ayshah Tull: You say you have some hope that you say everything is possible. Could that be the end of the regime then? Is that what you’re thinking?

Hamza Al Kateeb: Any area that the regime lost is a huge win for humanity. The images of detainees going out from Hama’s prisons and Aleppo’s prisons, if that’s the outcome of what happened, that’s more than enough. There were people that were released today that were imprisoned since 1980. Verified, the command said that they were in prison since then. It’s a hope for everyone. Any fallback of the al-Assad dictatorship is a win for all. And this advance, why I say everything is possible, because Iranian and Hezbollah militias are not supportive of Assad like what happened between 2012 and 2016 and similar like with the Russians, they’re still there and there are still some Russian airstrikes, but not as effective as what we had in Aleppo. That shows what we always said, that the regime is not controlling Syria. It’s actually the Hezbollah militias, the Iranian militias and the Russian military operations.