Drone footage showed the situation in Hama after Syrian rebels captured the city, striking a devastating blow to President Bashar al-Assad. Syrian rebels have made their swiftest battlefield gains since the civil war began 13 years ago.
Syrian rebels claimed to have seized a key southwestern city close to the border with Jordan as on Saturday they pressed on with a lightning-fast offensive that threatens to further destabilize a region already convulsed by war. The capture of Daraa would mark a symbolic and strategic victory for the rebels as the place where pro-democracy protests in 2011 sparked the country’s ongoing civil war, while it is also an important crossing on the border.
Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, told NBC News on a phone call Saturday that it's 'pretty much the end game for Assad' if the rebels take Homs. 'Once they get Homs, then really Damascus is cut off and they'll all be centered around Damascus and Latakia on the coast.
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