Il Nuovo Postiglione - Syria rebels say encircling Damascus as govt denies falling back

"Our forces have begun the final phase of encircling the capital, Damascus," said rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, with the Islamist-led alliance that launched the offensive.

The defence ministry flatly denied the army had fled positions near the city.

"There is no truth to news claiming our armed forces, present in all areas of the Damascus countryside, have withdrawn," it said.

Earlier, a war monitor and Abdel Ghani said rebels were within 20 kilometres of Damascus as government forces fall back in the face of the offensive gathering even more momentum.

The Syria Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had ceded more key ground, losing control of all of southern Daraa province and evacuating posts in Quneitra, near the Israel-annexed Golan Heights.

The monitor said government forces were also pulling out of towns as little as 10 kilometres (six miles) from Damascus.

Abdel Ghani said earlier that "our forces were able to control the Saasaa (security) branch in the Damascus countryside. The advance towards the capital continues."

Air strikes and shelling by government forces and their ally Russia killed at least seven civilians near the city of Homs, as the army sought to slow the rebel advance there.

The astounding rebel gains have brought the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies to the doorstep of President Bashar al-Assad's seat of power, just over a week into a renewed offensive in a conflict that had long seemed frozen.

As the rebels seize more territory, they have also sought to reassure those living in areas now under their control.

Abdel Ghani in a statement on Telegram Saturday recognised that the rebels had taken areas where "different religious sects and minorities" live.

"We ask that all sects be reassured... for the era of sectarianism and tyranny has gone away forever," he said.

Minorities have often been persecuted during Syria's long conflict, and HTS's precursor Al-Nusra Front, which was linked to Al-Qaeda, launched deadly attacks on Assad's Alawite minority in Homs early in the war.

The army said it was redeploying in the south where the Observatory said the government had lost control of Daraa province and the key city of the same name, cradle of the 2011 uprising.

An AFP correspondent in Daraa saw local fighters guarding public property and civil institutions on Saturday.

In the central Homs area, a key stepping stone to the seat of power in Damascus, the Observatory said government forces had brought "large reinforcements" and stopped the rebel advance.

An army statement carried by state media said government forces were "redeploying and repositioning" in the southern provinces of Sweida and Daraa.

But both the Observatory and rebels said that government forces no longer controlled any of Daraa province.

After the rebels seized Aleppo and Hama, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, the Britain-based monitor said.

In nearby Quneitra province, government forces "evacuated military and security positions while civil servants left their posts, leaving the province... free of the Syrian army for the very first time", said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

- Evacuation calls -

Daraa and Quneitra are near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, where Israel said it was boosting its troop presence, and Jordan, which late Friday urged its citizens to leave Syria "as soon as possible".

Russia and the United States, which has troops in Syria as part of an anti-jihadist coalition, have also advised their nationals to leave.

Syria's civil war, which began with Assad's crackdown on democracy protests, has killed more than 500,000 people and forced more than half the population to flee their homes.

The HTS-led alliance has made rapid gains in the west since launching its offensive on November 27.

By Friday, the government was also pulling its troops out of Deir Ezzor in the east, with Kurdish-led forces saying they had moved in.

The HTS leader, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, said in an interview published Friday the offensive's aim was to oust Assad.

"The goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal," he told CNN.

HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, it has sought to soften its image in recent years.

The Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which control territory in the east, expressed readiness for dialogue with rival rebels and Turkey, saying the offensive heralded a "new" political reality for Syria.

- 'Syria is ours' -

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a "political solution to the conflict" and for the protection of civilians and minorities, his spokesperson said Friday, in a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Fidan and his Iranian and Russian counterparts discussed Syria in Qatar on Saturday.

Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, said the world had been "surprised" by the speed of the rebel advance, and called for "a political framework" to prevent violence from spiralling.

He also said Assad had failed to "start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people".

At least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed since the offensive began last week, according to the Observatory, while the United Nations said the violence has displaced 370,000 people.

Many of the scenes witnessed in recent days would have been unimaginable earlier in the war.

In Hama, an AFP photographer saw residents set fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall.

"The rebels entered Hama, it was a great joy for us -- something we had been waiting for since 2011," said Maymouna Jawad, expressing her hope that anti-government forces would "liberate" the whole country.

Online footage verified by AFP showed residents toppling a statue of Assad's father Hafez, under whose brutal rule the army carried out a massacre in Hama in the 1980s.

H.Zampino--INP