James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

Britain has warned the government of Syria not to use chemical weapons against the insurgent forces seizing territory across the country.

The Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, said that any use of chemical weapons by either Syrian or Russian forces would be “intolerable”.

He was speaking to the Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain, organised by the London-based think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Falconer said the UK was closely monitoring the latest developments and coordinating with partners.

He repeated calls for the protection of civilians to prevent further displacement and disruption of humanitarian access.

“I remain very concerned by the potential for further large scale attacks by the regime or by Russia,” he said. “Any suggestion of the use of chemical weapons would be intolerable.”

Sebastian Usher
BBC Arab Affairs Editor

Image source, Reuters

The mood in Damascus appears to be one of confusion and fear, with many people unable to find out exactly what is going on as rebel factions approach ever closer.

In several suburbs, symbols of the power of the Assad dynasty have been torn down or toppled. The interior ministry says it's creating a ring of steel around the capital.

But government forces have notably failed to provide any such defence in cities, towns and villages that have fallen to rebel factions across the country.

Rumours are swirling over the whereabouts of President al-Assad, with people logging flights in and out of Damascus to work out whether he might have left.

His office has denied all such reports, saying he's still at work in Damascus, but there's been no sign of him.

The Polish embassy in Syria has issued an emergency appeal to all Polish citizens to leave the country immediately.

In a post on social media this evening, the embassy says: "Due to the rapid escalation of the situation, which has quickly spread across the entire territory of Syria, we appeal to all Polish citizens residing in the country to leave immediately."

The embassy also urged its citizens to not enter Syria.

Lyse Doucet
Chief international correspondent

As Syrian rebels close in on Damascus, diplomacy is also intensifying. Emergency talks are taking place in the Qatari capital Doha. Arab foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, have flown into Doha to join their counterparts from Iran, Turkey, and Russia for discussions on this fast-moving situation. The foreign minister of Iraq, who shares their growing concern, is also engaging in this scramble to find a negotiated end to this escalating crisis.

Russia and Iran, President Assad’s major foreign backers, and Turkey, a key supporter of Syrian rebel groups, form part of what is called the Astana Process which was forged in 2017 as a forum to discuss ways forward in Syria. They held their own talks earlier in the day and emphasised the urgent need for a political process. That’s something President Assad has long refused to engage in.

The UN’s Special envoy for Syria Geir Pederson has also been holding urgent meetings here. But many observers assess that the fate of President Assad and his government will soon be decided on the ground.

Earlier, we brought you comments from the UN's envoy to Syria, who said an orderly transition of power "has never been more urgent".

During that briefing, Geir Pedersen also called for "urgent political talks" in Geneva, Switzerland to implement a Security Council resolution seeking a negotiated transition of power between the Syrian government and opposition.

Pedersen said he had spoken to representatives of Iran, Russia, Turkey, the US, France, the UK, Germany and the EU, who were "backing this call".

He added he hopes to announce a date for these talks "very soon".

Aleks Phillips
BBC News

More now from Zaina Shahla, who lives in the centre of Damascus and talks about spoke to me about fear in the capital city.

As we reported earlier, footage on social media suggests there have been anti-Assad protests in the suburbs of Damascus, while there have been claims in the US that these suburbs could fall to the rebels quickly.

She says that aside from these videos, she has not seen any protests in the centre of Damascus - and that different people living in the capital have different views about the rebels.

The fear, she says, comes from a sense of uncertainty.

"We are afraid because we really don’t know what’s going to happen," she said. "Nobody wants to see fighting in Damascus."

Zaina added: "Everything is ambiguous and nothing is clear for anyone."

Her family have remained in Damascus throughout Syria's civil war, and have not considered fleeing - until now.

While they are not planning on leaving yet, Zaina said, "if things escalate in a dramatic way or a dangerous way, maybe we will think about it".

Aleks Phillips
BBC News

A short while ago, I spoke to Zaina Shahla, a 42-year-old journalist living in the centre of Damascus.

She described how the mood of people in the city had transitioned throughout the day, from a "normal" morning to a "sense of fear" as news emerged of rebel fighters approaching the Syrian capital.

Around 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT), people were going "crazy" trying to purchase some last-minute supplies.

"Many shops were closing," Zaina said. "I tried to enter a shop and they closed, they say ‘we are not accepting anyone’. A lot of people were trying to buy bread, some vegetables."

But then, around 18:00 (15:00 GMT), "the streets were somehow empty", she said, and have remained that way since - a sign that "everyone is scared and everyone prefers to go back home – especially people who live, maybe, in the suburbs".

We've been reporting on key territorial gains made by rebel groups in Syria so let's have a look at who they are and the areas they now control.

Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies launched a surprise offensive on 27 November, capturing Aleppo and Idlib in the north-west and later, Hama and the southern area of Deraa.

Aleppo and Idlib provinces have been dominated by HTS - designated a terrorist organisation by the UN, US, Turkey and other countries due to its former ties with al-Qaeda - along with a number of allied rebel factions and jihadist groups.

Turkish-backed factions launched a separate offensive near Aleppo that was controlled by a Kurdish-led militia alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey considers Kurds in Syria as a threat.

More than half a million people have been killed in Syria since a civil war erupted in 2011 when President Bashar al-Assad's government violently cracked down on peaceful pro-democracy protests.

A little earlier, we heard from Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) who say they have a duty to protect government, international and UN offices in Syria.

HTS, along with allied groups, have seized key Syrian cities including Aleppo, Hama, and Deraa since they launched a major offensive last week, and have said their goal is to topple President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Image source, EPA

Image source, Reuters

If you're just joining us, here's what you need to know:

• Syrian rebel groups are closing in on the capital city Damascus, from the north and south
• The office of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is denying that he has fled the capital
• Video footage show protesters tearing down a statue of al-Assad's late father, Hafez al-Assad, in a suburb of Damascus
• An unnamed US official tells our US partner CBS that Damascus is "falling suburb by suburb to the rebels"
• Syria's interior minister says, though, that there is a "very strong military cordon" around Damascus and claims no one will be able to get through it
• Meanwhile, the Israeli military says it is assisting UN forces under attack in Syria to "repel the attack"

Aerial footage shows abandoned aircraft at the military airport in the Syrian city of Hama. Rebels said on Thursday that they took full control of the city.

Hama is home to a million people and is south of Aleppo, which the rebels captured last week after launching a surprise offensive from their stronghold in the north-west.

David Gritten
BBC News

Rebel forces are reportedly approaching Syria’s most notorious military prison, Saydnaya, where thousands of opposition supporters are said to have been tortured and executed, and thousands more could currently be detained.

Photos posted on social media purportedly taken by rebel fighters suggested they were in sight of the prison, external, which is about 30km (18 miles) north of Damascus.

Pro-opposition news outlets also reported that troops from the Syrian army’s 127th Brigade, which is tasked with defending the prison, had withdrawn from the nearby town of Rankhous.

One post on a pro-opposition Telegram channel said that Saydnaya was “within firing range of its liberators and that, God willing, soon all detainees would be liberated”. Another Telegram user wrote: “The human slaughterhouse is within the sights of the mujahidin”.

In 2017, Amnesty International used the phrase “human slaughterhouse” to describe Saydnaya in a report alleging that between 5,000 and 13,000 people had been executed there in total secrecy during the first five years of the civil war.

The human rights group also alleged that the executions had been authorised at the highest levels of the Assad government, and that such practices amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The government at that time dismissed Amnesty's claims as "baseless" and "devoid of truth", insisting that all executions in Syria followed due process.

Jake Lapham
Live reporter

I've just spoken to Rim Turkmani, who is the director of the Syria Conflict Research Programme at the London School of Economics.

She's been in contact with her sister in Damascus, who tells her many shops are closing, supplies are running low and ATMs are out of cash.

"No one knows what’s happening," Turkmani tells me.

Syria's interior minister says the government's security forces have created a "very strong" military cordon around the country's capital and no one will be able to get through it, according to AFP.

Mohammed al-Rahmoun, speaking from Damascus on state TV, says: "There is a very strong security and military cordon on the far edges of Damascus and its countryside, and no one... can penetrate this defensive line that we, the armed forces, are building."

The US-based Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), which is supportive of the Syrian opposition, claims the Syrian capital "will fall quickly".

Briefing the BBC's US partner, CBS News, the SETF's director, Mouaz Moustafa, claims:

• Damascus will likely fall to rebel forces soon, and that the city is effectively surrounded
• That members of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps have left the city
• Russian naval assets are also leaving the country

Both Russia and Iran are key allies of Syria and have provided military support throughout the civil war.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify the SETF's claims.

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

A British minister has warned that the United Kingdom would take “appropriate action” against the Syrian government if it breached what he called “a red line” and used chemical weapons against rebel forces.

Hamish Falconer, the Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, said any use of chemical weapons by either Syrian or Russian forces would be “intolerable”.

He was asked at the Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain how the UK would respond if that happened.

Falconer replied: “I raised chemical weapons specifically just to be clear that they remain a red line for the UK in Syria and indeed internationally….I won’t speculate on what we would do should that be breached but I am raising it because it remains a red line for us. We would take appropriate action if we saw that red line breached.”

The reason Mr Falconer raised the issue was because of the Syrian regime’s track record of using chemical weapons during the civil war. His declaration nonetheless raised eyebrows at the conference.

Delegates said it evoked memories of President Obama’s damaging failure to live up to a similar red line in 2013 when he refused to take military action against President Assad after chemical weapons were used against his own people. But Mr Falconer spoke deliberately and his commitment is now firmly on the record.

Footage from Syria indicative of complete implosion of state securitypublished at 16:39 Greenwich Mean Time 7 December 2024

16:39 GMT 7 December 2024

By Paul Brown

There's been a notable change in the type of footage coming out of Syria in recent days.

In the first week of the rebel advance, we primarily saw armed men in military garb filming themselves in the towns and cities they had just seized.

But in the past few days we've seen more footage of apparently unarmed people in civilian clothes attacking monuments to the Assad dynasty.

In Hama on Thursday night men and women gathered to celebrate the felling of the statue of former president Hafez al-Assad.

At the top of this page you can see verified video from today of a bust of Hafez being torn down by people in Jaramana, less than 5 miles from the centre of Damascus.

In other verified footage, a large Syrian flag is seen being torn down by people in Moadamyeh, just south of the capital.

This shift is perhaps indicative of the complete implosion of the state security.

The United Nations is withdrawing "non-critical" staff from Syria - its humanitarian coordinator for the country, Adam Abdelmoula, has said.

But Abdelmoula insists the UN remains operational in the country, in a statement, he says "recent rumours suggesting that the United Nations is evacuating all staff from Syria are false".

He adds the UN is "strategically reducing its footprint by relocating non-critical staff outside the country".

The move is a "precautionary measure to protect our teams amid evolving circumstances", he says, adding "this is not an evacuation and our dedication to supporting the people of Syria remains unwavering".

The humanitarian situation "continues to deteriorate", he says, saying 370,000 people have been displaced with "many seeking refuge in the northeast and others trapped in front-line areas, unable to escape".

"Civilian casualties, including women and children, continue to rise, underscoring the urgent need for coordinated humanitarian action," he says, calling on all parties to uphold international law.

Image source, Getty Images

The UN's special envoy to Syria says the situation is "changing by the minute" and calls for an orderly transition of power as rebel fighters make sweeping territorial gains against government forces.

Speaking in Doha, Geir Pedersen reiterates his desire "for de-escalation, for calm, for the avoidance of bloodshed and the protection of civilians".

He also urges for "the start of a process that leads to the realisation of the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people".

The Israeli military says it is assisting UN forces in Syria that have come under attack from "armed individuals".

Posting on social media, the Israeli Defense Forces says: "A short while ago, an attack was carried out by armed individuals at a UN post in the Hader area in Syria.

"The IDF is currently assisting the UN forces in repelling the attack.

"The IDF is deployed with reinforced forces in the Golan Heights area and will continue to operate in order to protect the State of Israel and its citizens."

The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau in south-western Syria, about 60km (40 miles) south-west of Damascus. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Six-Day War.

Most of the Syrian Arab inhabitants fled the area during the conflict. An armistice line was established and the region came under Israeli military control.