Syrian rebels ENTER Damascus & topple statue after seizing key cities as butcher Assad holes up in presidential palace

SYRIAN rebels have reached the suburbs of Damascus and toppled a statue as Bashar al-Assad holes up in his presidential palace.

Rebels attacking from the south now claim to control the southern neighbourhood of Darayya as they get closer to overthrowing the dictator.

The militants' lightning advance has been unprecedented - seizing key cities, towns, and now parts of the capital as regime collapses.

A statue of Assad's father Hafez was toppled in Damascus' eastern suburb of Jaramana, footage on social media shows.

Protesters ripped the head off the giant bust, just six miles from the centre of the city, before attacking posters of Assad and demanding security forces leave the area.

Assad's family has fled to Russia and Egypt has asked the tyrant to form a government in exile, the Wall Street Journal reports.

But butcher Assad claims to still be in the capital and working, the Syrian state news agency said, as the rebels bear down on him.

The UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pederson says the situation in the country is changing by the minute and called for peace talks.

Regime forces have withdrawn from a Syrian Air Force base in the southwest of Damascus as rebel fighters also attack a prison.

It is the first time Assad has been militarily challenged in the city since 2018 after the civil war began in 2011.

His 24-year rule appears to be coming to an end as his own troops flee and the rebels breath down his neck.

Turkish-backed Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HST) and allies launched an offensive on Assad's government from the northwest corner of the country last week.

They quickly captured Aleppo and have continued advancing south - breaching defences and entering the key city of Homs today.

But southern rebels, who are known as the Southern Operations Room, rose up at the same time and struck north in a coordinated offensive with HTS.

Towns across the south have been handed over to local rebels as regime forces withdraw to protect Damascus.

Syrian dictator Assad, who used nerve gas on his own people in 2013, continues to hold parts of the west and centre of Syria.

But that might not matter if Assad is booted out of Damascus, captured, or killed by the rebels who have entered the city.

Southern militants took the major southern city of Daraa on Friday evening and allowed government forces to retreat back to Damascus.

Yesterday and today those rebels have continued to capture smaller villages and towns on the road to the capital as government forces withdraw.

Some 2,000 of Assad's troops fled across the border to Iraq.

Rebels now control Syria's border with Israel and almost the entire southwest of the country.

The southern rebels claim to also hold a number of towns in the Damascus countryside.

Earlier, the Syrian military said it was repositioning in the south, without acknowledging territorial losses, and denied it was withdrawing from areas near Damascus.

In a statement they said: "Our forces operating in Daraa and as-Suwayda implemented a redeployment, repositioning and established a strong and cohesive defensive and security cordon in that direction."

But war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the "entire surroundings of Damascus" had seen the withdrawal of regime forces.

The Syrian military has denied the claim about withdrawing around Damascus.

A spokesperson labelled the claim “a false media campaign… by armed terrorist organizations… with the aim of spreading panic and fear among civilians in the Damascus countryside.”

Since HTS' sweep into Aleppo a week ago, government defences have crumbled across the country at dizzying speed.

Rebels rose up in places where the rebellion had long seemed over, like Daraa - which was the cradle of the 2011 revolution.

In cities captured by the rebels, statues, signs, and paintings of the Assad family are being torn down and shot at.

Meanwhile, HST is now bearing down on the city of Homs - the site of a brutal three-year-long siege earlier in the civil war.

Government defences are focused on Homs, with state television and Syrian military sources reporting massive air strikes on rebel positions and a wave of reinforcements arriving to dig in around the city.

HST have breached those defences and now entered the north and east of the city, Reuters reports.

On Thursday, HST captured the key city of Hama allowing them to move further down the road towards Homs and capturing the centre of the country.

Another rebel group has seized the historic desert city of Palmyra after government troops withdrew to defend Homs.

Assad has also lost the eastern city of Deir al-Zor to rebels.

Earlier in Syria's civil war, Assad was saved by Russia and Iran who used their proxy forces and air superiority to beat back the rebels.

But, Vladimir Putin doesn't have a plan to save Assad and doesn't see one emerging as government troops continue to give up the fight, Bloomberg reports.

The Kremlin has helped Assad with airstrikes to defend against this offensive, but it is too invested in Ukraine to throw much weight behind its ally.

It is not yet clear what will happen with Russia's two military bases in the country: Khmeimim Air Base and Tartus Naval Base.

Russia has withdrawn its vessels from Tartus, the home of its Mediterranean fleet, but claims it is for exercises.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today claimed Russia is "trying to do everything not to allow terrorists to prevail, even if they say that they are no longer terrorists."

Meanwhile, Iran has begun to withdraw its military commanders from the country as another of its allied forces crumble.

HST rebels said they were "at the walls" of Homs after taking the last village on its northern outskirts late on Friday.

Inside Homs, a resident told Reuters the situation had felt normal until Friday, but had grown more tense with the sound of airstrikes and gunfire clearly audible and pro-Assad militia groups setting up checkpoints.

The resident said: "They are sending a message to people to keep in line and that they should not get excited and not expect Homs to go easily."

Seizing Homs, a key crossroads between the capital and the Mediterranean, would cut off Damascus from the coastal stronghold of Assad's minority Alawite sect.

A Syrian military officer said there was a lull in fighting on Saturday morning after a night of intense airstrikes on the rebels.

Ahead of the rebel advance, thousands of people fled Homs towards the coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, strongholds of the government, residents and witnesses said.