The Turkish backed jihadists terrorists reported late Friday night that they controlled Daraa (south), where the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began. It is the fourth strategic town where government forces have lost control in the past week.

According to sources cited by Reuters, the jihadists have reached an agreement with government forces to withdraw, giving them guarantees of safe passage to the capital Damascus, which is about 100 kilometers away.

So far there has been no official reaction from the Syrian army or the Assad government, with Reuters stressing that it is unable to verify the rebels’ claim.

The capture of the city of Daraa, whose population exceeded 100,000 before the start of the civil war (2011), is highly symbolic as it is considered the cradle of the insurgency. It is the capital of the province of the same name, which has more than one million inhabitants, on the border with Jordan.

It was preceded by the announcement that the jihadists had advanced to the outskirts of the city of Homs (central). If the rebels take Homs, they will cut off the capital Damascus from the coast, where Assad’s Russian allies have a naval and air base. “Our forces have liberated the last community on the outskirts of Homs city and are now at its gates,” the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) said in a message on the Telegram platform.

The jihadist alliance, led by the Islamists of HTS, again called on the forces that remain loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad to defect.

As the rebel advance continues, thousands of Homs residents are fleeing the city in haste, heading towards Latakia and Tartous.