Syrian government forces have lost control of Daraa city, a war monitor said, in another stunning blow for President Bashar al-Assad’s rule after rebels wrested other key cities from his grip.
Daraa was dubbed “the cradle of the revolution” early in Syria’s civil war, after activists accused the government of detaining and torturing a group of boys for scribbling anti-Assad graffiti on their school walls in 2011.
While Aleppo and Hama, the two other main cities taken from government control in recent days, fell to an Islamist-led rebel alliance, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“Local factions have taken control of more areas in Daraa province, including Daraa city… they now control more than 90 percent of the province, as regime forces successively pulled out,” the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources around Syria, said late Friday.
