Syrian insurgents say they have entered city of Hama after fierce fighting

Syrian state media confirmed violent clashes between government forces and opposition gunmen on the eastern edges of Hama city but denied that the insurgents had breached it.

Hama is one of the few cities that remained under full government control during Syria's conflict, which broke out in March 2011 following a popular uprising. Its capture would be a major setback for President Bashar Assad.

The offensive is being led by the jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham as well as an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Their sudden capture of the northern city of Aleppo, an ancient business hub, was a stunning prize for Assad's opponents and reignited the conflict which had been largely stalemated for the past few years.

Aleppo's takeover marked the first opposition attack on the city since 2016 when a brutal Russian air campaign retook it for Assad after rebel forces had initially seized it. Intervention by Russia, Iran Iranian-allied Hezbollah, and other militant groups has allowed Assad to remain in power.

The latest flare-up in Syria's long civil war comes as Assad's main regional and international backers are preoccupied with their own wars.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the renewed fighting, which began with the surprise opposition offensive on November 27.

The insurgents claimed on their Military Operations Department channel on the Telegram app Thursday that they have entered Hama and are marching toward its centre.

"Our forces are taking positions inside the city of Hama," the channel quoted a local commander identified as Maj. Hassan Abdul-Ghani said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said gunmen have entered parts of the city, mainly the neighbourhoods of Sawaaeq and Zahiriyeh to the northwest. It added that gunmen are also on the edge of the northwestern neighbourhood of Kazo.

"If Hama falls, it means that the beginning of the regime's fall has started," the Observatory's chief, Rami Abdurrahman, told The Associated Press.

Hama is a major intersection point in Syria that links that country's centre with the north as well as the east and the west. It is about 200 kilometres north of the capital, Damascus, Assad's seat of power. Hama province also borders the coastal province of Latakia, a main base of popular support for Assad.

The city's name is synonymous with the 1982 massacre of Hama, one of the most notorious in the modern Middle East, when security forces under Assad's late father, Hafez Assad, killed thousands to crush a Muslim Brotherhood uprising.