Tehran, Hezbollah aim to bolster Assad as rebels head to Homs

Iran will send missiles, drones and more advisers to Syria, a senior Iranian official said on Friday as insurgents pushed their lightning offensive south towards the city of Homs in the biggest challenge to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule for years.

Seizing Homs would cut off the capital Damascus from the coast, a longtime redoubt of Assad’s minority Alawite sect and where his Russian allies have a naval base and air base.

After years locked behind frozen front lines, rebel forces have burst out of their northwestern Idlib bastion to achieve the swiftest battlefield advance by either side since a street uprising against Assad mushroomed into civil war 13 years ago.

Assad regained control of most of Syria after key allies - Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group - came to his rescue. But all have recently been weakened and diverted by other crises, giving Sunni Muslim militants a window to fight back.

The head of the Syrian faction leading the assault told CNN that his group aimed to “build Syria” and bring Syrian refugees back home from Lebanon.