The Syrian Army said it was redeploying troops "to preserve civilians lives and prevent urban combat" after Islamist-led rebels entered the key city of Hama, another loss for the country's president, Bashar al-Assad, as well as his allies in Russia and Iran.
"Over the past few hours, with the intensification of confrontations between our soldiers and terrorist groups...these groups were able to breach a number of axes in the city and entered it," a Syrian Army statement said on December 5.
Hama, Syria's fourth-largest city, is key to the defense of Damascus and the gateway to the coastal cities of Tartus and Latakia, the former being home to a strategic Russian naval base.
Syrian and Russian forces had shelled the rebels a day earlier and used air strikes to try and stop their advance.
"With that (advance in Hama), Assad's in real trouble. Homs is next & its countryside is FAR more amenable to facilitating an opposition advance," Charles Lister, a senior fellow and the director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute, wrote on X.
The rebels, led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have made major advances over the past several days, including the capture of Aleppo, the country's largest city, as well as 14 central villages and towns, and gotten as close as 35 kilometers from the Russian-operated Khmeimim air base.
Syria turned over the air base to Russia in 2015 as Moscow moved in to help Damascus turn the tide of a four-year civil war in its favor.
Besides HTS, the rebels also include an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army.
The United Nations has said tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced by the fighting.