Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) - Syria’s embattled government said Saturday it was setting up a ring of steel around Damascus, as rebels on a lightning advance said they were bearing down on the capital.

“There is a very strong security and military cordon on the far edges of Damascus and its countryside, and no one… can penetrate this defensive line that we, the armed forces, are building,” Interior Minister Mohammed al-Rahmoun told state television from the capital.

Earlier, President Bashar al-Assad’s government denied that the army had withdrawn from areas around Damascus.

“Our forces have begun the final phase of encircling the capital,” said rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, of the rebel alliance that launched the offensive.

The leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group which heads the assault, told fighters to prepare to take Damascus, 10 days into a renewed offensive in Syria’s years-long conflict, which had become mostly dormant.

“Damascus awaits you,” HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Telegram, using his real name instead of his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

But the defence ministry insisted: “There is no truth to news claiming our armed forces… have withdrawn” from positions near Damascus.

The Syrian army said that, in addition to the area around Damascus, it was reinforcing positions in the south, and operations against the rebels were beginning in the Hama, Homs and Daraa areas.

AFP has been unable to independently verify some of the information provided by the government and the rebels, as its journalists cannot reach the areas around Damascus where the rebels say they are present.

Residents of the capital described to AFP a state of panic as traffic jams clogged the city centre, people sought supplies and queued to withdraw money from ATMs.

“The situation was not like this when I left my house this morning… suddenly everyone was scared,” said one woman, Rania.

A few kilometres (miles) away, the mood was starkly different. In a Damascus suburb, witnesses said protesters toppled a statue of Assad’s father, the late president Hafez al-Assad.

AFPTV images from Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city, showed abandoned tanks and other armoured vehicles, one of them on fire.

“Although my house was destroyed and despite all these circumstances, I am happy with the liberation of Hama and the liberation of Syria from the Assad regime,” city resident Kharfan Mansour said.

The president’s office denied reports Assad had left Damascus, saying he was “following up on his work and national and constitutional duties from the capital”.

The HTS leader said in a CNN interview on Friday that “the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime”.

- Soldiers ‘fled’ -

As government forces fall back, a war monitor and Abdel Ghani said rebels were within 20 kilometres (12 miles) of Damascus.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had ceded more key ground, losing control of all southern Daraa province, cradle of the 2011 uprising.

The army said it was “redeploying and repositioning” in Daraa and another southern province, Sweida.

The Britain-based Observatory said troops were also evacuating posts in Quneitra, near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

Israel’s military said Saturday it was helping UN peacekeepers in the Syrian part of the Golan to repel an attack “by armed individuals,” while the foreign minister said “armed forces” had entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone.

Jordan has urged its citizens to leave neighbouring Syria “as soon as possible”, as have Assad ally Russia and the United States, which both keep troops in Syria.

An AFP correspondent in Daraa saw local fighters guarding public property and civil institutions.

In Sweida, a local fighter told AFP that after government forces withdrew “from their positions and headquarters, we are now securing and protecting vital facilities”.

In the Homs area, about 140 kilometres from Damascus, the Observatory said government forces had brought in “large reinforcements,” as the army sought to slow the rebel advance.

An Iraqi security source told AFP that Baghdad has allowed in hundreds of Syrian soldiers, who “fled the front lines”, through the Al-Qaim border crossing. A second source put the figure at 2,000 troops, including officers.

- ‘Tired of war’ -

HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, it has sought to soften its image in recent years, and told minority groups living in areas they now control not to worry.

“We ask that all sects be reassured… for the era of sectarianism and tyranny has gone away forever,” said Abdel Ghani.

Since the offensive began, at least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed, the Observatory said.

The United Nations said the violence has displaced 370,000 people.

UN special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, called for “urgent political talks” to implement Security Council Resolution 2254 of 2015, which set out a roadmap for a negotiated settlement.

US President-elect Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that the United States should “not get involved”, after outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Friday for a “political solution to the conflict”, in a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

After Fidan and his Iranian and Russian counterparts discussed Syria in Qatar on Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said they agreed on the initiation of “political dialogue between the Syrian government and legitimate opposition groups”.

Russia’s Sergei Lavrov said it was “inadmissible” to allow a “terrorist group to take control” of Syrian territory.

Moscow and Tehran have supported Assad’s government and army during the war, as has Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

A source close to Hezbollah said it had sent 2,000 fighters into Syria, to an area near the Lebanese border, “to defend its positions”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government backs some armed groups in northern Syria, said Saturday that Syria “is tired of war, blood and tears”.