Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) - Syrian rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani sought to reassure religious minorities on Saturday after Islamist-led fighters snatched key cities and swathes of territory from government control.

His comments online came a little over a week into a lightning offensive led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, who was last seen in images released by his office from a Sunday meeting with Iran’s foreign minister in Damascus.

Abdel Ghani, a senior commander in the rebel alliance and its spokesman, recognised in a statement on Telegram that the rebel forces had seized areas where “different religious sects and minorities” live.

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

Key urban centres seized in recent days include second city Aleppo, which has a Christian community, and Hama, whose nearby towns are home to members of the Ismaili sect.

Homs, where the rebel advance is meeting government resistance, is also home to a sizeable Alawite minority, who share Assad’s faith.

Minorities have often been persecuted over the course of Syria’s long conflict, and HTS’s precursor Al-Nusra Front, which was linked to Al-Qaeda, had carried out deadly attacks on Alawites in Homs early in the war.

On the ground, Syria’s army said Saturday it was redeploying in the south, where according to a war monitor the government had lost control of the key city of Daraa, the cradle of the country’s 2011 uprising.

An AFP correspondent there saw local fighters guarding public property and civil institutions on Saturday morning.

In the central Homs area, a key passage to the seat of power in Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said government forces had brought “large reinforcements” and stopped the rebels’ advance.

An army statement carried by Syrian state media said that government forces were “redeploying and repositioning” in two southern provinces, including Daraa.

But both the Observatory and rebels said Saturday that government forces no longer controlled any of the province.

While Aleppo and Hama were seized by Islamist-led rebels, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, according to the Britain-based monitor.

Early Saturday, Syria’s army said it was “beginning to regain control in Homs and Hama provinces”.

- Evacuation calls -

Daraa province borders the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, where Israel said it was boosting its troop presence, and Jordan, which late Friday urged its citizens to leave Syria “as soon as possible”.

Russia, an important military backer of Assad, and the United States, which has troops in Syria as part of an anti-jihadist coalition, have also advised their nationals to leave.

Syria’s civil war, which began with Assad’s crackdown on democracy protests, has killed more than 500,000 people and forced more than half the population to flee their homes.

The HTS-led alliance has made rapid gains in the west since launching its offensive on November 27.

By Friday, the government was also pulling its troops out of Deir Ezzor in the east, with Kurdish-led forces saying they had moved in to take control of the territory.

The leader of HTS, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, said in an interview published Friday that the aim of the offensive was to oust Assad.

“The goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal,” Jolani told CNN.

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.

Jolani, who visited Aleppo’s landmark citadel on Wednesday, urged his fighters to “calm the concerns of our people, from all communities”, in a statement on Telegram.

“Aleppo has always been a meeting point for civilisations and cultures, and it will remain so,” he said.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who are backed by the United States and control territory in the east, expressed readiness for dialogue with rival rebels and Turkey, saying the offensive heralded a “new” political reality for Syria.

- ‘Syria is ours’ -

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a “political solution to the conflict” and for the protection of civilians and minorities, his spokesperson said Friday, in a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Fidan was in Qatar on Saturday for discussions on Syria with his Iranian and Russian counterparts.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, said the world had been “surprised” by the speed of the rebels’ advance, calling for “a political framework” to prevent violence from spiralling.

He also said Assad had failed to “start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people” during a period of calm in the country’s war.

At least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed since the offensive began last week, according to the Observatory’s figures, while the United Nations said the violence has displaced 370,000 people.

Many of the scenes witnessed in recent days would have been unimaginable earlier in the war.

In Hama, an AFP photographer saw residents set fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall.

“The rebels entered Hama, it was a great joy for us – something we had been waiting for since 2011,” said resident Maymouna Jawad, expressing her hope that anti-government forces would “liberate” the whole country.

Online footage verified by AFP showed residents toppling a statue of Assad’s father Hafez, under whose brutal rule the army carried out a massacre in the city in the 1980s.