Assad’s forces are reportedly engaged in fierce battles with rebels on the outskirts of the major city of Hama. A monitoring group said on Tuesday evening that the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies were “at the gates of Hama”,

The latest flareup in Syria's long civil war comes after forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad over the past few days captured large parts of the northern city of Aleppo, the country's largest, as well as towns and villages in southern parts of the northwestern Idlib province.

Intense airstrikes overnight drove Syrian rebels back from the edge of Hama, a major city whose fall would pile pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, both sides said on Wednesday.

At least 27 people have been killed in fighting near the Syrian city of Hama between rebels and government forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Clashes left 17 government personnel and eight rebels from the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) killed.

Syrian rebels said they had made it to around six miles from Hama city, as the regime said its army was launching an offensive to drive them back

Syrian rebel forces arrived at the gates of the key city of Hama on Tuesday, as their fighting with the military sparked "a large wave of displacement", a war monitor said.

The rebels have set their sights on an area where President Bashar al-Assad’s government has long maintained strength.

Over the course of a few days, opposition fighters are now in control of Aleppo and have pushed into several towns in the countryside near Syria's fourth largest city, Hama. Damascus is concerned - President Assad has vowed to defeat the operation.

Syrian rebels advanced toward Hama on December 1 as regime forces “sent large reinforcement” to the governorate, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.Rebel forces captured the towns of Kafr Zita,