Rebel forces took over the Syrian city of Hama on Thursday, the second major city lost to the rebels since the long-simmering civil war reignited last week.
Militant forces led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) moved into Hama on Thursday, representatives of HTS and the Syrian government told NBC News. The fall of Hama to the rebels, the fourth-largest city in Syria, comes after HTS took the city of Aleppo in a surprise attack last week.
A commander of the rebel forces, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, said that HTS militants took the city and “entered the Hama Central Prison and freed hundreds of unjustly imprisoned individuals.”
Syria’s defense ministry said in a statement posted online that regime forces pulled out of the city “to safeguard the lives of the civilian population in Hama and to avoid involving them in urban combat, the military units stationed there have redeployed and…
