Their Islamic leader said in an interview published on Friday that the rebel forces are aiming to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad by attacking Syria forcefully. After seizing other major government-held cities, the Islamic-led rebels are on the doorstep of Homs, a war monitor said.

For the first time since the start of the civil war in 2011, Syria's second city, Aleppo, and the strategically located Hama, are out of Assad's control.

If the rebels capture Homs, it will cut off the power center of the capital Damascus from the Mediterranean coast, the main stronghold of the Assad family, which has been ruling Syria for the past five decades. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights War Monitor, as of Friday morning, the rebels were only five kilometers away from the coast of Homs.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the leader of the rebel coalition, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, said that the goal of the attack was to end Assad's regime. 'When we talk about the objective, the goal of the revolution is to overthrow this regime. "We have the right to use all the means available to us to achieve that goal," Joleni said in an interview with CNN. 

HTS is leading the rebel coalition that launched the attack on November 27. It is based on al-Qaeda's Syrian branch but has been trying to improve its image in recent years. According to the Observatory, the Syrian army and Iran-backed forces have "suddenly" withdrawn from Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria and moved into central Syria. Homs is located there. The rebels launched their attack on northern Syria on the same day a ceasefire was implemented in the war between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been an important backer of the Assad government, along with Russia and Iran. Turkey, which backs the opposition, said on Friday it would hold talks with Russia and Iran in Qatar this weekend to discuss the situation in Syria.