The Syrian researcher Muhsen AlMustafa at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies explained that the city carries “military, political, and social importance all at once.” Militarily, Homs hosts the military colleges complex, the 11th Division, the 18th Armored Division, and the command of the central region. If the armed factions managed to reach these sites, it would help them “seize larger amounts of weapons,” according to AlMustafa.

Moreover, he told Al-Hurra that Homs “includes a large support base for the Syrian regime from the Alawite community, and if its members positively receive the reassurances sent by the armed factions and remain in their neighborhoods without confrontation, the equation the regime has relied on for many years will be overturned.” AlMustafa believes that “the return of fighters and civilians to it now, after 10 years, would strike a blow to the policy adopted by the Syrian regime.”

The Syrian researcher also pointed out that armed factions’ control over Homs “would mean cutting the regime’s supply lines southward toward the coastal cities of Syria.” It would also sever all the secondary roads linking the coast with the Syrian desert, according to AlMustafa.