After Qusair, Syrian Army Sets Sights on Heartland With fresh momentum from the capture of a strategic town in western Syria, President Bashar Assad's forces have turned their sights to driving rebel fighters from the country's densely populated heartland, including the cities of Homs and Aleppo. The latest battlefield success, due in large part to Lebanese Hezbollah fighters' increasing role and the West's continued reluctance to arm the rebels, raises the possibility that Assad can cling to power for years, even if he won't be able to recapture all of the country. Government troops pressed ahead Thursday with an aggressive military offensive in Homs province, seizing control of the village of Dabaa just north of Qusair, near the border with Lebanon. Hundreds of rebel fighters who had been entrenched in Qusair for more than a year fled Wednesday after a punishing three-week assault, retreating to surrounding areas. The regime triumph in Qusair, a key crossroads town of supply lines between Damascus and western and northern Syria, showcased the potentially game-changing role of Hezbollah in Syria's civil war and was openly celebrated in the militant group's strongholds in Lebanon and in Damascus, the seat of Assad's power. Syrian state-run media portrayed Qusair's fall as a turning point in the more than two-year civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people. In reality, though, it's unlikely that Assad will be able to roll back rebel gains across the country. Dozens of rebel fighter brigades have taken unquestioned control of huge swathes of territory in the country's north and east, setting up local councils and Islamic courts to administer affairs in towns and villages. Kurds have all but carved out their own separate existence in the country's northeast. At best, Assad will continue to preside over a divided country, with armed militias ruling over ethnic fiefdoms. A violent insurgency is likely to continue even in areas where the regime regains control. But if the regime continues to enjoy the strong backing of allies Hezbollah, Russia and Iran, Assad could try to reassert himself in much of Syria, even if he can't win back all of the country. Josef Holliday of the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said he believes Assad is not aiming for outright victory over the rebels in all of Syria. "The objective is survival in what they (regime loyalists) consider the strategically important parts of Syria, with the majority of the population," he said. Following the victory in Qusair, the regime's next targets are rebel-held areas in and around the city of Homs, a government official told The Associated Press. As Syria's third-largest city and one-time epicenter of the uprising, Homs holds both strategic and symbolic importance for the regime. In April 2011, one month after the uprising against Assad began, protesters gathered at central Clock Square in Homs, bringing mattresses, food and water in hopes of emulating Cairo's Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution. The peaceful, mass protests eroded Assad's narrative that the uprising was the work of "terrorists" and "armed thugs," and were quickly put down. Since then, the predominantly Sunni city, with Christian and Alawite minorities, has come under crushing attack on numerous occasions.