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Government forces were also reported to have launched airstrikes on Tuesday to try to blunt the rebel thrust into the city.

It was unclear Tuesday whether the insurgents could retain control of Raqqa.

But if they could, it would be the first provincial capital completely taken over by the armed resistance. For the government, the loss of Raqqa would diminish the prospects that President Bashar al-Assad's military, now fighting on a number of fronts, could retake large areas of northern and eastern Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in Britain, said on Tuesday that parts of Raqqa — a strategic city of some 500,000 people on the Euphrates River, 50 miles south of the border with Turkey — were "still under regime control."

"Fierce clashes are still raging between regime forces and rebels near ammunition depots in the north of Raqqa," the Observatory said.

Activists said fighting was still raging around an intelligence building in the city which the Observatory said had been attacked in two government airstrikes after rebel forces overran it on Monday. By the opposition account, 17 rebels were killed and "dozens" of government soldiers were captured. In the surrounding province of Raqqa, other activists said, rebel units fired mortars at a government air base at Tabaqa.

The claimed capture of Raqqa came after days of heavy clashes.

Rebel videos uploaded on the Internet showed activists smashing a statue of President Assad's father, Hafez, in the central square to celebrate their victory.

The Observatory quoted a lawyer in Raqqa as saying that the rebels had captured the provincial governor, Hasan Jalali, and the secretary general of the Raqqa branch of Mr. Assad's ruling Baath Party, Suleiman al-Suleiman. Rebel video posted on the Internet purported to show the two men in captivity, but it was not possible from the brief and indistinct clip to verify their identities.

If confirmed, the men would be among the highest-ranking officials detained by insurgents. Activists said on Tuesday that the captives were being questioned by fighters from the jihadist Al Nusra Front, a Sunni insurgent force in Syria that has become known for its audacious attacks on government targets, and which American officials have blacklisted as a terrorist organization.

Earlier Monday, anti-Assad activists reported heavy fighting in Homs between rebels and government forces backed by tanks and warplanes.

The clashes in Homs, a central Syrian city that had been quiet recently, seemed to shift attention from the northern city of Aleppo, where fighting had swirled for days around the Khan al-Asal police academy. Both sides in the civil war, which has claimed an estimated 70,000 lives, acknowledged relatively high death tolls there.