There were celebrations across Syria on Sunday and crowds vandalized the luxurious home of President Bashar al-Assad after Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus and announced he had fled the country, ending five decades of rule by the Baath party. It’s a glorious end to the reign.
Assad’s whereabouts were not immediately clear, but his key backer Russia said he had resigned from the presidency and left Syria.
Residents of the capital were seen celebrating in the streets as rebel groups announced the departure of “tyrant” Assad, saying: “We declare the city of Damascus free.”
AFPTV footage showed plumes of smoke rising from central Damascus, and AFP correspondents in the city saw dozens of men, women and children wandering around Assad’s palatial home after it was looted.
The rooms of the residence were left completely empty, some furniture and a photograph of Assad were thrown on the floor, while an entrance hall of the presidential palace a short distance away was set on fire.
“I can’t believe I’m living this moment,” a crying Damascus resident, Amer Batha, told AFP by phone.
“We have been waiting for this day for a long time,” he said. “We are starting a new history for Syria,” he said.
News of Assad’s departure comes less than two weeks after the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group challenged the Assad family’s more than five decades of rule with a powerful attack.
The rebel groups said, “After 50 years of oppression under the Ba’ath regime, and 13 years of crimes and atrocities and (forced) displacement… we today declare the end of this dark period and the beginning of a new era for Syria.” We do.” Telegram.
Although there has been no communication from Assad or his party regarding his whereabouts, Prime Minister Mohammed al-Jalali said he was ready to cooperate with “any leadership chosen by the Syrian people.”
“Assad left Syria through Damascus International Airport before military forces left,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of war monitoring at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.
AFP is unable to independently verify some of the information provided by various parties, including reported departures.
prisoners were freed
Across the country, people toppled statues of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s father and founder of the government system he inherited.
In Syria for the past 50 years, even the slightest suspicion of dissent could land someone in jail or murdered.
As rebels entered the capital, HTS said its fighters breached a prison on the outskirts of Damascus and declared “the end of the era of torture in Sednaya prison”, the worst of the Assad era. Has become synonymous with deep abuses. ,
The rapid developments came just hours after HTS said it had captured the strategic city of Homs, where prisoners were also released.
Homs was the third major city seized by rebels, who began their advance on November 27, resuming a year-old war that had been largely dormant.
The White House said US President Joe Biden is keeping a close eye on “extraordinary events” in Syria.
US President-elect Donald Trump said Assad had “fled his country” after losing Russia’s support.
Assad’s regime was also supported for years by the Lebanese group Hezbollah, whose forces “vacated their positions around Damascus”, a source close to it said on Sunday.
‘Syria is ours’
Rebel groups broadcast a statement on Syrian state television, saying they had overthrown the “tyrant” Assad and urging fighters and civilians to protect “the property of the independent Syrian state.”
State TV later broadcast a message declaring “the victory of the great Syrian revolution”.
HTS’s Islamist leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani arrived in Damascus on Sunday, according to the rebels.
HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.
Banned as a terrorist organization by Western governments, it has tried to soften its image in recent years, telling minority groups living in areas under its control not to worry.
Ahead of Sunday’s announcements, Damascus residents told AFP of a state of panic as traffic jams snarled in the city center as people searched for supplies and lined up to withdraw money.
But morning celebrations were marked by gunfire and chants of “Syria is ours, not the Assad family.”
Before Damascus, a series of towns and cities fell to Assad, including the northern city of Aleppo.
The commander of Syria’s US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls much of northeastern Syria, hailed a “historic” moment with the fall of Assad’s “authoritarian regime.”
In a sign of the complexity of Syria’s war, Israel struck a Syrian army weapons depot on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources across the country.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the overthrow of Assad was “…a historic day in the Middle East” and the fall of “the central link in Iran’s axis of evil.”
“This is a direct result of our strikes on Iran and Hezbollah, Assad’s main supporters,” he said.
The rebel offensive began on the same day a ceasefire took effect in Lebanon after nearly a year of war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The UN envoy for Syria said Syria was at “a decisive moment”, while Turkey, which has historically supported the opposition, called for a “smooth transition”.
Iran, a key supporter of Assad during the civil war, said it expected “friendly” relations to continue with Syria, despite the vandalism to its embassy in Damascus.
Jordan urged its citizens to leave neighboring Syria “as soon as possible”, as have the United States and Russia, which both maintain troops in Syria.
The Observatory said at least 826 people have been killed since the rebel offensive began, mostly fighters but also 111 civilians.
The United Nations said 370,000 people have been displaced by the violence.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
