AP (“Syrian government falls in stunning end to 50-year rule of Assad family“):
The Syrian government fell early Sunday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a sudden rebel offensive sprinted across government-held territory and entered the capital in 10 days.
Syrian state television aired a video statement by a group of men saying that President Bashar Assad has been overthrown and all detainees in jails have been set free.
The man who read the statement said the Operations Room to Conquer Damascus, an opposition group, called on all opposition fighters and citizens to preserve state institutions of “the free Syrian state.”
The statement emerged hours after the head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus following the remarkably swift advance across the country.
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said the government was ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition and turn its functions over to a transitional government.
[…]
As daylight broke over Damascus, crowds gathered to pray in the city’s mosques and to celebrate in the squares, chanting “God is great.” People also chanted anti-Assad slogans and honked car horns. In some areas, celebratory gunshots rang out.
Soldiers and police officers left their posts and fled, and looters broke into the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense.
Reuters (“Syrian rebels topple President Assad, Russia says he left the country“) adds:
Syrian rebels declared President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster after seizing control of Damascus on Sunday, forcing him to flee and ending his family’s decades of rule after more than 13 years of civil war in a seismic moment for the Middle East.
The Islamist rebels also dealt a major blow to the influence of Russia and Iran in Syria in the heart of the region, allies who propped up Assad during critical periods in the conflict.
The rebels said they had entered the capital with no sign of army deployments. Thousands of people in cars and on foot congregated at a main square waving and chanting “Freedom” from a half century of Assad family rule, witnesses said.
People were seen walking inside the Al-Rawda Presidential Palace, with some leaving carrying furniture from inside. The rebels said prisoners had been freed from a large jail on the outskirts of Damascus where the Syrian government detained thousands.
“We celebrate with the Syrian people the news of freeing our prisoners and releasing their chains,” the rebels said.
Iran’s embassy was also stormed by Syrian rebels, Iran’s English-language Press TV reported.
Hezbollah, which provided crucial support to Assad for years, withdrew all of its forces from Syria on Saturday as rebel factions approached the capital Damascus, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters on Sunday.
BBC (“Where is Bashar al-Assad?“):
Bashar al-Assad has “stepped down” as president and “left Syria”, his ally Russia says, hours after rebel forces took control of the capital Damascus.
The Russian foreign ministry gave no further details about Assad’s whereabouts, but it was the first official statement saying he had fled the country.
Assad has not been pictured since he met Iranian foreign minister in Damascus a week ago. That day, he vowed to “crush” the rebels seizing territory with dizzying speed.
Early on Sunday morning, after their fighters entered the city without resistance, the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies declared that “the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has fled”.
The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, also reported that a plane believed to be carrying Assad “left Syria via Damascus international airport before the army security forces left” the facility. Rami Abdul Rahman said he had information that the plane was meant to take off at 22:00 (20:00 GMT) on Saturday.
The Flightradar24 website did not record a departure around that time, although a Cham Wings Airlines Airbus A320 passenger plane did leave at around 00:56 on Sunday bound for Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The plane landed in Sharjah on time. But a diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates told reporters in Bahrain that he did not know if Assad was in the UAE.
Telegraph (“How the Assad regime fell – and who rules Syria now“) provides some sobering context:
Syria’s north west and Damascus itself now held by a coalition of factions led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
HTS is the single most powerful rebel faction in Syria, with an estimated troop strength of 30,000, and it leads a coalition of Islamist and national groups.
The head of the group is Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, a former Al-Qaeda and Isis member who once fought US troops in Iraq.
HTS is proscribed as a terror organisation by the US and Turkey, with Jolani having a $10 million US bounty on his head.
Human rights groups have documented torture of political opponents in the region of Idlib, which HTS has controlled since the battle lines against the Assad regime froze during the Covid pandemic in 2020.
The group’s prior aims were explicitly jihadist, with it wanting to create some form of hard-line Islamic governance after toppling Assad.
So, the good news is that a brutal dictator has been ousted after a 13-year civil war that has killed some 600,000. He has fled the country, along with his family. There have been reports that the plane crashed but it appears that it was just some sort of transponder malfunction.
From a U.S. foreign policy perspective, Russia, identified as an “acute threat” under the Biden National Security Strategy, and Iran, identified as a “persistent threat” under the same document, are big losers. Ostensible NATO ally Turkey is strengthened. So is American ally Israel, both by virtue of Iran’s weakened role but by the further degradation of Hezbollah. IDF forces have moved into the Golan Heights as a “buffer” against the unrest.
Beyond that, it’s not at all obvious whether this marks the end of the civil war or just a new phase. From the beginning, the various “rebel” factions have had wildly divergent goals. Will they now somehow cooperate? And, if so, for how long?
Throngs of Syrian people have taken to the streets in joyous celebration. They are certainly in a better position than I am to assess the situation. But it’s not at all obvious to me that the follow-on government will be less brutal or more competent.
