Syrian rebels led by Islamic radicals announced on Syrian public television the fall of President Bashar al-Assad and the “liberation” of the capital Damascus, following a major offensive that put an end to more than five decades of Assad family rule. As of Sunday morning (8), the president’s whereabouts are unknown.
(RFI) Several dozen people gathered in central Damascus to celebrate the fall of the regime, images from AFPTV show. They tore down and trampled on a statue of President Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, who ruled Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000.
In Umayyad Square, the sound of gunfire as a sign of joy is mixed with shouts of “Allah Akbar” (“God is greater”). “We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” said Amer Batha, reached by telephone by AFP in Umayyad Square. “I can’t believe I’m living in this moment,” said the resident, who began to cry: ”It’s a new story that is beginning for Syria.”
On public television, the rebels announced the fall of the “tyrant” Bashar al-Assad and the “liberation” of Damascus. In their statement, they claimed to have released all the prisoners “unjustly detained” and called for the safeguarding of the assets of the “free” Syrian state.
They had previously announced on the Telegram app “the flight” of Bashar al-Assad and proclaimed “the city of Damascus free”. “Assad left Syria through Damascus international airport before members of the armed and security forces left,” the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), Rami Abdel Rahmane, told AFP.
AFP was unable to immediately confirm from an official source the whereabouts of the president who ruled Syria with an iron fist for 24 years and cracked down hard on pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011. The protests turned into a civil war, one of the most violent of the 21st century.
“The extraordinary events” underway in Syria are being followed ‘closely’ by US President Joe Biden, the White House said.
End of a dark era
Since the start of their offensive on November 27 in northwestern Syria, the rebels have rapidly conquered several important towns as the government forces collapsed. The insurgents have launched an appeal to Syrians displaced abroad to return to “free Syria”. Since 2011, the conflict has caused half a million deaths and divided the country into zones of influence, with belligerents backed by different foreign powers.
In a video posted on his Facebook account, Syrian Prime Minister Mohamed al-Jalali said he was ready to cooperate with any new “leadership” chosen by the people, specifying that he would be at his offices at the headquarters of the Syrian Arab Republic this Sunday morning for any procedure to “transfer” power.
“After 50 years of oppression under the ruling Baath Party, and 13 years of crimes, tyranny and displacement, today we announce the end of this dark era and the beginning of a new era for Syria,” said the rebels who inflicted a painful setback on the pro-government forces.
The leader of the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, at the head of a coalition of rebels backed by Turkey, called on his fighters not to approach public institutions, adding that they remain under the control of the prime minister until the “official handover”.
Lebanese Hezbollah, one of Bashar al-Assad’s main allies, simultaneously withdrew its forces from the outskirts of Damascus and the Homs region (western Syria), according to a source close to the movement.
Unprecedented advance in a few days
The coalition of rebel groups led by HTS, a group from the former Syrian branch of the al-Qaeda group, made an astonishing advance in around ten days, capturing the major cities of Aleppo and Hama before announcing, on the night of Saturday to Sunday, that it had taken control of Homs, the country’s third largest city, and entered the capital, Damascus.
The rebels took advantage of the withdrawal of government forces from various regions after the offensive launched on November 27 from Idlib province, their stronghold in northwest Syria, despite air strikes carried out with the support of Russia, the regime’s ally, and ground operations against insurgent sectors.
To the south of the capital, near the border with Jordan, government troops have also lost control of the city of Daraa, the cradle of the 2011 uprising, to local forces, according to the OSDH.
On another front, in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, regime forces withdrew from territories under their control and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were mobilized there. With military support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, al-Assad retook a large part of the country in 2015 and, in 2016, all of Aleppo, the eastern part of which had been occupied in 2012 by the rebels.
A ceasefire established in 2020, made possible by Ankara and Moscow, brought relative calm to northwest Syria.