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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has left Damascus for an unknown destination as rebels announced that they were entering the capital. Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali has said the government is ready for any handover of power as the rebels announce the “end of the era”.
News agency AFP has reported that according to a war monitor, the Army and security forces had abandoned Damascus International Airport. A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that fighters of a key Assad ally had left their positions around the Syrian capital.
The Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group said its forces were moving into Damascus. Soon after, they announced an “end of the era of tyranny in the prison of Sednaya” as the rebels broke into the jail that has become a symbol for the darkest abuses of the Syrian regime, AFP reported.
Earlier, the rebel group had said they had captured the strategic city of Homs, on the way to the capital. But the Syrian defence ministry had denied this and said the situation in Homs was “safe and stable”.
The Hezbollah, which backed the Assad regime for years, has asked its forces to withdraw. Hezbollah “has instructed its fighters in recent hours to withdraw from the Homs area, with some heading to Latakia (in Syria) and others to the Hermel area in Lebanon”, a source told AFP.
Residents of Damascus have told AFP that there was panic as traffic jams clogged the streets, people sought supplies and queued to withdraw money from ATMs. “The situation was not like this when I left my house this morning… suddenly everyone was scared,” said one woman, Rania. In a Damascus suburb, witnesses said protesters had toppled a statue of Assad’s father, the late leader Hafez al-Assad.
An Iraqi security source has told AFP that Baghdad has allowed in hundreds of Syrian soldiers, who “fled the front lines”. A second source put the figure at 2,000 troops, including officers.
The overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime caps the 13-year rebellion that started as a peaceful uprising against President Assad and snowballed into a full-scale civil war that devastated Syria.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was formed in 2012 under the name of al-Nusra. It pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda the next year. In 2016, however, it broke ties with al-Qaeda and took the name Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Global powers, including the US and the UK, continue to see it as an al-Qaeda affiliate. The organisation has, in recent times, tried to soften its image and assured minority groups in the areas it controls have no cause to worry.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham consolidated its power in Idlib and Aleppo and formed the Syrian Salvation Government to administer the territory. In 2020, Turkey and Russia brokered a ceasefire to halt the Bashar Al-Assad regime’s push to retake Idlib.
Over the last two months, the rebels renewed their offensive, aware that the Syrian government’s allies were caught up in other conflicts. Hezbollah and Iran have taken a blow after Israel’s offensive and Russia is fighting Ukraine. This left Bashar Al-Assad exposed.
US President-elect Donald Trump has posted on Truth Social that the US should “not get involved” in the Syria situation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was “inadmissible” to allow a “terrorist group to take control” of Syrian territory. Moscow and Tehran have supported Assad’s government and army during the war.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government backs some armed groups in northern Syria, said Saturday that Syria “is tired of war, blood and tears”.
