Bashar al-Assad, the ousted Syrian ruler, said in a statement broadcast Monday that he intended to continue battling rebel groups in the nation prior to Russia’s evacuation.
Assad, 59, posted on his Telegram channel, “My departure from Syria was neither planned nor did it occur during the final hours of the battles.”
According to Assad, he stayed in Damascus until the wee hours of December 8, the day the rebels stormed into the Syrian capital.
As the city was overrun by rebel troops, Assad claimed that he coordinated with Russian allies to move north to Lattakia “to oversee combat operations.” At the nearby air base of Hmeimim, “it became clear that our forces had completely withdrawn from all battle lines and that the last army positions had fallen.”
Assad said that Moscow asked for a quick evacuation to Russia that evening since there were no practical ways to leave the base, which he claimed had been subjected to increased drone strikes.
“This took place a day after the fall of Damascus,” he stated. His version of events could not be independently confirmed by NBC News.
Before then, Assad insisted, he had not thought about “stepping down or seeking refuge.”
Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research researcher at the London-based think tank Royal United Services Institute, said Assad was attempting to communicate that he had no plans to leave the country.
Given the terrorist offensive, as he refers to it and has always done, labeling the opposition—whether it is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or not—as terrorist groups imposed by outside forces, she claimed it was a kind of abrupt escape.
As Assad’s administration collapsed, Syrians across rejoiced as opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, freed thousands of prisoners imprisoned in his infamous jails. Since then, the festivities have persisted, with large-scale rallies and protests taking place all throughout Syria on Friday to commemorate the end of the Assad family’s fifty years of ruthless reign.
According to Ozcelik, even though Assad’s “influence is in tatters,” he is still able to speak with Syrian government supporters and “rather than being brought to justice, he in shadows in Russia.”
Former Al Qaeda combatant Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the de facto leader of HTS and Syria, has made an effort to present a more moderate image and has promised to rebuild Syria in a way that is inclusive of all the religions and ethnic groups that make up the nation.
Although the Biden administration has stated that it is considering removing HTS from its list of terrorist organizations, the group is still classified as a terrorist organization worldwide, and the United States has a $10 million reward pending Jolani’s capture.
While many foreign leaders applauded the overthrow of Assad, President Joe Biden cautioned that we are in a “moment of risk and uncertainty as we all turn to the question of what comes next.”
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