Following a spectacular lightning-strike rout across the nation, rebel troops on Sunday abruptly ended the Assad family’s decades-long rule in Syria by seizing Damascus.
Senior commander of the terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, declared triumph for the rebel forces that had swept through Syria in a few days and overnight seized Damascus.
In a WhatsApp post, he declared, “We declare the city of Damascus free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad.” Free Syria is waiting for the world’s displaced people.
Syrians looked to be rejoicing throughout Damascus overnight and into the day, according to videos that went viral on social media and were confirmed by NBC News. Crowds were seen honking horns, waving flags, and firing their weapons into the air, while others stood on tanks to take pictures.
Statues of Hafez al-Assad, the father of former President Bashar Al-Assad, were being toppled in Syrian cities, including the Assad stronghold of Latakia, according to images and videos.
Assad gave up the presidency and fled the nation. Patron Russia, which helped the dictatorship destroy what began as a nonviolent protest movement and turned into a bloody civil war, attested to that.
According to a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry, Bashar Assad decided to resign as president and left the country after holding talks with several parties involved in the armed conflict on the Syrian Arab Republic’s territory. He gave orders to hand over power amicably.
Assad went to Moscow, according to Russian official media on Sunday.
According to a previous statement, Syria’s prime minister, Ghazi al-Jalali, has not left his house and has no plans to do so unless it is done in a way that guarantees the continuous operation of state facilities and public institutions, thereby fostering security and comfort for our countrymen.
According to him, the government is prepared to work with whatever Syrian leadership that the people elect.
According to HTS General Command, the inmates of Sednaya Prison were also released. According to Reuters, the Syrian government has imprisoned thousands of people at the military prison outside of Damascus.
We herald the end of the oppressive era at Sednaya Prison and share with the Syrian people the news of our hostages’ release and the bursting of their chains.
Damascus International Airport has been evacuated, all staff have been withdrawn, and all flights have been suspended, according to Syrian state radio station Sham FM. Who was in charge of the state outlet on Sunday was unclear.
International reaction
White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement Saturday night that President Joe Biden was keeping an eye on the unusual developments in Syria and communicating with regional allies on a regular basis.
In a post on the social media site hisTruthDonald Trump, the president-elect, stated in all caps that the US should not be involved in the Syrian conflict on Saturday morning. We are not fighting this. Let it happen.
To protect the Golan Heights and Israeli residents, the Israel Defense Forces said in a post on Xit that they have deployed to the buffer zone between Israel and Syria in addition to other locations.
The statement emphasized that the IDF is not meddling in Syria’s domestic affairs.
Militant group offensive
Shortly after rebels began attacking government soldiers in Homs, Syria, on Friday, leaving three of the country’s five main cities under their control and with nothing to stop them from advancing on the Syrian capital, Damascus fell. A day after claiming to have taken Daraa, HTS rebels declared on Saturday that they had taken the city.
With roughly 900 American soldiers in northern Syria, the United States has been keeping a careful eye on events there.
In less than two weeks, the HTS rebels also took control of the central city of Hama, where government forces were driven out on Thursday, and the northern city of Aleppo.
Since Assad regained control of Aleppo in 2016 thanks to a vicious air campaign by Russian airplanes, the HTS onslaught was the first rebel attack on the city.
The HTS militants’ abrupt takeover of the city was viewed as a setback to the external forces—Iran, Russia, and Iranian-backed Hezbollah—that have allowed Assad to maintain power for 24 years.
HTS’s swift progress coincides with a flurry of new combat in the Middle East, as Israel, supported by the United States, attempts to drive out Hamas in Gaza and uphold a precarious ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah and Hamas are both affiliated with Iran.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, pro-Assad troops were engaged in combat with Kurdish forces that took control of government buildings in eastern Syria, close to the cities of Raqqa and Deir Ez-Zor, on Friday.
HTS origins
The United States and the United Nations have classified HTS as a terrorist organization. It was formed from the previous Al Qaeda offshoot, Jabhat al-Nusra.
It is one among several opposing forces in Syria that are battling to overthrow the Assad government, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians since the start of the civil war over 14 years ago.
Assad still controls 70% of Syria after a ceasefire in 2020, but 6.8 million Syrians have left the nation.
Numerous people have fled to Europe, where the unexpected flood of Syrian migrants has stoked far-right anti-immigrant movements from Portugal to Poland.
According to experts, HTS’s recent military victories are the result of four years of efforts to outfit the opposition forces with drones and other advanced weapons of mass destruction so they can compete with Assad’s army.
In a post on X, Charles Lister, director of the Syria program at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, stated that the growth of units… and extensive domestic rocket and missile production have produced a force that Assad’s regime has found extremely difficult to repel, let alone outmaneuver.
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