Following the defeat of government forces loyal to the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, in a matter of days, rebel fighters claimed to have taken control of the Syrian capital, Damascus, early on Sunday.
The 13-year civil war that has devastated the ancient land will enter a new phase with the rebels’ claim.
“We declare the city of Damascus free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad,” said Hassan Abdul-Ghani, the senior commander of the terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, in a WhatsApp post. “To the displaced people around the world, Free Syria awaits you.”
The rebel’s assertion has not been independently verified by NBC News.
It was not immediately clear where Assad was. Abdul-Ghani claimed that Assad had escaped, and several media outlets say that he has departed Damascus. His whereabouts and departure have not been confirmed by NBC News.
Ghazi al-Jalali, the prime minister of Syria, stated that Assad is in his home and has no plans to leave “unless in a peaceful manner that ensures the continued functioning of public institutions and state facilities, promoting security and reassurance for our fellow citizens,” in response to reports that he had left the capital.
According to him, the government is willing to work with “any leadership chosen by the Syrian people.”
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Damascus International Airport has been evacuated, all staff have been withdrawn, and all flights have been suspended, according to Syrian state radio station Sham FM.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
“Monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and staying in constant touch with regional partners,” White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement Saturday evening about President Joe Biden.
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.
In a post on Xits, the Israel Defense Forces stated that they have deployed to the buffer zone between Israel and Syria in addition to other locations “to ensure the safety of the Golan Heights and the citizens of Israel.” “We emphasize that the IDF is not interfering with the internal events in Syria,” it continued.
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 ET 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-Zour, 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 combat victories are the result of four years of efforts to provide the opposition forces with drones and other advanced weapons of war 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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