As rebels swept into Damascus, the capital of Syria, Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow with his family, Russian news agencies said. His departure triggered celebrations across the country and beyond at the end of his oppressive rule.
Crowds toured the former leader’s luxurious home after the rebels declared he had fled, a spectacular end to five decades of brutal Baath party rule.
The government fell 11 days after the rebels began a surprise advance, more than 13 years after Assad’s crackdown on anti-government protests ignited Syria’s civil war – which had become largely dormant until the rebel push.
“This victory, my brothers, is historic for the region,” Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, leader of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS) that spearheaded the advance, said in an address at the landmark Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
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US President Joe Biden said Assad should be “held accountable” but called the nation’s political upheaval a “historic opportunity” for Syrians to rebuild their country.
“The fall of the regime is a fundamental act of justice,” Biden said from the White House.
Residents cheered in the streets as the rebel factions heralded the departure of “tyrant” Assad, saying: “We declare the city of Damascus free.”
Celebratory gunfire sounded along with shouts of, “Syria is ours and not the Assad family’s”.
Agence France-Presse correspondents saw dozens of men, women and children wandering through Assad’s modern, spacious home, whose rooms had been stripped bare.
“I can’t believe I’m living this moment,” tearful Damascus resident Amer Batha told Agence France-Presse by phone.
“We’ve been waiting a long time for this day,” he said.
The rebel factions on Telegram proclaimed the end to “50 years of oppression under Baath rule, and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and displacement”.
It is, they said, “the start of a new era for Syria.”
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The foreign ministry of Assad’s main backer, Russia, had announced earlier Sunday that Assad had resigned from the presidency and left Syria.
The head of war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told Agence France-Presse: “Assad left Syria via Damascus International Airport before the army security forces left” the facility.
Later Sunday, a Kremlin source told Russian news agencies that Assad and his family had arrived in Moscow, where they had been granted asylum “on humanitarian grounds”.
Around the country, people toppled statues of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s father and the founder of the repressive system of government he inherited.
For the past 50 years in Syria, even the slightest suspicion of dissent could mean prison or death.
During their advance, the rebels said they had freed prisoners, including on Sunday at the Sednaya facility, notorious for the darkest abuses of Assad’s era.
UN war crimes investigators urged those taking charge in the country to ensure the “atrocities” committed under Assad’s rule are not repeated.
Amnesty International called this a “historic opportunity” for those responsible for the abuses in Syria to face justice.
The end of Assad’s rule came just hours after HTS said it had captured the strategic city of Homs.
Homs was the third major city seized by the rebels, who began their advance on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took place in neighbouring Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah forces “vacated their positions around Damascus”, a source close to the group said Sunday.
HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda but has sought to soften its image in recent years. It remains listed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments.
The commander of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls much of northeast Syria, hailed the fall of Assad’s “authoritarian regime” as “historic”.
A military council affiliated with the SDF clashed Sunday with Turkish-backed Syrian fighters in Syria’s north, leaving 26 fighters from both sides dead, the Observatory said, as the Turkish-backed group launched an offensive on the Manbij area.
The UN envoy for Syria said the country was at “a watershed moment”.
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Russia requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting in New York, set for Monday, multiple diplomatic sources told Agence France-Presse.
Turkey, which has historically backed the opposition, called for a “smooth transition”.
Iran said it expected “friendly” ties with Syria to continue, even as its embassy in Damascus was vandalised.
Since the start of the rebel offensive, at least 910 people have been killed, mostly combatants but also including 138 civilians, the Observatory said.
Syria’s rule has killed more than 500,000 people, and forced half of the population to flee their homes. Millions fled abroad.
“I can barely remember Syria,” said Reda al-Khedr, who was only five years old when he and his mother escaped Syria’s Homs in 2014.
“But now we’re going to go home to a liberated Syria,” he told Agence France-Presse in Cairo.
