Syrian rebels said they had entered Damascus on Sunday as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime appeared to have collapsed in the face of a stunning insurgent offensive across the country.
The rebels said in a statement that “the city of Damascus is free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad” and that “Assad has fled” after various factions besieged the capital from the north and south.
Assad’s whereabouts were unclear, with reports that he had fled, bringing an ignominious end to the family dynasty that had ruled Syria for more than 50 years.
Residents said celebratory gunfire could be heard in the air, as clouds of smoke billowed over the capital.
“I can’t believe it. Everyone is on the street, everyone is shouting,” said Abdallah, a resident of Damascus. “It is something historic. No one has suffered as much as the Syrian people.”
He added that rebel militants were placed in front of banks and other public institutions to guard them.
The fall of the Assad regime would usher in a period of great uncertainty for Syria, a nation fractured and fragmented after 13 years of civil war, and for the wider region. The country shares borders with Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. Rebel groups have clashed with each other in the past.
The White House said President Joe Biden is “closely following the extraordinary events in Syria and is in constant contact with regional partners.”
The rebel offensive is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Islamist movement which was confined to Syria’s northwestern Idlib province before launching its offensive 12 days ago. The group, once an offshoot of al-Qaeda, shook the country by capturing Aleppo, Syria’s second city, within 48 hours and then marched south towards the capital.
It has worked with Turkish-backed rebels who operate under the umbrella of the Syrian National Army, but Syria is home to countless factions and the degree of coordination between them all is unclear.
There has been no official statement from the Syrian presidency, military or state media about Assad or the situation in the country. Al-Ekhbaria, a state-run TV channel, broadcast pre-recorded footage of Syrian architecture accompanied by light guitar music.
Assad, a London-trained eye doctor, has ruled Syria since 2000, when he succeeded his late father Hafez al-Assad. Civil war broke out in 2011 after his forces brutally tried to suppress a popular uprising.
He managed to stay in power with the support of Iran, Iranian-backed militants and Russia, which provided vital air power. His regime has regained control over most of the country in recent years.
But he presided over a depleted, bankrupt state, and even many in his Alawite community appeared to have given up on the regime after years of conflict and economic hardship.
When HTS launched its offensive on November 27, regime forces appeared to have melted away, while Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant movement, Iran, were weakened and distracted by their own conflicts.
Rebels said they took full control of the strategic city of Homs, the last major city on the highway south to Damascus, in the early hours of Sunday.
Southern rebels, separate from HTS, captured Deraa, the birthplace of Syria’s 2011 uprising, as well as the towns of Suwaidu and Quneitra, over the weekend, encircling Damascus from the south.
The success of the rebels is a humiliating blow to Iran, which has reportedly withdrawn its men from Syria, and Russia. Moscow gained access to air and naval bases in the Mediterranean Sea after it intervened in the 2015 war.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that Moscow would stand by its ally and “try to do everything not to allow terrorists to prevail, even if they say they are no longer terrorists”.
Meanwhile, Tehran’s support for Assad has given it a “land bridge” across Iraq to Syria and Lebanon, home to its most important proxy, Hezbollah.
The US, the UN, Turkey and other powers have designated HTS a terrorist organization, and its leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani has a US $10 million bounty on his head.
In recent years, Jolani has sought to rebrand the group as a more moderate Islamist movement, building an autocratic, centralized movement with tight control over Idlib, home to 3-4 million people.
Rebels said they freed prisoners from the notorious Sadnaya prison, which has become a symbol of the Assad regime’s brutal repression of political opponents.
On Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, a longtime supporter of some Syrian opposition forces, welcomed the “new diplomatic and political reality in Syria.”
