Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country after a stunning offensive by rebels seized the capital Damascus and toppled a dynasty that had ruled for 50 years.
Amid scenes of jubilation on Sunday, rebels declared that “the city of Damascus is free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad” and that “Assad has escaped” after various factions laid siege to the capital.
Russia, a longtime supporter of the Assad regime, said the Syrian president had resigned, left the country and ordered a peaceful transition of power. Russian state media Tass later reported that he and his family had arrived in Moscow where they had been offered asylum.
“The future is ours,” said Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of the victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Islamist group, in a statement read on Syrian state television.
HTS, once an offshoot of al-Qaeda, led various rebel factions in a lightning-quick 12-day offensive that brought the Assad dynasty to an ignominious end and shook the region. Last week, the group captured Aleppo, Syria’s second city, within 48 hours before quickly moving south towards the capital.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed a “historic day in the annals of the Middle East” but sent tanks and infantry into the demilitarized buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
Netanyahu said the 1974 cease-fire agreement “collapsed” after Syrian army units left their positions and Israeli forces had to “ensure that no hostile force is installed right next to Israel’s border.”
US President-elect Donald Trump wrote in a post on social media: “Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was no longer interested in protecting him.” He added: “Russia and Iran are currently in a weakened state, one because of Ukraine and the poor economy, the other because of Israel and its success in combat.”
In Damascus, rebel factions were already trying to enforce law and order on Sunday, imposing curfews, warning of legal penalties for theft and mistaken shootings, taking over ministries and deploying police officers amid widespread looting.
The Financial Times was directed to the new Ministry of Communications building when it inquired about media access to the city after curfew, where rebel media officials had set up shop.
Signaling his efforts to ensure an orderly transition, Jolani said Syria’s state institutions would remain under the supervision of an Assad-appointed prime minister until the handover.
Near the city’s Umayyad Square, the streets were littered with thousands of shell casings – remnants of gunfire from the celebrations. The sound of artillery shelling and sporadic gunfire could still be heard in central Damascus in the evening.
“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.”
Video footage sent to the Financial Times by a resident of Damascus shows people inside the presidential palace, rummaging through rooms and smashing pictures of the Assad family.
A man dressed in civilian clothes appeared on Syrian state TV on Sunday morning, declaring that rebels had “liberated” Damascus and freed prisoners from “regime prisons”.
But while the news has sparked celebrations across Syria, it will also usher in a period of great uncertainty for the nation, torn apart after 13 years of civil war, and for the wider region.
The country borders Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. HTS has collaborated with Turkish-backed rebels operating under the umbrella of the Syrian National Army.
However, Syria is home to countless factions and the degree of coordination between all of them is unclear.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan welcomed the end of the Assad regime on Sunday, but also warned that Ankara was concerned that “Isis and other terrorist organizations . . . will take advantage of this process”.
An Arab diplomat said regional powers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Russia and Qatar, had agreed to coordinate efforts to stabilize the situation.
As rebels entered the palace in Damascus, Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said he was ready to work with any leadership chosen by the people and called for unity.
“We are ready to cooperate and all assets of the people and institutions of the Syrian state must be preserved,” he said. “They belong to all Syrians.”
Multiple explosions were heard in the city on Sunday around 4:30 p.m., and clouds of black smoke rose above it. At least some of the attacks, whose origin is unknown, hit the Syrian security complex.
Assad, a London-trained ophthalmologist, has ruled Syria since 2000, when he succeeded his late father Hafez al-Assad. Civil war broke out in 2011 after his forces brutally suppressed a popular uprising.
He managed to stay in power with the support of Iran 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, the regime’s forces appeared to have melted away, while Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant movement The Lebanese militant movement, Russia, Iran were all distracted by their own conflicts.
The rebels’ success is a humiliating blow for Iran, whose support for Assad has given it a “land bridge” across Syria to Lebanon, home to its most important proxy, Hezbollah.
On Sunday, Iran’s foreign ministry called for respect for Syria’s “territorial integrity” and called for an “immediate end to the military conflict” in the Arab state.
It is also a setback for Russia, which gained access to air and naval bases in the Mediterranean after it intervened in the 2015 war.
On Sunday, Russia said its military bases in Syria were on “high alert”. Moscow said there was “no serious threat to their security,” but Russian military bloggers said it was preparing to evacuate its Khmeimim air base and naval base in Tartus.
John Foreman, the former British military attache in Moscow, said that the loss of the bases would be a “major strategic reversal” for Russia and that without them it would be “harder for the Russian navy to maintain a sustained naval presence in the Mediterranean or the Red Sea to challenge NATO”.
Additional reporting by Max Seddon in Berlin, John Paul Rathbone in London and Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv
Cartography by Steven Bernard
