JERUSALEM – Syrian dictator Bashar Assadwho used chemical weapons against its population several times, fled Syria after rebels stormed the capital Damascus, according to Reuters.
Assad, who trained as an ophthalmologist in Britain before succeeding his father, and his British-born wife, Asma al-Assad, fled with their three children, Syrian television reports show. It was unknown where they were going.
Syria has been embroiled in a bloody 13-year civil war as Islamist rebels sought to overthrow the Assad dynasty. The apparent collapse of more than fifty years of Assad family rule over the Syrian Arab Republic would mark a monumental turning point in Middle Eastern power politics.
ISLAMIC REBELS IN SYRIA CATCH ASSAD, PUTIN, IRAN GUARD REGIMES AND GIVE US NEW MIDDLE EAST HEADACHES
A photo taken at the entrance to the Kweyris military airport in the eastern part of Aleppo province on December 3 shows a portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a national flag in the dumpster following the takeover of the area by rebel groups (RAMI AL SAID/AFP via Getty Images)
A coalition of largely radical Islamist groups has ousted the Iranian-backed Assad regime. The US-designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)the Islamist former al-Qaeda affiliate that is part of the rebels played the decisive role in ousting Assad, who inherited his presidency in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez Assad.
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the Islamist leader of HTS, who has a $10 million bounty on his head from the US, is trying to present a watered-down version of the radical Islamism that fuels his years of struggle in Syria and Iraq against the Islam has determined. American troops. Al-Golani was arrested by the US military in the first decade of this century.
Syrian experts have told Fox News Digital that HTS wants to impose a totalitarian Islamist regime on the population. Phillip Smyth, an expert on Iranian regime and Syria proxy groups who sits at the Atlantic Council, told Fox News Digital: “HTS is a group that is an outgrowth of al-Qaeda and has ties to Turkey. Their end game is to create a Taliban society with a few adjustments.”
Rebels in northwest Syria seized regime military vehicles along the route to Kweris Airport in Aleppo’s eastern countryside on December 2. (Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto via APRami Alsayed/NurPhoto via AP)
Assad’s decision in 2011 to launch a violent crackdown on pro-democracy Syrian activists during the Arab Spring uprisings that swept Egypt and Tunisia resulted in the long civil war. Assad’s scorched earth policy against his country’s citizens caused the deaths of more than 500,000 people. The UN recently announced that it has stopped monitoring the rising death toll.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Egyptian and Jordanian officials urged Assad to flee Syria and form a government in exile. The Jordanian government denied the report.
In 2015, Assad’s regime faltered when Russia intervened to save the dictatorship. The US-sanctioned Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and its main sponsor, Iran, both supported the Assad regime.
The rebels who routed Assad’s forces – with the rapid capture of the major Syrian cities of Aleppo, Hamas and Homs – shocked both Putin and Iran. Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion of its territory has weakened Moscow. Israel has carried out a number of airstrikes on Iran’s military infrastructure since Tehran’s ally Hamas launched a surprise attack on the Jewish state on October 7, 2023.
Portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (left) and his late father and predecessor Hafez hang on the wall of a destroyed apartment in the southern Lebanese city of Bint Jbeil in 2006. (PATRICK BAZ/AFP via Getty Images)
The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2254 in 2015, which called for a ceasefire, UN-organized elections and a new constitution. Assad rejected the implementation of the resolution.
After Assad launched a shocking massive chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians in 2013, killing more than 1,400 people, President Obama’s administration failed to deliver on its promise to take military action against Assad.
The origins of Assad’s forced departure can be traced to a group of schoolboys in the dusty southwestern city of Daraa.the cradle of the Syrian uprising– in 2011. The young boys used graffiti to write on a concrete wall: “The people / want / to overthrow the regime!”
Russian President Vladimir Putin (left), Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (center), Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (right). ((Fox News/Getty Images))
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Assad’s cousin, General Atef Najeeb, oversaw an operation in which it was reported that the 15 arrested boys between the ages of 10 and 15 had been tortured. Syrian officials tore out the boy’s fingernails, burned and beat them.
