End of dark era: Syrian rebels capture Damascus as President Assad flees

Syrian rebel forces claimed control of the capital Damascus on Sunday after a week-long lightning offensive, encountering no resistance from government troops, amid reports that President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country.

Assad, who ruled the country with an iron fist for 24 years, boarded a plane to an undisclosed location, according to senior Syrian military officials who spoke to Reuters. The army command has reportedly informed officers that the Assad regime has fallen.

“The tyrant Bashar al-Assad has fled. We declare Damascus free of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad,” rebels proclaimed, according to Al Jazeera. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebel faction said in a statement, “We announce today, 12-8-2024, the end of this dark era and the beginning of a new era for Syria.”

Syrian military and security forces have withdrawn from Damascus International Airport, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The war monitor, which relies on sources within Syria, reported that officers and soldiers abandoned the airport amid the rebel offensive.

Panic gripped the capital, with residents describing gunfire in the city, and regime loyalists rushing to flee, anticipating the Assad government’s collapse, the Observatory and AFP reported.

Television footage showed fighters in fatigues firing into the air in jubilation, as crowds climbed onto tanks and chanted in the streets, reported The Guardian. A statue of President Bashar Assad was toppled as mosques announced the fall of his regime.

The rebels also announced they had entered the notorious Saydnaya military prison north of Damascus and freed prisoners there. “We celebrate with the Syrian people the news of freeing our prisoners and releasing their chains and announcing the end of the era of injustice in Saydnaya prison,” they said, as quoted by Reuters.

THE REBEL OFFENSIVE
Armed opposition groups seeking to overthrow Assad swept into Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, in a shock offensive on November 27, reigniting the 13-year civil war that devastated the country. Key cities in the north, including Daraa and Hama, fell to the opposition fighters in just a matter of days amid little resistance from government troops.

The advances in the past week were by far the largest in recent years by rebel factions, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has its origins in Al-Qaeda and is considered a terrorist organisation by the US and the United Nations.

On Saturday, the rebels said they were encircling the capital where Assad has ruled since 2000. Later that night, they captured Homs, a strategic city which is at the crossroads between Damascus and the Syrian dictator’s stronghold on the Mediterranean coast.

The rapid rebel gains, coupled with the lack of support from Assad’s erstwhile allies, posed the most serious threat to his rule since the start of the war. Should Damascus fall to the opposition forces, the government would have control of only two of 14 provincial capitals: Latakia and Tartus.

THE ASSAD REGIME
Syria has been ruled by the Assad family for over five decades, with President Bashar al-Assad taking power in 2000 following the death of his father, Hafez Assad. According to the United Nations, Assad’s regime has been responsible for the deaths of more than 350,000 opponents, widespread imprisonment and torture, and the use of banned nerve gas against opposition-held areas to quash dissent.

The country erupted in anti-Assad protests in 2011, inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings across most of the Middle East. Assad’s harsh crackdown escalated into a full-scale civil war.

By 2015, opposition groups and Islamic State militants had gained control of large swathes of Syria. However, a Russian military intervention, marked by an intense aerial bombing campaign, reversed many of these gains and solidified Assad’s grip on power.

Efforts led by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, supported in part by Russia, eventually reduced the Islamic State to small desert enclaves. Since 2016, the conflict’s front lines had been mostly frozen, with Assad’s forces maintaining control over major cities.