By BASSEM MROUE and ZEINA KARAM Associated Press
BEIRUT – The Syrian government appeared to have fallen early Sunday in a stunning end to 50 years of rule by the Assad family after a surprise rebel offensive swept through government-held territory and entered the capital within 10 days.
The head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said President Bashar Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing insurgents who said they had entered Damascus after the remarkably rapid advance throughout the country.
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said the government was ready to “reach out” to the opposition and transfer its functions to a transitional government.
“I am in my home and I have not left, and that is because I belong to this country,” Jalili said in a video statement. He said he would go to his office to continue working in the morning and asked Syrian citizens not to destroy public property.
He did not address reports that Assad had left the country.
Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told The Associated Press that Assad took a flight from Damascus on Sunday.
State television in Iran, Assad’s main backer during the years of war in Syria, reported that Assad had left the capital. It cited Qatar’s Al Jazeera news network for the information and gave no further details.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government.
Crowds of Syrians gathered to celebrate in central Damascus squares, chanting anti-Assad slogans and honking car horns. In some areas, celebratory shots rang out.
“My feelings are indescribable,” said Omar Daher, a 29-year-old lawyer. “After the fear he (Assad) and his father put us through for many years, and the panic and the state of terror I was living in, I can’t believe it.”
Daher said his father was killed by security forces and his brother was detained, his fate unknown. Assad “is a criminal, a tyrant and a dog,” he said.
“Curse his soul and the soul of the whole Assad family,” said Ghazal al-Sharif, another reveler in central Damascus. “It is the prayer of every oppressed person and God has answered it today. We thought we would never see it, but thank God, we did.”
An Associated Press reporter in Damascus reported seeing groups of armed residents along the road on the outskirts of the capital and hearing gunfire. The city’s main police headquarters appeared to be abandoned, its door left ajar with no officers outside. Another AP reporter recorded footage of an abandoned army checkpoint where uniforms were thrown to the ground under a sign of Assad’s face.
Residents of the capital reported hearing shots and explosions. Images broadcast on opposition-linked media showed a tank in one of the capital’s central squares as a small group of people gathered to celebrate. Cries of “God is great” rang out from the mosques.
It was the first time opposition forces had reached Damascus since 2018, when Syrian troops retook areas on the outskirts of the capital after a years-long siege.
The pro-government Sham FM radio reported that Damascus airport had been evacuated and all flights grounded.
The insurgents also announced that they had entered the notorious Saydnaya military prison north of the capital and “liberated” their prisoners there.
The night before, opposition forces took the central city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, while government forces abandoned it. The city is at an important intersection between Damascus, the capital, and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus, the base of support for the Syrian leader and home to a strategic Russian naval base.
The rebels had already seized the cities of Aleppo and Hama, as well as large parts of the south, in a lightning offensive that began on November 27. Analysts said rebel control of Homs would be a game-changer.
The rebel movements in Damascus came after the Syrian army withdrew from much of the country’s south, leaving more areas, including several provincial capitals, under the control of opposition fighters.
They were by far the largest in recent years by opposition factions, led by a group that has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organization by the US and the United Nations. In their push to topple Assad’s government, the insurgents, led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, have met little resistance from the Syrian army.
The UN’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, called for urgent talks in Geneva on Saturday to ensure an “orderly political transition”. Speaking to reporters at the annual Doha Forum in Qatar, he said the situation in Syria was changing by the minute. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose country is Assad’s main international backer, said he felt “sorrow for the Syrian people”.
In Damascus, people rushed to stock up on supplies. Thousands of people went to Syria’s border with Lebanon, trying to leave the country. Lebanese border officials closed the main Masnaa border crossing on Saturday afternoon, leaving many stuck waiting.
Many shops in the capital were closed, a resident told The Associated Press, and those still open ran out of basic goods such as sugar. Some were selling items at three times the normal price.
The UN said it was moving non-critical personnel out of the country as a precaution.
State of Assad
Syrian state media denied social media rumors that Assad had left the country, saying he was carrying out his duties in Damascus.
He has had little, if any, help from his allies. Russia is busy with its war in Ukraine. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to shore up Assad’s forces, has been weakened by a year-long conflict with Israel. Iran has seen its proxies throughout the region degraded by regular Israeli airstrikes.
US President-elect Donald Trump posted on social media on Saturday that the US should avoid getting involved militarily in Syria. Separately, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said the Biden administration had no intention of intervening.
Pedersen said a date for talks in Geneva on implementing a UN resolution passed in 2015 calling for a Syrian-led political process would be announced at a later date. The resolution calls for the establishment of a transitional governing body, followed by the drafting of a new constitution and ending with elections overseen by the UN.
Later Saturday, foreign ministers and senior diplomats from eight key countries, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran, along with Pederson, met on the sidelines of the Doha Summit to discuss the situation in Syria.
In a statement, the participants affirmed their support for a political solution to the Syrian crisis “that leads to the end of military activity and protects civilians.”
The march of the insurgents
A commander with the insurgents, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, posted on the Telegram messaging app that opposition forces had begun the “final stage” of their offensive by encircling Damascus.
HTS controls much of northwestern Syria and in 2017 established a “salvation government” to manage day-to-day affairs in the region. In recent years, he has tried to remake the group’s image, cutting ties with al-Qaida, abandoning hardline officials and promising to embrace religious pluralism and tolerance.
The shock offensive began on November 27, during which gunmen captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, and the central city of Hama, the country’s fourth largest.
The Syrian government has referred to opposition gunmen as terrorists since the conflict broke out in March 2011.
Qatar’s top diplomat, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, criticized Assad for not using the lull in fighting in recent years to address the country’s underlying problems. “Assad did not take this opportunity to begin to engage and restore his relationship with his people,” he said.
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Karam reported from London. Associated Press writers Abdulrahman Shaheen and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria; Abby Sewell in Beirut; Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad; Josef Federman and Victoria Eastwood in Doha, Qatar; and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report.