- Insurgents enter Damascus with no sign of army
Leaders and countries in the global community yesterday reacted cautiously as Syrian rebels declared they had ousted President Bashar al-Assad after seizing control of Damascus.
The rebels’ lightning victory had forced Assad to flee and ending his family’s decades of autocratic rule after more than 13 years of civil war.
The al-Assad family, also known as the Assad dynasty, is a Syrian political family that ruled Syria from when Hafez al-Assad became the president of Syria in 1971 under the Ba’ath Party to the ousting of al-Assad on December 8, 2024.
After Hafez al-Assad’s death in June 2000, he was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad.
Reacting about the fast changing scenario in Syria, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said that Russia’s abandonment of al-Assad led to his downfall, adding that Moscow never should have protected him in the first place and then lost interest because of a war in Ukraine that never should have started.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the ousting of Assad as an “historic day” that followed the blows delivered by Israel against Assad’s supporters Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon that had created a chain reaction throughout the region.
Also, Iran, which had strongly backed Assad’s deposed government, said Syrians should decide their country’s future “without destructive, coercive, foreign intervention.”
The statement from the Foreign Ministry yesterday was the country’s first official reaction to the overthrow of Assad’s government by rebel forces.
The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, called Saturday for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition.”
The Gulf nation of Qatar, a key regional mediator, hosted an emergency meeting of foreign ministers and top officials from eight countries with interests in Syria late Saturday. The participants included Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Turkey.
“President Joe Biden and his team are closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and staying in constant touch with regional partners,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett wrote on social media.
The French Foreign Affairs ministry said France “welcomes” the fall of Assad’s government “after more than 13 years of violent repression against its own people.”
The ministry said in a statement: “The Syrian people have suffered too much. Bashar Assad has bled dry the country, emptied of a large part of its people who, if not forced into exile, have been massacred, tortured and bombarded with chemical weapons by the regime and its allies.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed understanding for the relief Syrian people felt after the fall of Assad’s government but warned that “the country must not now fall into the hands of other radicals.”
“Several hundred thousand Syrians have been killed in the civil war, millions have fled,” Baerbock said in a statement emailed by her office yesterday. “Assad has murdered, tortured and used poison gas against his own people. He must finally be held accountable for this.”
The war in Syria began in 2011 when a pro-democracy uprising calling for the end of Assad’s long reign escalated quickly into a brutal civil war. Since then, the conflict has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced some 12 million from their homes.
The rebels declared they had ousted al-Assad after seizing control of Damascus yesterday, forcing him to flee and ending his family’s decades of autocratic rule after more than 13 years of civil war.
In a seismic moment for the Middle East, the Islamist rebels also dealt a major blow to the influence of Russia and Iran in Syria in the heart of the region – allies who had propped up Assad during critical periods in the war but were distracted by other crises recently.
Mystery surrounded the whereabouts of Bashar al-Assad, who was no longer in Damascus when rebels captured the Syrian capital yesterday.
Two senior army officers said Assad had boarded a plane early yesterday in Damascus for an unknown destination.
Russia confirmed that Assad had left Syria but did not say where he was, including whether Moscow had given him refuge.
Assad has not spoken in public since the sudden rebel advance a week ago, when insurgents seized northern Aleppo in a surprise attack before marching into a succession of cities as frontlines crumbled.
