The folks of Syria have celebrated the autumn of Bashar al-Assad and dared to dream of a greater future after 5 a long time of dynastic rule got here to a sudden and sudden finish with the dictator fleeing to Moscow.
Crowds of individuals waved the Syrian revolutionary flag and pulled down statues and portraits of the president and his father, Hafez, whereas celebratory gunfire and automobile horns echoed round Damascus on Sunday as an astonishing insurgent advance reached the capital.
In photographs and movies of households reunited with family members lengthy misplaced to the darkish of the regime’s infamous jail system, folks cried and clung to at least one one other in disbelief at their newfound freedom. Others gleefully ransacked the presidential palace, marvelling on the abundance of luxurious items and designer automobiles in a rustic the place 90% of the inhabitants lives under the poverty line.
Simply hours earlier than, it was introduced that Assad had fled the capital in a personal airplane and that his regime had fallen. On Sunday night, Russian state information companies reported that the president and his household have been in Moscow and had been given asylum.
The main street linking the Lebanese metropolis of Beirut to Damascus was lined with discarded military uniforms on Sunday after Syrian military troopers discarded them upon realising their chief had deserted them after 54 years of his household’s rule over Syria.
Syria erupted into the deadliest struggle of the twenty first century, difficult by the pursuits of overseas powers, when the Assad regime started a brutal crackdown on peaceable pro-democracy Arab spring protests in 2011. Assad was saved by his Iranian and Russian allies from the advance of insurgent forces backed by Qatar and Turkey in 2015, in addition to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, forcing the opposition to withdraw to the north-west of the nation.
The Assad axis and the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, based mostly within the north-east, fought to defeat Islamic State’s (IS) self-declared caliphate between 2014 and 2019, yet one more theatre within the struggle that dragged in neighbouring Iraq.
At the least 300,000 folks have been killed and 100,000 disappeared since 2011. Half the nation – about 12 million folks – have been displaced from their properties, with about 5.4 million in search of shelter overseas.
The frontlines had for probably the most half stayed quiet since a ceasefire between the regime and opposition brokered in early 2020, however roared again to life lower than two weeks in the past in a push by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on Aleppo, supposedly to stave off an anticipated regime offensive.
HTS, together with an umbrella of Turkish-backed militias referred to as the Syrian Nationwide Military (SNA), appropriately assessed that Iran, Hezbollah and Russia have been distracted by the wars with Israel and Ukraine: this time, nobody got here to avoid wasting Assad, and loyalist Syrian forces fled or collapsed because the rebels moved south, taking metropolis after metropolis.
In a broadcast on state tv from the capital on Sunday afternoon, a insurgent spokesperson mentioned: “To people who guess on us and to those that didn’t, to these sooner or later who thought we have been damaged, we announce to you the victory of the nice Syrian revolution after 13 years of endurance and sacrifice,.”
Damascus was nonetheless in a state of disbelief: smoke from battles the night time earlier than hung over the town like a fog. Home windows shook from the occasional explosion, the goal and the warring social gathering unknown.
“I really feel as if I’m in a dream, I haven’t slept and I can’t soak up what’s occurred,” Fatimeh, initially from north-west Idlib, lengthy an opposition bastion, mentioned as she approached Damascus after leaving Lebanon. “I’m from Idlib,” she mentioned as soon as extra, including that for years she wouldn’t dare say the place she was from when she was in Damascus, for worry that any affiliation with the realm partly held by Islamist rebels would provoke retaliation.
It was nonetheless unclear by Sunday night whether or not Latakia and Tartus, Assad’s coastal strongholds, had fallen to the rebels, and combating was reported between Turkish-backed Arab rebels and Syrian Kurdish teams in Manbij, on the Turkish border.
Individually, US forces mentioned they’d carried out dozens of airstrikes on IS forces in central Syria, including that they might not permit the jihadist group “to benefit from the present scenario to reconstitute”. US Central Command mentioned it had struck greater than 75 targets, with out specifying the place.
Stories additionally emerged that Israel had launched airstrikes on regime and Hezbollah weapons depots in Damascus and Syria’s southern countryside, apparently afraid that they might fall into the unsuitable arms. Israel additionally despatched floor forces into areas of the Syria-controlled Golan Heights after the Syrian military’s withdrawal so as to deter insurgent forces.
There are nonetheless many questions and challenges forward for Syria’s future, in addition to that of the broader area. The pinnacle of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who spearheaded the insurgent offensive, introduced that Syria’s prime minister, Mohammed Ghazi al-Jalali, would keep on in Damascus to guide a transitional authorities within the coming months.
The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, hailed the top of Syria’s “dictatorial regime” and urged the nation to rebuild.
“After 14 years of brutal struggle and the autumn of the dictatorial regime, immediately the folks of Syria can seize a historic alternative to construct a steady and peaceable future,” he mentioned in an announcement. “I reiterate my name for calm and avoiding violence at this delicate time, whereas defending the rights of all Syrians, with out distinction.”
The US president, Joe Biden, referred to as the Assad authorities’s fall a “basic act of justice” but additionally a “second of danger and uncertainty”. The US would interact with Syrian stakeholders to determine a peaceable transition of energy, he added.
Jolani was a late arrival to the capital: fighters from the southern province of Deraa, relatively than HTS, have been first to achieve the gates of Damascus. HTS forces have been preoccupied with securing Homs to the north, slicing off Assad’s final lifeline to Tartus and Latakia.
The insurgent chief was filmed on the historic Umayyad mosque within the previous metropolis of Damascus on Sunday afternoon in his first public look after the autumn of the Assad authorities, a sight that was unthinkable only a few days earlier than. To Syrians, the message was clear: Assad was gone, and rebels have been in management.
Some residents expressed reservations in regards to the Islamist group, cautious of revolutionary factions claiming to signify the Syrian folks – significantly Islamist ones – after years of bitter civil struggle. HTS and the SNA each have data of human rights abuses and authoritarian rule in areas below their management. However for many, warning was delayed for an additional day – immediately was for celebration.
“The emotions, they’re indescribable,” mentioned Mohammed Ahmad, a resident of Kafr Halab, in northern Syria. “I’m offended, I’m completely happy and I’m unhappy. However now that the regime has fallen, I can relaxation.”
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