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The Assad family’s decades-long rule in Syria came to an abrupt end on Sunday when rebel forces captured Damascus after stunning routs across the country.
Hassan Abdulghani, a senior commander of the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, declared victory for the rebels, who stormed across Syria in a matter of days and entered Damascus overnight.
“We declare the city of Damascus free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad,” he said in a WhatsApp post. “To all the displaced people of the world, a free Syria awaits you.”
Videos circulating on social media and seen by NBC News show Syrians celebrating across Damascus throughout the night and into the day as crowds honked horns, waved flags and fired guns into the air. Some people were seen standing on top of the tank and taking selfies.
Photos and videos showed people toppling statues of Hafez al-Assad, father of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in cities across Syria, including Assad’s stronghold of Latakia.
President Assad fled the country and relinquished the presidency. That was also confirmed by backer Russia, which helped the regime crush what began as a peaceful protest movement that turned into a brutal civil war.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited Damascus in 2016.
Joseph Eid/AFP via Getty Images
“As a result of negotiations between President Bashar al-Assad and a number of participants in the armed conflict on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, he has decided to resign as president and leave the country, agreeing to a peaceful transfer of power. “He instructed them to do so,” the official said. Statement from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Assad’s whereabouts were not immediately known.
Syrian Prime Minister Ghazi al-Jalali said in an earlier statement that he would remain at home and leave only “in peaceful ways that guarantee the continued functioning of public institutions and state facilities and promote the safety and security of the population.” He said no. our brethren. ”
He said the government was ready to work with “any leader chosen by the Syrian people.”
The HTS General Command said it had also released people detained at Sednaya Prison. According to Reuters, the Syrian government has detained thousands of people in a military prison on the outskirts of Damascus.
“We announce to the Syrian people the news of the release of the prisoners and the breaking of their chains, and declare the end of the era of repression in Sednaya Prison.”
Syrian state radio Sham FM reported that Damascus International Airport had been evacuated, all employees evacuated and all flights grounded. It was not clear on Sunday who was in charge of the state government.
Overseas reaction
White House National Security Council Press Secretary Sean Savet said in a statement Saturday night that President Joe Biden is “monitoring the extraordinary situation in Syria and remains in constant communication with our regional partners.”
On Saturday morning, President-elect Donald Trump said in all caps in a post on his platform Truth Social that the United States should have “nothing to do” with the situation in Syria. “This is not our fight. Let us play it out.”
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement: Post to X They are deployed in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria and other locations “to ensure the safety of the Golan Heights and the Israeli people.”
“We emphasize that the IDF does not interfere in events inside Syria.”
armed group offensive
Damascus fell on Friday, shortly after rebels besieged the Syrian city of Homs in a swift offensive against government forces. This leaves three of the country’s five largest cities in their hands and nothing to stop them from marching on the Syrian capital. HTS rebels claimed to have captured the city of Daraa on Saturday and the city the following day.
The United States has about 900 troops stationed in northern Syria and is closely monitoring developments in the country.
In less than two weeks, HTS rebels were able to capture the northern city of Aleppo and the central city of Hama, from which government forces withdrew on Thursday.
The HTS attack on Aleppo was the first rebel attack on Aleppo since 2016, when Assad retook control of the city in a brutal air campaign by Russian warplanes.
The sudden takeover of the capital by HTS militants is seen as a blow to the outside forces that have allowed Assad to cling to power for 24 years: Russia, Iran, and Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
HTS’ rapid advance comes as the Middle East is rife with new fighting, with US-backed Israel trying to root out Hamas in the Gaza Strip and maintain a fragile ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. It is said that Both Hamas and Hezbollah are allies of Iran.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday that pro-Assad fighters were fighting Kurdish forces that had captured government positions near the cities of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria.
Syrian opposition fighters today paraded detained members of the Syrian government forces in civilian clothes in Homs.
Aref Watad/AFP – Getty Images
Origin of HTS
HTS is an offshoot of Jabhat al-Nusra, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, and is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations.
It is one of several competing factions in Syria fighting to topple the Assad regime, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians since the civil war began nearly 14 years ago.
A ceasefire in 2020 allowed the Assad regime to control 70% of Syria, but some 6.8 million Syrians fled the country.
Many have gone to Europe, but the sudden influx of Syrian refugees has revived far-right anti-immigrant movements from Portugal to Poland.
HTS’s latest battlefield success is the culmination of a four-year effort to transform the rebels into a force capable of challenging Assad’s forces and equipping them with drones and other high-tech weapons, experts said. are.
“Force expansion…combined with large-scale indigenous rocket and missile production has created a force that the Assad regime will seriously struggle to defend, let alone defeat,” said Charles Lister, head of Syria’s Middle East program. said. The East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, Post to X.
This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here:
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