Syrian rebels captured Damascus yesterday and ousted President Bashar al-Assad, forcing him to flee to Russia and ending his family's decades-long autocratic rule after more than 13 years of civil war.
In one of the most significant upheavals in the Middle East in generations, the fall of Assad's government removed the foothold from which Iran and Russia extended their influence across the Arab world.
His sudden ouster, the result of a Turkish-backed insurgency with roots in jihadist Sunni Islam, limits Iran's ability to transfer weapons to its allies and could cost Russia its naval base in the Mediterranean. It also paves the way for millions of refugees, who have been displaced for more than a decade in camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, to finally return home.
For Syrians, it brought an abrupt and unexpected end to the war, with hundreds of thousands dead, cities reduced to rubble, an economy devastated by global sanctions and no resolution in sight.
"Today is the end of 54 years of rule of the Assad family in Syria. This was the only regime I knew in my entire life," Dr. Zaher Sahlul, a Syrian-American doctor who organized medical missions to Syria, including hospitals in Aleppo that were targeted by Syrian and Russian airstrikes, told The Guardian. “I don't cry often as an adult, but I did today. 14 long years of horror have passed. This is our Berlin Wall moment," he said.
After much of yesterday was spent speculating about where the Syrian president had fled, Russian media last night, citing sources from the Kremlin, announced that Bashar al-Assad and his family had arrived in Russia. The Interfax news agency reported a statement from an unnamed source who said: “President Assad of Syria has arrived in Moscow. Russia granted them (him and his family) asylum for humanitarian reasons".
The rebels announced earlier yesterday that they had entered the capital without any military resistance. Thousands of people, in vehicles and on foot, gathered in the main square in Damascus, waving and shouting "Freedom" to mark the end of more than half a century of rule by the Assad family, eyewitnesses told Reuters. People were seen entering the Al-Ravda presidential palace, and some came out carrying furniture, the British agency reported.
"We celebrate with the Syrian people the news of the release of our prisoners and the removal of their chains," said the rebels. The leader of the rebel forces, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, said there was no turning back now. "The future is ours," he said in a statement read on state television after his forces took over Damascus.
The speed with which events have unfolded in Syria in recent days has shocked Arab capitals and raised concerns about a new wave of instability in a region already in chaos from the spread of conflict following Hams' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing Gaza war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that the fall of Assad was a direct consequence of the blows that Israel dealt to Iran and its ally Hezbollah.
French President Emmanuel Macron said that "a barbaric state has fallen" and acknowledged the Syrian people.
When the celebrations die down, Syria's new leaders will face a mammoth task in trying to restore stability to a divided country, with warring factions that will need billions of dollars in aid and investment to rebuild.
Syria's long-running civil war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against Assad's rule, has turned cities into ruins and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
Key actors now include Turkey, the United States, Islamists and the Kurds.
One of the possible challenges could be the return of the Islamic State, which at the height of its power imposed a reign of terror in large parts of Syria and Iraq.
The administration of President Joe Biden has been following the events, but according to US officials, so far it has not changed the positioning of about 900 soldiers in Syria.
In a sign of rapid change, Syrian rebels stormed the Iranian embassy, Iran's Press TV channel reported. Iran, whose elite Revolutionary Guards have been the target of deadly Israeli strikes in Syria, has reacted rather moderately. The country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the fate of Syria is the sole responsibility of the Syrian people and should be resolved without foreign imposition or destructive intervention.
Lebanon's Hezbollah, a key backer of Assad for years, withdrew all its troops from Syria on Saturday as rebel factions closed in on Damascus, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters.
The Syrian rebel coalition said it is continuing to work on completing the transfer of power in the country to a transitional governing body with full executive powers. "The great Syrian revolution has moved from the phase of the struggle to overthrow the Assad regime to the struggle to build a Syria that responds to the sacrifices of its people," the announcement states.
During the civil war, security forces captured hundreds of thousands of people and took them to detention camps, where international human rights organizations claimed torture was common practice. Families were often not told anything about the fate of their loved ones.
Stunned and elated prisoners walked out of Syrian prisons yesterday, shouting with joy as they left one of the world's most notorious prison systems. They ran through the streets of Damascus, raising the fingers of both hands to show how many years they had spent in prison, asking passers-by what happened, not immediately realizing that Assad had fallen.
Prime Minister Mohamed Ghazi al-Jalali called for free elections in the country and added that he had been in contact with Golani to discuss governance during the transition period.
The collapse of Assad's rule follows a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East, as many Hezbollah leaders, a key component of Assad's fighting forces, have been killed in Israeli strikes over the past two months.
Russia, a staunch ally of Assad, intervened decisively in 2015 to help Assad during the Syrian civil war. However, she is now busy with the war in Ukraine.
A number of outside powers have intervened in Syria's civil war, which has also opened up space for jihadist militants to plan attacks around the world and sent millions of refugees into neighboring countries.
The front lines had been dormant for years before the Islamists, once linked to Al Qaeda, suddenly sprung into action in late November.
Western governments, which for years avoided cooperation with the Assad-led state, must now decide how to position themselves against a new administration in which the globally designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its leader are likely to Golani, a key role.
The former commander of US forces in the Middle East, retired General Frank McKenzie, expressed concern about the future of Syria. “I wish I could be more optimistic that this will mean good news for the Syrian people... There could be a return of the Islamic State which would have extremely negative consequences throughout the region. It's possible," McKenzie told ABC News.
The US will continue to maintain its presence in eastern Syria and will take the necessary measures to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State, said US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, Daniel Shapiro.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that "terrorist organizations" must not be allowed to take advantage of the situation in Syria and called for caution.
HTS, which has led rebel attacks across western Syria, was once an offshoot of al-Qaeda until its leader Golani cut ties with the global jihadist movement in 2016.
"The real question is how orderly this transition will be, and it seems pretty clear that Golani is very interested in making it orderly," Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told Reuters. "They're going to have to rebuild the country ... they're going to need Europe and the US to lift sanctions," Landis added.
HTS is the strongest rebel group in Syria, and some Syrians still fear it will impose a draconian Islamist rule or retaliate.
Countries like the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, close US allies, consider Islamist militant groups an existential threat, so HTS could face resistance from regional powers.
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