US President Joseph Biden welcomed the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria this evening, saying it represented a "historic opportunity" for Syrians.
"The Assad regime has finally fallen," Biden said during a speech at the White House, adding that it was an "act of justice" and a "historic opportunity" for Syrians to "build a better future."
Biden warned of the "risk and uncertainty" arising from that situation, and warned that some "of the rebel groups that participated in the offensive have a terrorist past and violated human rights."
The rebel coalition that entered Damascus is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a radical Islamist group that is a former al-Qaeda affiliate.
"We have taken note of the statements of the leaders of those rebel groups in recent days and they are saying the right things at this moment, but how they are preparing to take greater responsibility, we will see not only by their words, but also by their actions," warned the American president.
Biden added that the US will not "allow" the Islamic State jihadist group to take advantage of the situation to "re-establish" itself in Syria, where it captured large swathes of territory between 2014 and 2018.
The US military's Middle East Command (Centcom) said that US aircraft carried out "dozens of strikes" in central Syria today, targeting "more than 75 targets" of the Islamic State.
Biden said that Assad will have to "account for the hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians who have been mistreated, tortured and killed."
"We are not sure where he (Assad) is, but they say he is in Moscow," Biden added, while Russian agencies reported that Assad and his family were in the Russian capital.
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