- Russia shelters Assad and his family.
- Western states are wary of victorious rebels.
- Shayam wakes up without Asad until the first morning.
Rebels captured the capital Damascus and President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, with Syrian citizens looking forward to a brighter future on Monday after 13 years of civil war and the end of more than 50 years of his family’s brutal rule. Woke up.
The lightning advance by the al-Qaida-affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led militia coalition marked the biggest turning point for the Middle East in generations. Assad’s fall wiped out the bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence throughout the Arab world.
According to Russian media reports, Moscow has given shelter to Assad and his family, and Russia’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ilyanov, said on his Telegram channel on Sunday.
International governments welcomed the end of Assad’s autocratic rule, as they sought to envision a new Middle East.
US President Joe Biden said that Syria is going through a period of danger and uncertainty and it is the first time in years that neither Russia, Iran nor the Hezbollah organization has played an influential role there.
HTS is still designated a terrorist group by the United States, Turkey and the United Nations, although it has spent years trying to soften its image to reassure international governments and minority groups inside Syria. .
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Monday that Tokyo was paying close attention to developments in Syria.
Assad’s ouster would limit Iran’s ability to arm its allies and cost Russia its naval base in the Mediterranean. It could finally allow hundreds of thousands of refugees scattered in camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to return home for more than a decade.
Now to rebuild.
The rebels face the daunting task of rebuilding and running the country after a war that left millions dead, cities in ruins and an economy hollowed out by global sanctions. Syria will need billions of dollars in aid.
“My brothers, a new history is being written in the entire region after this great victory,” said Ahmad al-Shara, better known as Abu Muhammad al-Golani, head of the HTS.
Addressing a large crowd at Damascus’s Umayyad mosque on Sunday, a site of great religious importance, Golani said that with hard work, Syria “will be a beacon for the Islamic nation.”
The Assad police state was known as the harshest state in the Middle East, where millions of political prisoners were held in appalling conditions.
On Sunday, excited but often confused inmates came out of prisons. The reunited family wept for joy. The newly freed prisoners were filmed running through the streets of Damascus with their hands raised to show how many years they had been imprisoned.
The White Helmets Rescue Organization said it had sent emergency teams to search for hidden underground cells believed to be holding detainees.
After the rebels declared a curfew, Damascus remained quiet overnight, with roads leading to the city mostly empty. A shopping center was looted on Sunday, and some people ransacked inside Assad’s presidential compound, taking furniture.
The rebel coalition said it was working to complete a transition of power to an interim governing body with administrative powers, referring to building a “Syria together”.
Golani is a Sunni Muslim, the majority in Syria, but the country is home to many religious sects, including Christians and Assad’s fellow Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
The world was stunned.
The pace of events stunned world capitals and raised fears of further regional instability on top of ongoing crises in the Middle East.
U.S. Central Command said its forces conducted dozens of airstrikes on Sunday targeting known ISIS camps and operatives in central Syria.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday that he spoke with Turkish Minister of National Defense Yasser Güler, stressing the importance of protecting civilians and that the United States is watching closely.
During Syria’s civil war, which began as an uprising against Bashar al-Assad in 2011, his forces and their Russian allies bombed cities to rubble. The refugee crisis in the Middle East was one of the biggest in modern times, and in 2015, when a million people arrived, it caused a political reckoning in Europe.
In recent years, Turkey has supported some rebels in the northwest and along its border. The United States, which has about 900 troops in Syria, backed the Kurdish-led coalition that fought Daesh fighters from 2014 to 2017.