Bashar al-Assad reportedly in Moscow – as it happened
Deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow – reports
Reuters reports that ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is in Russia, according to a Kremlin source.
The Interfax news agency quoted the unnamed source as saying: “President Assad of Syria has arrived in Moscow. Russia has granted them (him and his family) asylum on humanitarian grounds.”
Russia has requested a closed-door UN security council meeting on Monday to discuss the UN peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights, according to diplomats.
Key events
Closing summary
Thanks for following our live coverage of the extraordinary events in Syria.
This blog is closing now but for our full coverage, please see here:
Our wrap up of events is below:
Below is a summary of the latest:
-
Syrian anti-government rebels declared they had ousted president Bashar al-Assad after seizing control of Damascus on Sunday, in an astonishing end to his family’s decades of autocratic rule after more than 13 years of civil war.
-
The ousted Syrian president is now in Russia, according to a Kremlin source, where he has been granted asylum on “humanitarian grounds”.
-
The United Nations security council will convene on Monday afternoon for an emergency closed door meeting on Syria in the aftermath of the ousted president fleeing the country.
-
Thousands of Syrians have rallied across cities in Europe in the wake of the news, waving flags and barely able to contain their joy at Assad’s downfall. Similar celebrations have also been seen in Syrian embassies, including in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.
-
As armed rebels swept cities across Syria, they flung open detention facilities where rights groups estimated that at least 100,000 people were considered missing or forcibly disappeared since 2011 at the hands of the state. This included the Sednaya military prison, a facility notorious as the site of particularly brutal and humiliating methods of torture.
-
UN secretary-general António Guterres on Sunday praised the end of Syria’s “dictatorial regime” and called on the country to focus on rebuilding.
-
Joe Biden said the sudden collapse of the Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad is a “fundamental act of justice” after decades of repression, but that it’s “a moment of risk and uncertainty” for the Middle East. The US Central Command said its forces conducted dozens of airstrikes on Islamic State targets in central Syria on Sunday.
-
The US president also said it believes missing American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared 12 years ago near the Syrian capital, is alive and “we think we can get him back”.
-
Rebel commander Abu Mohammed al-Jolani said in a statement read on Syria’s state TV that there is no room for turning back. “The future is ours,” his statement said. Al-Jolani, commander of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), reportedly said that all state institutions will remain under the supervision of al-Assad’s prime minister until they are handed over officially.
-
The Israeli military has issued a warning to five towns in southern Syria, calling on residents to stay at home “until further notice” due to ongoing combat in the area.
-
Arab states will seek to avert the threat of a reignited Syrian civil war by starting an open dialogue with all the forces on the ground to ensure any transition is inclusive of all Syrians regardless of ethnicity, Qatar’s foreign ministry has said.
US believes journalist Austin Tice is alive
President Joe Biden says the US government believes missing American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared 12 years ago near the Syrian capital, is alive and Washington is committed to bringing him home after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, reports the Associated Press.
Biden said Sunday that “we think we can get him back”.
Tice disappeared in August 2012 at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus. A video released weeks later showed him blindfolded and held by armed men. He’s not been heard from since. Syria has denied it was holding him.
The reaction from Asia to Assad’s fall
We’ve seen reactions from across the Middle East And Europe, but there is a celebratory mood in Asia too.
At the Syrian embassy in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, the news of Assad’s fall was met with dancing, drumming, and baklava on the embassy grounds.
A message posted on the Syrian embassy’s website hailed a “new page in the history of Syria, to establish a covenant and a national treaty that unites the word Syrians, unites them and does not divide them”.
More here from the embassy’s Instagram page:
Allow Instagram content?
This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’.
Assad’s palace – in pictures
The state of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s residential palace in Damascus, a symbol of his fall.
Parts of the palace in ruins.
Residents taking to armchairs on the palace grounds.
An aerial view of Tishrin palace.
Ransacking the remains.
Palace selfies.
Ousted president Assad granted asylum on “humanitarian grounds”
Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow with his family after Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds, a Kremlin source told Russian news agencies on Sunday, according to the Associated Press.
Syrian President Assad of Syria and members of his family have arrived in Moscow. Russia has granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds,” the privately-owned Interfax news agency and state media quoted the unnamed Kremlin source as saying.
United Nations security council to hold emergency Syria meeting
The United Nations security council will convene on Monday afternoon for an emergency closed door meeting regarding Syria in the aftermath of ousted president Bashar al-Assad fleeing the country, multiple diplomatic sources told Agence France Presse on Sunday.
A dispatch from Damascus
The Guardian’s William Christou is in Damascus and has filed this wrap up of the astonishing fall of the Assad regime together with our Jerusalem correspondent, Bethan McKernan.
“The major road linking the Lebanese city of Beirut to Damascus was lined with discarded army uniforms on Sunday after Syrian army soldiers discarded them upon realising their leader had abandoned them after 54 years of his family’s rule over Syria.”
Read the full story here:
Interim summary
-
Syrian anti-government rebels declared they had ousted Assad after seizing control of Damascus on Sunday, ending his family’s decades of autocratic rule after more than 13 years of civil war.
-
The ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is in Russia, according to a Kremlin source. TASS, Russia’s state-owned news agency, said: “Russian officials are in contact with representatives of the armed Syrian opposition, whose leaders have guaranteed the safety of Russian military bases and diplomatic institutions on the territory of Syria.”
-
Thousands of Syrians rallied across cities in Europe on Sunday, waving flags and barely able to contain their joy at the downfall of the ousted president Bashar al-Assad.
-
As armed rebels swept cities across Syria, they flung open detention facilities where rights groups estimated that at least 100,000 people were considered missing or forcibly disappeared since 2011 at the hands of the state. This included the Sednaya military prison, a facility notorious as the site of particularly brutal and humiliating methods of torture.
-
UN secretary-general António Guterres on Sunday praised the end of Syria’s “dictatorial regime” and called on the country to focus on rebuilding after Bashar al-Assad’s sudden downfall.
-
Joe Biden said the sudden collapse of the Syrian government under Bashar Assad is a “fundamental act of justice” after decades of repression, but that it’s “a moment of risk and uncertainty” for the Middle East. The US Central Command said its forces conducted dozens of airstrikes on Islamic State targets in central Syria on Sunday.
-
Rebel commander Abu Mohammed al-Jolani said in a statement read on Syria’s state TV that there is no room for turning back. “The future is ours,” his statement said. Al-Jolani, commander of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), reportedly said that all state institutions will remain under the supervision of al-Assad’s prime minister until they are handed over officially.
-
The Israeli military has issued a warning to five towns in southern Syria, calling on residents to stay at home “until further notice” due to ongoing combat in the area.
-
Arab states will seek to avert the threat of a reignited Syrian civil war by starting an open dialogue with all the forces on the ground to ensure any transition is inclusive of all Syrians regardless of ethnicity, Qatar’s foreign ministry has said.
-
In Europe, Spain’s foreign ministry has urged for there to be an “inclusive political transition” in Syria after the fall of the Assad government, while European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would help to rebuild a Syria that safeguards minorities after the dramatic fall of Bashar al-Assad.
-
A curfew has been declared in Damascus, where people were celebrating in the streets, from 4pm (13.00 GMT) until 5am (02.00 GMT).
Who are the Syrian rebels who have captured Damascus – explained in 30 seconds
The rebels who have swept through Syria are led by Islamist alliance Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, along with an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army.
Both have been entrenched in the north-west. They launched the shock offensive on 27 November with gunmen capturing Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, and the central city of Hama, the fourth largest.
The founder of HTS, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, was once a participant in the Iraqi insurgency against the US as a member of the group that eventually became Islamic State.
In its former incarnation as Jabhat al-Nusra or the Al-Nusra front, HTS later declared allegiance to al-Qaida. It eventually publicly broke those ties in 2016 and rebranded as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or Organization for the Liberation of the Levant.
HTS is now the most powerful rebel faction in Syria.
It is designated as a terrorist group by the US and there are serious human rights concerns in the area it controls, including executions for those accused of affiliation with rival groups and over allegations of blasphemy and adultery.
The HTS and Syrian National Army have been allies at times and rivals at times, and their aims might diverge.
The Turkish-backed militias also have an interest in creating a buffer zone near the Turkish border to keep away Kurdish militants at odds with Ankara. Turkey has been a main backer of the fighters seeking to overthrow Assad but more recently has urged reconciliation, and Turkish officials have strongly rejected claims of any involvement in the current offensive.
Israel notified the US in advance about its operation to take control of the buffer zone on the border with Syria and several other locations on the Syrian side of the border, Axios’s Barak Ravid reports.
Barak said that, according to Israeli and US officials, Israel informed the Biden administration that this is a temporary move that will last a few days to a few weeks.
Thousands of Syrians rallied in Berlin, Germany, and cities across Europe on Sunday, waving flags and barely able to contain their joy at the downfall of the ousted president Bashar al-Assad.
Berlin police said more than 5,000 Syrians gathered in a square in the Kreuzberg district, Agence France-Presse reports.
Many waved flags and banners that read “Free Syria” and “Freedom”, flashed “V” for victory signs and chanted “Allahu Akbar!” (God is Greatest!).
Despite a cold drizzle, many came with their families. Children’s faces were painted in the Syrian colours. Passing cars honked their horns.
Here are some images coming in from the wires:
The UN’s International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism released a report on Friday analyzing the widespread torture, ill treatment and related violations in more than 100 government detention facilities in Syria.
The report describes systematic abuse, including physical and psychological torture, sexual violence, overcrowding and denial of medical care based on over 300 witness interviews, forensic evidence and government records.
The report also underscores the role of government leadership, intelligence branches, military hospitals and military police in the abuse.
The report came days before the fall of Bashar al-Assad, which has led to scores of prisoners being released from detention centers across the country.
Charles Lister, director of the Middle East Institute Syria Program, posted a video on X showing Syrians being released from Saydnaya prison:
Israel launched strikes on weapons depots in Syria’s east on Sunday, according to the UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, after rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad’s government earlier Sunday.
“Israel has conducted air strikes on weapon depots and positions that belonged to the defunct regime and Iran-backed groups in the eastern Deir Ezzor province,” Rami Abdel Rahman who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Agence France-Presse.
He reported “increased Israeli strikes” on such targets since Bashar al-Assad fled the country as rebels seized the capital.
Tears of joy and sadness as ‘disappeared’ Syrians emerge from Assad’s prisons
Bethan McKernan
Bethan McKernan is the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent.
As Syrian rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured city after city on the road to Damascus, forcing Bashar al-Assad to flee the country, they also opened the doors of the regime’s notorious prisons, into which upwards of 100,000 people disappeared during nearly 14 years of civil war.
Many emerged frail and emancipated into the bright December sunlight, greeted by weeping family members who had no idea they were still alive. Some struggled to comprehend that Assad was gone; a few held even longer had never even been told that he had succeeded his father, Hafez, who died in 2000.
Verified videos from Damascus showed dozens of women and small children being held in cells, the rebels opening the doors telling them not to be afraid.
The prisons infamous for torture in and around Damascus itself – including Sednaya, the most notorious, where satellite imagery showed a new crematorium was built in 2017 to dispose of bodies – were broken open early on Sunday. There are conflicting reports of underground cell blocks yet to be reached.
The photos and videos of reunited families are bittersweet. The stories of the prisoners are astonishing; they will take years to be told in full, further grim evidence of the crimes the Assad family committed against so many of their own people.
Al-Arabiya broadcast footage of a family arriving in Damascus to meet their released son, the elderly mother’s voice breaking with emotion as she embraced him for the first time in 14 years.
Raghad al-Tatary, a pilot who refused to bomb the city of Hama during the uprising against Hafez al-Assad in the 1980s, was freed after 43 years; Tal al-Mallouhi, 19 when she was arrested in 2009 for a blogpost criticising state corruption, was found alive.
One shaven-headed, shaking man in Sednaya had been so ill-treated he had lost his memory and struggled to talk. His family said he had been 20 and a medical student when he vanished 13 years ago.
Read the full story here:
Several Syrian embassies have updated their social media profile photos following al-Assad’s fall to the black, green and white flag with three stars used by anti-Assad activists and rebel forces.
Embassies in Cairo, Egypt, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Jakarta, Indonesia, are among some of the Syrian offices that have changed their official social media profile pictures to the flag.
Monitor says Israel hit Syrian countryside, killed young man
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, has reported that the Al-Qunaitrah countryside has witnessed a surge in Israeli military activity, with several Israeli tanks and armored vehicles advancing to the Al-Ruqad Bridge.
SOHR also reported that Israeli forces also moved within 100 meters of civilian homes in Al-Hamidyah village in northern Al-Qunaitrah. They opened the area’s gate and carried out intense fire-sweeping operations.
Tensions escalated further when Israeli forces shot and killed a young man from the town of Jabatha Al-Khashab in northern Al-Qunaitrah, according to the report.
