UPDATED: Syrian opposition ‘overthrows’ President Bashar al-Assad

 

The armed opposition led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) gained major victories in recent days taking over major cities like Aleppo and Homs.

The armed opposition in Syria has announced the capture of the country’s capital, Damascus, and the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.

As of Sunday morning, Mr al-Assad’s whereabouts were uncertain, but the opposition says he has fled the country. Reuters also quotes two army sources as confirming that the president’s plane left Syria for an unknown country.

 armed opposition, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has gained major victories in recent days, taking over major cities like Aleppo and Homs.

On Sunday morning, the commander of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, said state institutions will remain under the supervision of Mr al-Assad’s prime minister, Mohammed

On Saturday, incoming US President, Donald Trump, in a message on X, celebrated the loss of Mr al-Assad but said the US should not get involved in the crisis.

Mr al-Assad’s exit is a major blow to Iran and Russia who have actively supported his government, deploying arms and personnel to fight alongside the Syrian army against the rebels.

However, with Russia bogged down with the war in Ukraine and Iran facing internal crises alongside a potential war with Israel, Mr al-Assad appears to have been unable to hold down the country on his own.

As fighters took over Damascus, they declared a curfew from 4 p.m. until 5 a.m., according to Al Jazeera.

Although there had been internal dissent in Libya, Mr al-Assad’s troubles worsened when he violently repressed peaceful protests against his regime in March 2011. The incident later culminated into a civil war. Following the uprising that killed more than half a million Syrians and displaced about 23 million others, Syria was suspended from the Arab League.

Twelve years later, the country was reinstated back into the Arab fold in advance of the Arab League Summit held on 19 May 2023. This followed a flurry of regional normalisation of ties with Damascus by some Arab states including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan and Bahrain.

The league believed that the resolution is necessary, noting the Syrian crisis “has been spilling over very negative effects on the neighbouring countries.”

However, the normalisation of ties was threatened by some factors such as the mass killing of civilians and the alleged involvement of the government in the smuggling of a harmful narcotic, Captagon, which Arab states frowned at.

The fleeing president’s government was also accused of using chemical weapons.

It was also accused of refusing to provide information about the fate of more than 125,000 prisoners held in various detention facilities which Human Rights Watch has described as a “torture archipelago.”