President Assad is overthrown by Syrian rebels; dire days are coming

After more than 13 years of civil conflict, Syrian rebels seized Damascus on Sunday and announced they had overthrown President Bashar al-Assad, forcing him to flee and bringing an end to his family’s decades of dictatorial rule.

The power of Russia and Iran in Syria, two allies who had supported Assad throughout pivotal moments in the conflict but had recently been sidetracked by other problems, was also severely damaged by the Islamist rebels in a momentous moment for the Middle East.

The rebels said that there was no indication of army deployments when they arrived in the city. Witnesses said that thousands of people, both on foot and in automobiles, gathered in a central Damascus plaza, chanting and waving “Freedom” after fifty years of Assad family control.

Several people were observed lugging furniture out of the Al-Rawda Presidential Palace as they walked inside.

“We celebrate with the Syrian people the news of freeing our prisoners and releasing their chains,” the rebels said.

Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the chief rebel commander, declared that there was no place for retreat.

After his soldiers captured Damascus, he said, “The future is ours,” in a statement that was broadcast on Syria’s official television.

Arab capitals were taken aback by the speed of events, which sparked worries of a fresh round of instability in a region already in disarray due to the conflict’s expansion following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel and the war that followed in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel’s attacks on Iran and its allies Hezbollah were the direct cause of Assad’s downfall.

“The barbaric state has fallen” and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, praised the Syrian people.

DAUNTING WORK AHEAD

After the festivities wind down, Syria’s new leaders will have to deal with the difficult challenge of attempting to bring peace to a politically divided nation that will require billions of dollars in aid and investments to reconstruct.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been slain in Syria’s protracted civil war, which began in 2011 as an uprising against Assad’s regime and has left towns in ruins.

Stakeholders include Kurds, Islamists, the United States, and Turkey.

A potential obstacle would be the return of Islamic State, which, in its heyday, controlled external activities and established a reign of terror over substantial portions of Syria and Iraq.

According to U.S. sources who spoke to Reuters, President Joe Biden’s administration was keeping an eye on events but has not changed the deployment of the approximately 900 troops now stationed in Syria.

Iran’s English-language Press TV said that Syrian rebels assaulted Iran’s embassy, highlighting the sudden developments.

Iran responded calmly after Israeli attacks in Syria killed members of its elite Revolutionary Guards. According to the foreign ministry, the Syrian people alone are responsible for the country’s future and should pursue it without harmful involvement or international pressure.

As opposition factions moved closer to Damascus, Hezbollah, based in Lebanon and a vital source of support for Assad for years, withdrew all of its soldiers from Syria on Saturday, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters on Sunday.

According to two senior army soldiers who spoke to Reuters, Assad flew out of Damascus for an unspecified location early on Sunday. He hasn’t spoken in public since the unexpected rebel breakthrough a week ago.

His current whereabouts, that of his spouse Asma, and that of their two kids were all unknown. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Assad resigned and left the country after issuing directives for a peaceful transition of power.

The alliance of Syrian rebels declared that it was still working to hand over power to a transitional government with full executive authority.

“The great Syrian revolution has moved from the stage of struggle to overthrow the Assad regime to the struggle to build a Syria together that befits the sacrifices of its people,” it stated in a statement.

Hundreds of thousands of individuals were detained by security forces throughout the civil war and placed in detention facilities where, according to international human rights organizations, torture was a common practice. Families were frequently kept in the dark about the fate of their loved ones.

On Sunday, inmates from one of the most infamous incarceration systems in the world flooded out of Syrian jails, yelling with delight as they did so.

Not immediately realizing that Assad had fallen, recently released inmates hurried through the streets of Damascus, asking passersby what had occurred while holding up the fingers of both hands to indicate how long they had been incarcerated.

In a nation where Assad’s opponents were subjected to barrel bombs, Prime Minister Muhammad Ghazi al-Jalali demanded free elections.

In a significant step toward determining Syria’s political destiny, Jalali said that he had spoken with Golani about handling the transitional phase.

After Israel murdered several Hezbollah officials, a key component of Assad’s fighting force, over the course of the previous two months, the Middle East’s power dynamics shifted, leading to the fall of Assad’s regime.

In order to support Assad throughout Syria’s civil war, Russia, a strong friend of Assad, took significant action in 2015. However, the conflict in Ukraine has bound it.

FOR US TO REMAIN PRESENT

Millions of people fled to neighboring countries as a result of the Syrian civil war, which also attracted a number of foreign powers and gave Islamist extremists a platform to plan strikes worldwide.

For years, the frontlines remained inactive. Then, in late November, Islamists who had previously been associated with Al Qaeda suddenly sprang into action.

After years of shunning the Assad-led government, Western nations now have to choose how to handle a new government that appears to be influenced by Golani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a globally recognized terrorist organization.

Retired Marine General Frank McKenzie, a former U.S. military commander of American operations in the Middle East, expressed concern about Syria’s future.

“I wish I had greater faith that the Syrian people will receive good news from this. There is a chance that an Islamic state would emerge there, which would have disastrous effects on the entire area. I can do it,” McKenzie said to ABC News.

Daniel Shapiro, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, stated at a conference in Manama on Sunday that the United States will keep its presence in eastern Syria and take the necessary steps to stop the Islamic State from resurrecting.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan urged caution and stated that “terrorist organizations” must not be let to exploit the Syrian crisis.

Before its commander Golani broke with the international jihadist movement in 2016, HTS, which led the rebel gains throughout western Syria, was an offshoot of al Qaeda.

Joshua Landis, a Syria specialist and the director of the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Middle East Studies, stated, “The real question is how orderly will this transition be, and it seems quite clear that Golani is very eager for it to be an orderly one.”

“They are going to have to rebuild … they will need Europe and the U.S. to lift sanctions,” Landis stated.

The strongest rebel organization in Syria is HTS, and several Syrians are still afraid that it would impose harsh Islamist rule or provoke retaliation.

The regional giants may oppose HTS because nations like Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, two key allies of the United States, view Islamist extremist organizations as an existential danger.

Israel claimed to have placed troops in the Syrian buffer zone under U.N. supervision and at other locations as needed for protection.

One Lebanese and one Syrian security source said on Sunday that suspected Israeli strikes had struck the Mazzeh suburb of Damascus.

The Syrian army evacuated the Khalkhala air base in southern Syria overnight after being bombarded by jets thought to be Israeli, two regional security sources told Reuters.

According to one of the individuals, the claimed attacks seemed to be intended to keep weaponry out of the hands of extremist Islamist organizations, but the Israeli government did not immediately react.