The Syrian dictator claims to have left Damascus at the request of his Russian protector, while the Russian base of Hmeimim on the Mediterranean coast in which he had taken refuge had been attacked by drones.
The ousted Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, assured this Monday, December 16 that he had not premeditatedly fled Damascus, the day the capital was taken by the rebels, affirming that Moscow had requested his evacuation, in its first statement since his flight from Damascus.
Several senior Syrian officials told AFP that Bashar al-Assad had fled without warning members of his family or his closest collaborators on the night of December 7 to 8, during the fall of the capital into the hands of a rebel coalition led by radical Islamists.
“My departure from Syria was not premeditated nor did it take place during the last hours of the battle, contrary to some allegations,” Bashar al-Assad said in a statement published on the Telegram channel of the presidency.
“On the contrary, I remained in Damascus, fulfilling my duty until Sunday, December 8 at dawn,” he said, in his first statement since his fall, dated from Moscow.
“Immediate evacuation to Russia”
He claimed that the Russian base at Hmeimim on the Mediterranean coast where he had taken refuge had been attacked by drones “as the situation on the ground continued to deteriorate”.
“With no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow demanded (…) an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday, December 8,” he added, asserting that Syria was now “in the hands of terrorists” .
Bashar al-Assad has ruled the country since 2000, before fleeing when the coalition dominated by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, took Damascus.
Former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, HTS, which claims to have broken with jihadism, remains classified as “terrorist” by several Western capitals, including Washington.
But on Sunday, the United States claimed to have established “direct contact” with the new power in Damascus.
The war in Syria, triggered in 2011 by Assad's bloody repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, has left more than half a million dead, devastated the country and pushed some six million Syrians into exile, i.e. a quarter of the population.
