A week after fleeing the country, forced by the capture of Damascus by HTS rebels, Bashar al-Assad spoke for the first time. In a statement, he cited Russia’s help in his escape and called the new leaders “terrorists.”
It was a toppled and impeached president who spoke, more than a week after being forced to flee his country. Bashar al-Assad broke his silence on Monday to discuss his escape process and Russia’s help. He claimed to have fled Syria at the request of Moscow and only once the fall of Damascus had taken place.
His possible escape and recorded by the regime of Vladimir Putin
A few hours after his departure, 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 in the hands of a rebel coalition led by radical Islamists.
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“My departure from Syria was not premeditated nor did it take place during the final hours of the battle, contrary to some allegations,” he said in a statement that was published on the Telegram channel of the presidency.
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Before specifying. “On the contrary, I remained in Damascus, fulfilling my duty until Sunday, December 8 at dawn. »
The deposed president claimed that the Russian base at Hmeimim, located on the Mediterranean coast where he had taken refuge, had been attacked by drones “as the situation on the ground continued to deteriorate”.
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It was at this precise moment that Russia decided to evacuate him. “With no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow demanded […] an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday, December 8,” he added.
He calls the new leaders “terrorists”
In this press release, Bashar al-Assad, at the head of the country since 2000, remained very vague about the rebels who overthrew him, simply describing the new leaders as “terrorists”. It was this coalition dominated by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, which 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 powers 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. or a quarter of the population.
Swiss
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