Confusion reigns in Syria where power seems to be on the verge of falling. President Bashar al-Assad fled the country this Sunday, according to an NGO, facing pressure from rebels who are leading a dazzling offensive and have announced they have entered the capital Damascus.
Since the start of their offensive on November 27 in northwest Syria, the rebels have quickly conquered several major key cities and had announced targeting Damascus, threatening to bring down the Syrian president.
Heavy gunfire heard in Damascus
“Assad left Syria via Damascus international airport before members of the armed and security forces left” the site, said OSDH director Rami Abdel Rahmane. AFP was not immediately able to confirm from an official source the whereabouts of the president who has ruled Syria for twenty-four years.
“Our forces have started to enter Damascus,” the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, at the head of a coalition of rebels supported by Turkey, had declared shortly before on Telegram. Residents of the capital reported hearing heavy gunfire.
According to sources from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), the order was given to officers and soldiers of government forces to withdraw from Damascus international airport. Before this withdrawal, President Bashar al-Assad was able to leave Syria via Damascus airport, according to the NGO based in London and which has a vast network of sources in Syria.
The rebels immediately announced that they had captured the Sednaya prison in Damascus, a symbol of the worst abuses by President Assad's forces, and freed the detainees from this establishment.
Hezbollah withdraws its forces
Lebanese Hezbollah, a key supporter of Bashar al-Assad's power, has simultaneously withdrawn its forces from the outskirts of Damascus and the Homs region (western Syria), according to the OSDH.
Bruised by a war which has left half a million dead since 2011, and divided it into zones of influence, with belligerents supported by different foreign powers, Syria had not experienced such intense fighting for thirteen years. .
Our articles on the Civil War in Syria
The coalition of rebel groups led by HTS, a group from the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, made a particularly spectacular advance in around ten days, capturing the major cities of Aleppo and Hama before announcing that they had took control of Homs, the country's third city, and entered Damascus. In addition to Hezbollah, Bashar al-Assad is supported by Iran and Russia.
