Islamic-led rebel forces announced overnight the conquest of Damascus and the "escape" of the "tyrant" Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria who has been in power for a quarter of a century after inheriting it from his father Hafez for 30 years at the top of the regime. Residents of the capital took to the streets to celebrate the fall of the regime after 50 years of rule by the Baath Party , while rebel groups announced the beginning of a "new era" in Syria. The country is thus preparing to write a new page in the book of its thousand-year history, while from Washington the White House announced that "US President Joe Biden and his team are closely monitoring the extraordinary events" in Syria and "remain in constant contact with regional partners".
After entering Damascus, opposition forces moved into the city center and took control of the public broadcaster . The rebels also "liberated" the nearby Sednaya military prison, known as the "human slaughterhouse," where "the doors were opened to thousands of detainees who were imprisoned by the security apparatus throughout the regime's rule," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Meanwhile, Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said he was ready to "reach out" to the opposition and collaborate with the "leadership" that will be chosen by the people, while the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebel group - Abu Mohammed al-Jolani - ordered his forces not to approach public institutions in Damascus, "which will remain under the supervision of the former prime minister until they are officially handed over", as reported in a post on X. At the same time, the Syrian army and the country's security forces have abandoned the capital's airport.
The capture of Damascus came after a sensational and unexpected triumphal march, which began only 10 days ago from the remote northwestern region of Idlib on the border with Turkey, which overwhelmed government, Russian and Iranian strongholds such as Aleppo and Hama . In the meantime, in Doha, Qatar, the long-awaited meeting took place in which the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey participated. At the same time, but before the American president-elect Donald Trump stated that it is not in Washington's interest to get involved in the Syrian conflict, the quartet of Western countries very close to Israel met in the capital on the Gulf: the United States, France, Great Britain and Germany. And according to sources present at the meeting, which included EU representatives and the UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, the meeting revealed the West's willingness to start a post-Assad political transition process in Geneva next week that would avoid further bloodshed and remove the spectre of the collapse of the Syrian state (separate from the regime) by putting all the parties involved at the same table: the exponents of the Assad system but not directly colluding with the president and his brother Maher (head of the Praetorian Guard and considered close to the Iranians) and the exponents of the vanguard of the military offensive, the armed group Hayat Tahrir ash Sham (HTS), led by the leader and former head of al Qaeda in Syria, Abu Muhammad al Jolani.
Although HTS has been defined as a "terrorist group" for years by the United States, Canada, Great Britain and the European Union, representatives of minor groups linked to Jolani could arrive in Switzerland, so as not to embarrass Western chancelleries. Without Moscow's support, the military and political structure of Assad's Syria has effectively melted away like snow in the sun . The last gasps of resistance along the Aleppo-Damascus axis were seen in Homs, the crossroads of the country and gateway to the coastal region, where Russia maintains the Tartus naval base and the Latakia air base, both on the Mediterranean. It is the same region where the regime's defectors, many of whom belong to the Shiite-Alawite clans originating from the coastal region, are entrenching themselves while waiting for a negotiation.
(Online Union)