Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syrian opposition war monitor, said Assad took a flight from Damascus and left early Sunday. There was no immediate official statement from the Syrian government and Assad's whereabouts remain unknown. It was the first time opposition forces had reached Damascus since 2018 when Syrian troops recaptured areas on the outskirts of the capital following a yearslong siege.
The night before, opposition forces had taken the central city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, as government forces abandoned it. The rapidly developing events have shaken the region. Lebanon said it was closing all its land border crossings with Syria except for one that links Beirut with Damascus. Jordan closed a border crossing with Syria, too.
Here's the latest in this big story
Syrians in Lebanon flock to border crossing
Syrians have crowded the Lebanese side of the Masnaa border crossing Sunday waiting to cross back into Syria after the fall of Bashar Assad. Lebanon’s General Security closed the crossing overnight but reopened it in the morning, allowing Syrians to freely cross out of Lebanon while restricting their entry from Syria into the country.
Lebanese officials have long complained about the country’s population of refugees — the largest per capita in the world. As of Sept. 30, some 768,353 Syrian refugees were registered with the U.N. refugee agency in Lebanon, with hundreds of thousands more believed to be unregistered.
Many fled Lebanon after the escalation of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in late September, but others crossed back from Syria into Lebanon in recent days as insurgents marched toward Damascus.
With Syrian officials having abandoned the Syrian side of the border, an Associated Press photographer who crossed from Lebanon into Syria said he saw some people taking the opportunity to loot the duty-free store between the two borders.
Qatari official says there is regional consensus on engaging all parties in Syria
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman and adviser to the prime minister, Majed bin Mohammed al-Ansari, says participants of the emergency meeting of foreign ministers and top officials from eight countries with interests in Syria, agreed on the need “to engage all parties on the ground and be inclusive in our engagement.” The late Saturday meeting, hosted by Qatar, included Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Turkey.
Al-Ansari also said that would include the HTS, the main rebel group that has taken control of Damascus, branded a terrorist organization by the U.S. and United Nations. He said the meeting participants were caught off guard by how quickly Assad was toppled and that the Syrian leader had not reached out to Qatar, but had spoken to other countries in the region in his final days. He said he did not know where Assad was.
Al-Ansari said the international community must now work together to create conditions where all Syrians can live in peace, regardless of their religious or ethnic group. The main concern is “stability and safe transition,” he said. “No one group or party should feel unsafe in a future Syria.” Al-Ansari spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the Doha Forum.
American military presence will continue in eastern Syria
Daniel B. Shapiro, a deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, said the U.S. presence was “solely to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS and has nothing to do with other aspects of this conflict,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.
“We call on all parties in Syria to protect civilians, particularly those from Syria’s minority communities to respect international military norms and to work to achieve a resolution to include the political settlement,” Shapiro said.
“Multiple actors in this conflict have a terrible track record to include Assad’s horrific crimes, Russia’s indiscriminate aerial bomb bombardment, Iranian-back militia involvement and the atrocities of ISIS.” Shapiro, however, was careful not to directly say Assad had been deposed by the insurgents. “If confirmed no one should shed any tears over the Assad regime,” he added.
Syrians celebrate in the heart of Damascus and storm presidential palace
Brimming with excitement, people flocked to Ummayed Square in the heart of the Syrian capital to mark the fall of Bashar Assad's government. The square houses the building of the Ministry of Defense.
Men on the streets and some riding in the back of pickup trucks fired celebratory shots, as plumes of smoke could be seen in the distance. Some waved the green flag that represented Syria’s uprising against the Assad dynasty, the first such instance in well over a decade before the mass protests spiralled into civil war. A few kilometres away, Syrians stormed the presidential palace, taking down portraits of Assad from the palace's guest quarters where the fallen president hosted heads of state.
Yemeni government minister hails Assad’s fall as a blow to Iran
Moammar al-Eryani, Information Minister of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, said Iran’s “expansionist project, which used sectarian militias as tools to complete the Persian Crescent, sow chaos, undermine the sovereignty of states ... is collapsing" as rebel groups took over the Syrian capital, Damascus. He also expressed hope that Yemenis would drive out the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north in 2014.
“The Yemenis, with their wisdom and steadfastness, are able to thwart the plans of Iran and its Houthi tool to violate their land and tamper with their destiny, just as those plans failed in Syria and Lebanon,” he wrote social media platform X.
Senior Emirati diplomat declines to answer if Bashar Assad was heading to UAE
Anwar Gargash faced a series of direct questions over Syria, particularly as the UAE in recent years had sought to rehabilitate Assad’s image in the Arab world. Asked if Assad was heading to the UAE, Gargash said: “When people ask where is Bashar al-Assad going to, I say, you know, when you really look at this, this is really at the end of the day a footnote in history. I’m reminded a little bit by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918 when he went into a long exile.”
He added: “But I don’t think when you look at that period, this is really critical.” Gargash later refused to answer when repeatedly pressed by journalists on whether his answer was an acknowledgment that Assad was in the UAE.
There has been speculation Assad could flee to the oil-rich, where his extended family is known to own properties in Dubai. Flight-tracking data showed private jets moving between Damascus, Syria, and the UAE on Saturday. Gargash spoke Sunday at the International Institute of Strategic Studies’ Manama Dialogue in Bahrain.
Israel deploys forces in a demilitarized buffer zone along the northern frontier with Syria
The Israeli military said Sunday it also sent troops to “other places necessary for its defense,” and that the force deployment was meant to provide security for residents of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. It added it was “not interfering with the internal events in Syria.”
Israel captured that territory from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed it, a move not recognized by much of the international community, which views the territory as occupied. A later ceasefire agreement created a demilitarized buffer zone between the two countries’ territories, prohibiting military presence or activity from either side in the area. United Nations peacekeepers have patrolled the area since 1974.
Head of U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces hails Assad's fall
“This change presents an opportunity to build a new Syria based on democracy and justice that secures the rights of all Syrians,” Mazloum Abdi, the leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces, said in a written statement, praising the fall of the “authoritarian regime in Damascus.” The Kurdish-led group has a significant presence in northeastern Syria, where they have clashed with the extremist Islamic State group and Turkish-backed militias over the years.
Syrian prime minister says he doesn’t know Assad's whereabouts
Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said early Sunday he didn't know the whereabouts of Bashar Assad and his defense minister. He told the Saudi television network Al-Arabiyya that they lost communication Saturday night. A video statement on Syrian state TV by a group of men said that President Bashar Assad was overthrown and all prisoners had been set free.
The man who read a statement said the Operations Room to Conquer Damascus is calling on all opposition fighters and citizens to preserve state institutions of “the free Syrian state.” "Long live the free Syrian state that is to all Syrians and all” their sects and ethnic groups, they said.
Organizations close to Assad start alienating themselves from fallen president
Syria’s al-Watan newspaper, historically pro-government, wrote: “We are facing a new page for Syria. We thank God for not shedding more blood. We believe and trust that Syria will be for all Syrians.” It added that media workers should not be blamed for publishing government statements in the past. “We only carried out the instructions and published the news they sent us,” it said. “It quickly became clear now that it was false.”
A statement from the Alawite sect — to which Assad belongs and which has formed the core of his base — called on the youth to be “calm, rational and prudent and not to be dragged into what tears apart the unity of our country.”
“We were and still are advocates of peace and advocates of unity,” it said. It called for “the language of reason and dialogue to prevail over all parties in the service of Syria and its great people.”
Crowds gather to celebrate in the central squares of Damascus
DAMASCUS, Syria — Crowds have gathered to celebrate in the central squares of Damascus, chanting anti-Assad slogans and honking car horns. In some areas, celebratory gunshots rang out. Some gathered to pray in the city’s mosques, chanting: “God is great.”
Soldiers and police officers had left their posts and fled, and looters broke into the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense. Many of the capital’s residents were in disbelief at the speed with which Assad’s hold on the country had fallen after nearly 14 years of civil war.
“I did not sleep last night and I did not accept to sleep until I heard the news of his fall,” said Mohammed Amer Al-Oulabi, 44, who works in the electricity sector. “From Idlib to Damascus, it only took them (the opposition forces) a few days, thank God. May God bless them, the heroic lions who made us proud.”
“My feelings are indescribable,” said Omar Daher, a 29-year-old lawyer. “After the fear that he (Assad) and his father made us live in for many years, and the panic and state of terror that I was living in, I can’t believe it.” Daher said his father had been killed by security forces and his brother was in detention, his fate unknown. Assad “is a criminal, a tyrant and a dog,” he said.
“Damn his soul and the soul of the entire Assad family,” said Ghazal al-Sharif, another reveler in central Damascus. “It is the prayer of every oppressed person and God answered it today.
Leader of Syrian insurgent group prohibits fighters from getting close to state institutions
The leader of the largest insurgent group in Syria has prohibited his fighters from getting close to state institutions saying they will remain under the supervision of the country’s prime minister at the present time.
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, leader of the jihadi Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, also banned his fighters from opening fire in the air in the capital Damascus. “Public institutions will remain under the supervision of the prime minister until they are officially handed over,” he said in a statement published on his group’s social media outlets.
Al-Golani’s comments came as Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said he is extending his hand to the opposition adding that he wants to guarantee that state institutions function.
Syria’s prime minister is ready to hand over the government to the opposition
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said in a video statement that the government is ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition and hand over its functions to a transitional government. “I am in my house and I have not left, and this is because of my belonging to this country,” Jalili said.
He said he would go to his office to continue work in the morning and called on Syrian citizens not to deface public property. He did not address reports that President Bashar Assad has left the country. There was no immediate comment from the United Arab Emirates on Assad’s whereabouts. Assad’s family has extensive real estate holdings in Dubai.
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