The Syrian government appears to have fallen after opposition fighters said they had entered Damascus following a stunning advance, and a Syrian opposition war monitor reported that President Bashar Assad had left the country.
Syrian opposition fighters said Sunday morning they had entered Damascus and residents in the capital reported sounds of gunfire and explosions.
Rami Abdurrahman — who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition war monitor — told the Associated Press that Assad took a flight Sunday from Damascus. Two senior Syrian army officers also told Reuters that Assad left Damascus on Sunday for an unknown destination. The White House told CBS News it did not know Assad’s whereabouts.
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“President Biden and his team are closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and remain in constant contact with regional partners,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett. wrote on social networks.
The Syrian army informed its officers that Assad’s rule had ended, Reuters reported.
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said on Sunday morning that the government was ready to “reach out” to the opposition and hand over its functions to a transitional government.
“I am at home and I have not left, and this is due to my belonging to this country,” Jalili said in a video statement. He said he would go to his office to continue his work in the morning and called on Syrian citizens not to degrade public property.
Omar Sanadiki / AP
He did not respond to reports that Assad had fled.
Pro-government radio station Sham FM reported that Damascus airport had been evacuated and all flights had been halted.
The insurgents also announced that they had entered the notorious Saydnaya military prison, north of the capital, and “freed our prisoners”.
Damascus must fall, three U.S. officials told CBS News, after Syrian insurgents surrounded the capital in a rapid offensive that began on November 27. Syrian insurgents also claimed early Sunday that they had captured the key city of Homs.
Iranian forces defending Assad have “virtually” been evacuated from Syria, U.S. officials said Saturday.
Syrian insurgents reached Damascus on Saturday in a rapid offensive that saw them take control of some of Syria’s largest cities. It was the first time opposition forces had reached Damascus since 2018, when Syrian troops retook areas on the outskirts of the capital after a year-long siege.
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Last week’s advances were among the most significant in recent years by opposition factions, led by a group that has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations. United. In their drive to overthrow Assad’s government, the insurgents have encountered little resistance from the Syrian army.
The fighters are led by Syria’s most powerful insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, as well as a Turkish-backed Syrian militia group called the Syrian National Army. Both are entrenched in the northwest.
Abdurrahman previously reported that insurgents were active in the Damascus suburbs of Maadamiyah, Jaramana and Daraya. He added that on Saturday, opposition fighters were also marching from eastern Syria towards the Damascus suburb of Harasta.
An insurgent commander, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, posted on the messaging app Telegram that opposition forces had begun carrying out the “final stage” of their offensive by encircling Damascus. He added that the insurgents were heading from southern Syria towards Damascus.
Ghani said Sunday morning local time that insurgent forces had “completely liberated” Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, Reuters reported, while government forces reportedly abandoned the city. If they do manage to capture Homs, they would sever the link between Damascus, Assad’s seat of power, and the northern coastal region where the president enjoys widespread support.
Ghaith Alsayed / AP
Its main international backer, Russia, is busy with its war in Ukraine, and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to bolster its forces, has been weakened by a yearlong conflict with Israel. Iran, meanwhile, has seen its proxies in the region degraded by regular Israeli airstrikes. The Israeli military said on Saturday that after armed individuals carried out an attack on a UN post in the Hader area, its troops were currently helping UN forces repel the attack.
On Saturday, President-elect Donald Trump commented on the situation on Truth Social, saying, “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET HIM PLAY. DON’T GET INVOLVED!
Three U.S. officials told CBS News that the al-Assad family’s rule, which began in 1971, appears to be coming to an end.
“The United States is not going to… dive militarily into the middle of a Syrian civil war,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told an audience at the Reagan National Defense Forum. an annual gathering of national security officials, defense contractors and lawmakers. at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. “What we’re going to do is focus on American national security priorities and interests.”
He said the United States would continue to act if necessary to prevent Islamic State – a violently anti-Western extremist group that is not known to be involved in the offensive but has sleeper cells in deserts. Syrians – to exploit the openings offered by the fighting.
How the conflict reignited
Thousands of people were fleeing the region amid the dramatic escalation of the civil war, which had simmered for years without major progress on either side until the conflict ended. the rebels launched a shock offensive about two weeks ago.
The capture of Homs was a major victory for the rebels, who have already seized the northern towns of Aleppo and Hama, as well as large parts of the south, in a lightning offensive. According to analysts, control of Homs by the rebels would be a game-changer. Aleppo is the second largest city in Syria.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani told CNN in an exclusive interview from Syria on Thursday that the goal of the offensive was to overthrow Assad’s government.
The Syrian army withdrew from much of southern Syria on Saturday, leaving more parts of the country, including two provincial capitals, under the control of opposition fighters, the army and an observer said of the opposition. The redeployment of the southern provinces of Daraa and Soueida occurred as the Syrian army sent large numbers of reinforcements to defend Homs.
The Syrian army said in a statement on Saturday that it had carried out redeployment and repositioning in Soueida and Daraa after its checkpoints were attacked by “terrorists”. The army said it was establishing “a strong and coherent defensive and security belt in the region”, apparently to defend Damascus from the south.
Since the Syrian conflict erupted in March 2011, the Syrian government has described opposition gunmen as terrorists.
In gas-rich Qatar, the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey were due to meet to discuss the situation in Syria. Turkey is a major backer of rebels seeking to overthrow Assad.
Qatar’s top diplomat, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, criticized Assad for failing to take advantage of a lull in fighting in recent years to address the country’s underlying problems. “Assad has failed to take this opportunity to begin to engage and restore his relations with his people,” he said.
Sheikh Mohammed said he was surprised by how quickly the rebels had advanced and said there was a real threat to Syria’s “territorial integrity”. He said war could “damage and destroy what’s left if there is no sense of urgency” to start a political process.
After the fall of the cities of Daraa and Soueida early Saturday, Syrian government forces still control five provincial capitals: Damascus, Homs and Quneitra, as well as Latakia and Tartous on the Mediterranean coast.
Tartus is home to the only Russian naval base outside the former Soviet Union, while Latakia is home to a major Russian air base.
Fighters from the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Friday captured large parts of the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, which borders Iraq, as well as the provincial capital of same name. The capture of areas in Deir el-Zour is a blow to Iran’s influence in the region, as this area is the gateway to the corridor connecting the Mediterranean to Iran, a supply line for Iranian-backed fighters, including Lebanese Hezbollah.
With the capture of a main border crossing with Iraq by the SDF and after opposition fighters took control of the Naseeb border crossing to Jordan in southern Syria, the only gateway to The Syrian government’s gateway to the outside world is the Masnaa border crossing with Lebanon.
contributed to this report.