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DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad fled to Moscow connected Sunday, Russian media reported, hours aft a stunning rebel beforehand took implicit the superior of Damascus and ended the Assad family’s 50 years of robust rule.
The Russian agencies, Tass and RIA, cited an unidentified Kremlin root connected Assad and his household being fixed asylum successful Moscow, his longtime state and protector. The Associated Press was not instantly capable to verify the reports but contacted the Kremlin for comment.
RIA besides said Moscow had received guarantees from Syrian insurgents of the information of Russian subject bases and diplomatic posts successful Syria.
Assad reportedly near Syria aboriginal Sunday, and Syrians person been pouring into streets echoing with celebratory gunfire aft a stunning rebel beforehand reached the capital, ending the Assad family’s 50 years of robust rule.
The swiftly moving events person raised questions astir the aboriginal of the state and the wider region. Russia has requested an exigency league of the U.N. Security Council sermon the concern successful Syria, Russia’s archetypal lawman imperishable typical to the U.N., Dmitry Polyansky, posted connected Telegram.
Joyful crowds gathered successful squares successful Damascus, waving the Syrian revolutionary emblem successful scenes that recalled the aboriginal days of the Arab Spring uprising, earlier a brutal crackdown and the emergence of an insurgency plunged the state into a astir 14-year civilian war.
Others gleefully ransacked the statesmanlike palace and residence aft Assad and different apical officials vanished.
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a erstwhile al-Qaida commandant who chopped ties with the radical years agone and says helium embraces pluralism and spiritual tolerance, leads the biggest rebel faction and is poised to illustration the country's future.
In his archetypal nationalist quality since fighters entered the Damascus suburbs Saturday, al-Golani visited the sprawling Umayyad Mosque and called Assad's autumn “a triumph to the Islamic nation.” Calling himself by his fixed name, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and not his nom de guerre, helium told hundreds of radical that Assad had made Syria “a workplace for Iran’s greed.”
The rebels look the daunting task of healing bitter divisions successful a state ravaged by warfare and inactive divided among equipped factions. Turkey-backed absorption fighters are battling U.S.-allied Kurdish forces successful the north, and the Islamic State radical is inactive progressive successful immoderate distant areas.
Syrian authorities tv broadcast a rebel connection aboriginal Sunday saying Assad had been overthrown and each prisoners had been released. They called connected radical to sphere the institutions of “the escaped Syrian state.” The rebels aboriginal announced a curfew successful Damascus from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m.
The rebels said they freed radical held astatine the notorious Saydnaya prison, wherever rights groups accidental thousands were tortured and killed. A video circulating online purported to amusement rebels breaking unfastened compartment doors and freeing dozens of pistillate prisoners, galore of whom appeared shocked. At slightest 1 tiny kid was seen among them.
“This happiness volition not beryllium completed until I tin spot my lad retired of situation and cognize wherever is he,” said 1 relative, Bassam Masr. "I person been searching for him for 2 hours. He has been detained for 13 years.”
Rebel commandant Anas Salkhadi aboriginal appeared connected authorities TV and sought to reassure Syria's spiritual and taste minorities, saying: “Syria is for everyone, nary exceptions. Syria is for Druze, Sunnis, Alawites, and each sects.”
“We volition not woody with radical the mode the Assad household did," helium added.
Celebrations successful the superior
Damascus residents prayed successful mosques and celebrated successful squares, calling, “God is great.” People chanted anti-Assad slogans and honked car horns. Teenage boys picked up weapons seemingly discarded by information forces and fired into the air.
Revelers filled Umayyad Square, wherever the Defense Ministry is located. Some waved the three-starred Syrian emblem that predates the Assad authorities and was adopted by the revolutionaries. Elsewhere, galore parts of the superior were bare and shops were closed.
Soldiers and constabulary near their posts and fled, and looters broke into the Defense Ministry. Videos showed families wandering the statesmanlike palace, immoderate carrying stacks of plates and different household items.
“It’s similar a dream. I request idiosyncratic to aftermath maine up," said absorption combatant Abu Laith, adding the rebels were welcomed successful Damascus with “love.”
At the Justice Ministry, wherever rebels stood guard, Judge Khitam Haddad said they were protecting documents from the chaos. Outside, immoderate residents sought accusation astir relatives who disappeared nether Assad.
The rebels “have felt the symptom of the people,” said 1 woman, giving lone her archetypal name, Heba. She disquieted astir imaginable revenge killings by the rebels, galore of whom appeared to beryllium underage.
Syria’s al-Watan newspaper, which was historically pro-government, wrote: “We are facing a caller leafage for Syria. We convey God for not shedding much blood.” It added that media workers should not beryllium blamed for publishing past authorities statements, saying it “only carried retired the instructions.”
A connection from the Alawite sect that has formed the halfway of Assad's basal called connected young Syrians to beryllium “calm, rational and prudent and not to beryllium dragged into what tears isolated the unity of our country.”
The rebels chiefly travel from the Sunni Muslim bulk successful Syria, which besides has sizable Druze, Christian and Kurdish communities. In Qamishli successful the northeast, a Kurdish antheral slapped a statue of the precocious person Hafez Assad with his shoe.
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said the authorities was acceptable to “extend its hand” to the absorption and crook its functions implicit to a transitional government. A video shared connected Syrian absorption media showed equipped men escorting him from his bureau and to the Four Seasons edifice connected Sunday.
Anwar Gargash said Assad's destination astatine this constituent is simply a “footnote successful history,” comparing it to the agelong exile of German Kaiser Wilhelm II aft World War I.
Calls for an orderly transition
The rebel advances since Nov. 27 were the largest successful caller years, and saw the cities of Aleppo, Hama and Homs autumn wrong days arsenic the Syrian service melted away. Russia, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, which provided important enactment to Assad passim the uprising, abandoned him arsenic they reeled from different conflicts.
The extremity of Assad’s regularisation was a large stroke to Iran and its allies, already weakened by struggle with Israel. Iran, which had powerfully backed him passim the civilian war, said Syrians should determine their aboriginal “without destructive, coercive, overseas intervention.” The Iranian Embassy successful Damascus was ransacked aft seemingly having been abandoned.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meantime said Israeli troops had seized a buffer portion successful the Golan Heights established successful 1974, saying it was to support Israeli residents aft Syrian troops abandoned positions. Israel's subject aboriginal warned residents of 5 confederate Syria communities to enactment location for their safety, and didn’t respond to questions.
Israel captured the Golan successful the 1967 Mideast warfare and aboriginal annexed it. The planetary community, but for the United States, views it arsenic occupied, and the Arab League connected Sunday condemned what it called Israel’s efforts to instrumentality vantage of Assad’s downfall inhabit much territory.
The rebels are led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, oregon HTS, which has its origins successful al-Qaida and is considered a violent enactment by the United States and the United Nations. Al-Golani, has sought to recast the radical arsenic a mean and tolerant force.
“Golani has made past and sparked anticipation among millions of Syrians," said Dareen Khalifa, a elder advisor with the International Crisis Group. "But helium and the rebels present look a formidable situation ahead.”
The U.N.’s peculiar envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, called Saturday for urgent talks successful Geneva to guarantee an “orderly governmental transition.”
The Gulf federation of Qatar, a cardinal determination mediator, hosted an exigency gathering of overseas ministers and apical officials from 8 countries with interests successful Syria precocious Saturday. They included Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Turkey.
Majed al-Ansari, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, said they agreed connected the request “to prosecute each parties connected the ground," including the HTS, and that the main interest is “stability and harmless transition.”
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Sewell reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue, Sarah El Deeb and Kareem Chehayeb successful Beirut; Samar Kassaballi, Omar Sanadiki and Ghaith Alsayed successful Damascus; Jon Gambrell successful Manama, Bahrain; Josef Federman successful Doha, Qatar; and Tia Goldenberg successful Jerusalem, contributed.
