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DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The Syrian authorities collapsed aboriginal Sunday, falling to a lightning rebel violative that seized power of the superior of Damascus and sent crowds into the streets to observe the extremity of the Assad family's 50 years of robust rule.
Syrian authorities tv aired a video connection by a radical of men saying that President Bashar Assad had been overthrown and each prisoners had been acceptable free.
The antheral who work the connection said the absorption group, known arsenic the Operations Room to Conquer Damascus, called connected each rebel fighters and citizens to sphere the institutions of “the escaped Syrian state.”
The connection emerged hours aft the caput of a Syrian absorption warfare show said Assad had near the state for an undisclosed location, fleeing up of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus pursuing a remarkably swift beforehand crossed the country.
Many of the capital’s residents were successful disbelief astatine the velocity astatine which Assad mislaid his clasp connected the state aft astir 14 years of civilian warfare that killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced fractional the country's prewar colonisation of 23 cardinal and drew successful respective overseas powers.
Celebrations erupt crossed the superior
As daylight broke implicit Damascus, crowds gathered to commune successful the city’s mosques and to observe successful the squares, chanting “God is great.” People besides chanted anti-Assad slogans and honked car horns. Teen boys picked up weapons that had seemingly been discarded by information forces and fired them successful the air.
Revelers filled Umayyad Square successful the metropolis center, wherever the Defense Ministry is located. Men fired celebratory gunshots into the aerial and immoderate waved the three-starred Syrian emblem that predates the Assad authorities and was adopted by the revolutionaries. A fewer kilometers (miles) away, Syrians stormed the statesmanlike palace, tearing up portraits of the toppled president.
Soldiers and constabulary officers near their posts and fled, and looters broke into the Defense Ministry. Videos from Damascus showed families wandering into the statesmanlike palace, with immoderate emerging carrying stacks of plates and different household items.
“I did not slumber past night, and I refused to slumber until I heard the quality of his fall,” said Mohammed Amer Al-Oulabi, 44, who works successful the energy sector. “From Idlib to Damascus, it lone took them (the absorption forces) a fewer days, convey God. May God bless them, the heroic lions who made america proud.”
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. We judge and spot that Syria volition beryllium for each Syrians.”
The paper added that media workers should not beryllium blamed for publishing authorities statements successful the past.
“We lone carried retired the instructions and published the quality they sent us,” it said. “It rapidly became wide present that it was false.”
A connection from the Alawite sect — to which Assad belongs and which has formed the halfway of his 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.”
Assad's whereabouts are unknown
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said successful a video connection that 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 a radical of equipped men escorting him retired of his bureau and to the Four Seasons edifice connected Sunday.
The premier curate had earlier told the Al Arabiya quality web that helium does not cognize wherever Assad and the defence curate are. He said helium mislaid connection with Assad precocious Saturday.
Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told The Associated Press that Assad took a formation Sunday from Damascus.
A elder diplomat from the United Arab Emirates, which had sought to rehabilitate Assad's representation and has welcomed high-profile exiles successful caller years, declined to remark connected his whereabouts erstwhile asked by reporters astatine a league successful Bahrain.
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.
Assad has been accused of warfare crimes and crimes against humanity during the war, including a 2013 chemic weapons onslaught connected the outskirts of the capital.
There was nary contiguous remark from Iran, which had been Assad’s staunchest supporter. The Iranian Embassy successful Damascus was ransacked aft seemingly having been abandoned. AP footage showed breached windows and documents scattered successful the entryway.
Opposition forces had not reached Damascus since 2018, erstwhile Syrian troops recaptured areas connected the outskirts of the superior pursuing a yearslong siege.
Calls for an orderly modulation arsenic it remains unclear what comes next
The rebel advances since Nov. 27 were the largest successful caller years, and saw the cities of Aleppo, Hama and Homs autumn successful a substance of 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 successful the last days arsenic they reeled from different conflicts.
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.
Its person Abu Mohammed al-Golani has sought to remake the group’s image, cutting ties with al-Qaida, ditching hard-line officials and vowing to clasp pluralism and spiritual tolerance. HTS acceptable up a “salvation government” successful 2017 to administer a ample portion successful northwestern Syria nether its control.
“Golani has made past and sparked anticipation among millions of Syrians," said Dareen Khalifa, a elder advisor with the International Crisis Group and an adept connected Syrian groups. "But helium and the rebels present look a formidable situation ahead. One tin lone anticipation they emergence to the occasion.”
The U.N.’s peculiar envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, called Saturday for urgent talks successful Geneva to guarantee an “orderly governmental transition.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose state is Assad’s main planetary backer, said helium feels “sorry for the Syrian people.”
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. The participants included Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Turkey.
Majed bin Mohammed al-Ansari, Qatar’s overseas ministry spokesperson and an advisor to the premier minister, told reporters that 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.”
The Israeli subject said Sunday it has deployed forces successful a demilitarized buffer portion on its bluish frontier with Syria pursuing the rebel violative there.
The military, which said it besides sent troops to “other places indispensable for its defense,” said the deployment was meant to supply information for residents of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Israel captured the territory successful the 1967 Mideast warfare and the planetary community, but for the United States, views it arsenic occupied.
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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, Syria, Jon Gambrell successful Manama, Bahrain, Josef Federman successful Doha, Qatar, and Tia Goldenberg successful Jerusalem contributed to this report.
