BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian government appeared to have fallen early Sunday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a lightning rebel offensive.
The head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said President Bashar Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus after a remarkably swift advance across the country.
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said the government was ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition and hand over its functions to a transitional government.
Unconfirmed reports that Assad’s plane has been shot down:
This is develping, so take it with a grain of salt.
Holy shit, this just gets crazier and crazier
RIP BOZO
Pieces, for sure
To shreds you say?
Gotta say, its good Assad’s gone, but HTS does not sound much better.
The statements their leader have made seems promising. Cooperation with the UN, peaceful overhanding of power etc. But they stem from Al-Qaeda so let’s hope this doesn’t age like milk…
The statements their leader have made seems promising.
He is making the right noises, but then again so did the Taliban when they took control of Afghanistan.
The taliban had no allies, resources or much established that was at stake, thus no real incentive to follow through. They were just testing the waters to see if the world actually cared that much about those things or it was just a lot of noise. Turns out they were right, no country reciprocated on their statements, and so they just went back to their old ways.
HTS does actually have incentive to follow through here I think
My point exactly
Probably not, but at least for tonight we can celebrate
Time will tell. What they’ve been saying is mostly good, but words are one thing, actions are another. All we can do is hope.
Not that Assad isn’t a massive cunt, but I do wonder what might happen next.
For reference here is a news article about a certain group taking Afghanistan in 1996, and the tone about today’s news seems oddly familiar.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/27/newsid_2539000/2539973.stm
The PM may call for free elections all he wants, but a group that has spent the last decade shedding blood for this moment my not see things quite the same way.
Still, the Syrian government and Hezbollah were in cahoots, so I can think of at least one Syrian neighbour that will be celebrating this. It’s one less route for weapons to end up in the West Bank.
Not that Assad isn’t a massive cunt, but I do wonder what might happen next.
Given the track record of violent revolutions throughout history, nothing good. Still, seeing how low the “better than Assad” bar is it might be a slight improvement.
Some real “Welcome to the Imperium of Mankind, atleast we arent the Dark Eldar.” Energy.
It’s one less route for weapons to end up in the West Bank.
Only true if the revolution was Israeli sponsored.
To think the US haven’t had some hand in toppling a regional Russian ally would be naive.
Not sure if I would have preferred al-Assad having to live out the rest of his life in exile and constantly look over his own shoulder… Or seeing him imprisoned in Syria and/or publicly hanged for his crimes against humanity. But I guess with him having fled via plane, we’ll all have to accept the former.
…15ft/s drop at the mysterious end of his flight path in the mountains: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/yk-ata#3844aec1
That’s a rumor that’s going around. The flight path makes no sense for a VIP (for example, flying over the city center of occupied Homs), and while it was pretty clearly a crash of a military plane, that doesn’t at all imply it was al-Assad’s. We don’t know the destination, just that he boarded a plane, but I’m guessing we’ll see him turn up soon enough.
Yeah, we’ll have to see. Sucks for whoever was actually on this plane though.
Well, if it was a Boeing plane he might nit make it to his destination.
Assad was a fucker who committed crimes against humanity and deserved to die. Unfortunately I don’t have high hopes for whatever group of islamist fascists ends up arresting control.
(Time to find out if this is one of those subs that removes any comment even slightly critical of islam as “islamophobia”…)
Yah know, you didn’t have to add that last caveat, most people already agreed with you
What do you mean? Why do you think I give a damn whether “most people” agree with what I’m saying or not?
(time to find out blah blah blah who gives a fuck) shows you do give a damn about whether “most people” agree with what you are saying or not.
Feel free to disagree all you want with my educated opinion that Mohammad was a child rapist and a violent warmonger with delusions of grandeur.
Most people are smart enough to know that there is a difference between disagreement and censors removing posts that they simply don’t like.
Just the mods
My best wishes to a free Rojava and may all Syrians get to experience a life of peace and freedom
I do hope so but HTS has some concerning links to IS.
Removed by mod
Good luck. It was jihadists that deposed Assad, I’m sure they’ll just give up their newly acquired country. And I’m sure the CIA will stand idly by while that happens. Unfortunately Syria is fucked. Caliphate incoming.
2024 be like: I’m not done yet!!!
Can someone ELI5 what happened? I knew about the civil war but it had been effectively at a stalemate for a couple of years. How did the rebels suddenly surge like they did?
From what I know, this is the combination of three things
- Opposition rebel groups decided not to fight each other
- Assad had it’s russian support cut out
- Blitz offensive lead by the opposition rebel groups, some of which had Turkish support lead to mayhem in Assad ranks
He relied primarily on Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah support.
$$$ Assad must have run out of treasure
Iran and Russia used to be helping them, but Iran is in a shadow war with Israel and Russia is in a war with Ukraine + western allies. Their funding and personnel dried up.
Plus, the Syrian rebels banded together. Without Russian air support and airstrikes around the capital, and without iranian arms, their regime collapsed and ran to Russia like a bitch.
Will Syria be better now? It’s anyone’s guess. I could see Russia and China potentially making moves on them during the rebuild process, but who knows for sure. The US will probably pull out soon once the next government is formed in January. It could be up to the Syrian rebels and Syrian people, but their country infrastructure is pretty blown apart, so they will need outside capital and expertise to rebuild.
Too soon to know much for sure, but this could be fucking wild if it’s really at face value.
