Syria latest: Syrians celebrate Bashar Assad’s fall as his whereabouts remain unknown

Crowds gathered in Syria’s Damascus on Sunday to celebrate the fall of Bashar Assad’s government with chants, prayers and the occasional gunfire after opposition fighters entered the capital following a stunning advance.

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.

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Qatari official says renewed mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas still in early stages

DOHA, Qatar — Majed bin Mohammed al-Ansari, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, said the revived efforts to push for a ceasefire between the two sides were still in the early stages despite e new “momentum.”

Qatar recently renewed its role as mediator after suspending efforts last month in frustration over what it said was a lack of willingness by the sides to make progress.

Al-Ansari said his government has been only engaging with the individual sides. However, he said he hoped to see mediation kick into gear in a “more detailed manner” by next week.

Al-Ansari said while it was still too early to provide details on postwar Gaza, his government has had discussions about its general position.

He said there needs to be a “Palestinian decision” on who will govern, with the West Bank and Gaza under a unified leadership.

He also said Qatar, which played a big role in rebuilding Gaza after previous conflicts, would be open to joining a broader reconstruction effort if political conditions allow.

“We will support any international effort when it comes to rebuilding,” he added. “We will not abandon the Palestinian people. We will not abandon the people of Gaza. But this time, it needs to be an international effort.”

“The whole international community should be supportive of whatever governance model is chosen by the Palestinian people,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Doha Forum.

Video shows Syrian prime minister escorted by armed men

DAMASCUS, Syria — A video shared on Syrian opposition media showed a group of armed men escorting Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali out of his office and to the Four Seasons hotel on Sunday.

Syrians in Lebanon flock to border crossing

Masnaa, Lebanon — 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

DOHA, Qatar — 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

MANAMA, Bahrain — 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.

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Manama, Bahrain, contributed to this report.

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 spiraled into civil war.

A few kilometers (miles) 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

CAIRO — 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

MANAMA, Bahrain — 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.

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Manama, Bahrain, contributed to this report.

Israel deploys forces in a demilitarized buffer zone along the northern frontier with Syria

TEL AVIV, Israel — 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

BEIRUT — “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

BEIRUT— 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 says Assad has been overthrown

DAMASCUS, Syria — The video statement by a group of men said that President Bashar Assad was overthrown and all prisoners have 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

DAMASCUS, Syria — 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.

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Abdulrahman Shaheen reported from Damascus.

Leader of Syrian insurgent group prohibits fighters from getting close to state institutions

BEIRUT – 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 government appears to have fallen after lightning offensive by insurgents

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria’s government appears to have fallen in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a lightning offensive by insurgents this week.

The apparent fall came after the head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said early Sunday that President Bashar Assad left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus after a stunning advance across the country.

Rami Abdurrahman told The Associated Press that Assad took a flight from Damascus and left early Sunday.

Then 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.

“I am in my house and I have not left, and this is because of my belonging to this country,” Jalili said in a video statement.

White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said President Biden and his team are closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and staying in constant touch with regional partners.

Syria’s prime minister is ready to hand over the government to the opposition

DAMASCUS, Syria — 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.

Military command of Syria’s opposition says Damascus is ‘free’ of Bashar Assad’s rule

BEIRUT – The military command of the Syrian opposition says its fighters have entered the capital Damascus claiming that it is “free” of President Bashar Assad’s rule.

The so-called Military Command Administration said Assad had fled without giving further details.

Assad’s departure marks the end of the 54-year of Assad family rule of Syria with an iron fist. His father Hafez Assad came to power in a bloodless coup in 1970 and ruled until his death in 2000. Bashar Assad was elected weeks after his father’s death and ruled Syria until he was overthrown on Sunday.

The command declared the end of “the dark period and the beginning of a new era in Syria.”

State television in Iran, Assad’s main backer in the years of war in Syria, reported that “terrorists” had entered Damascus and that Assad had left the capital. It cited Qatar’s Al Jazeera news network for the information and did not elaborate.

Syrian opposition war monitor says President Bashar Assad has left the country

BEIRUT — The head of a Syrian opposition war monitor says Syria’s President Bashar Assad has left the country for an undisclosed location.

Rami Abdurrahman tells The Associated Press that Assad took a flight from Damascus and left early Sunday.

Abdurrahman’s comments came after the protesters took over the Syrian capital.

An Associated Press journalist in Damascus reported seeing groups of armed residents along the road in the outskirts of the capital and hearing sounds of gunshots. The city’s main police headquarters appeared to be abandoned, its door left ajar with no officers outside.

Another AP journalist shot footage of an abandoned army checkpoint, uniforms discarded on the ground under a poster of Assad’s face.

Syrian insurgents say they have entered Damascus as residents report gunfire

Syrian insurgents say they have entered Damascus, capping a stunning advance across the country, as residents of the capital reported sounds of gunfire and explosions.

There was no immediate official statement from the Syrian government. The pro-government Sham FM radio reported that Damascus airport was evacuated and the insurgents announced they had entered the notorious Saydnaya military prison north of the capital and “liberated our prisoners” there.

The night before, opposition forces had taken the central city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, as government forces abandoned it. The government denied rumors that President Bashar Assad had fled the country.

The loss of Homs represented a potentially crippling blow for Assad. It stands at an important intersection between Damascus, the capital, and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus — the Syrian leader’s base of support and home to a Russian strategic naval base.

Biden administration doesn’t intend to intervene in Syria

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s national security adviser says the Biden administration has no intention of intervening in Syria.

“The United States is not going to … militarily dive into the middle of a Syrian civil war,” Jake Sullivan said Saturday at an annual gathering of national security officials, defense companies and lawmakers in California.

He said the U.S. would keep acting as necessary to keep the Islamic State group — a violently anti-Western extremist group not known to be involved in the offensive but with sleeper cells in Syria’s deserts — from exploiting openings presented by the fighting.

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s backers — Iran, Russia and Hezbollah, “have all been weakened and distracted,” Sullivan said. He later added that “none of them are prepared to provide the kind of support to Assad that they provided in the past.”

The Biden administration says Syrian opposition forces’ capture of government-held cities demonstrates just how diminished those countries are by wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon.

Syrian insurgents say they have taken over key city of Homs

The Syrian insurgency announced Saturday that it has taken over Homs, following reports of government forces withdrawing from the strategic city.

This latest development in the fighters’ swift shock offensive in the war-torn country has left embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad effectively in control of the capital Damascus and two other cities where his key support base among the Alawite Muslim population are based.

Homs is an important intersection between Damascus and Syria’s coastal provinces that are the Syrian leader’s base of support.

Syrian opposition fighters have reached the suburbs of the capital, Damascus as the fighters’ offensive picks up speed. President Bashar Assad’s whereabouts are unknown.

Mother of hostage seen in video says ‘enough with the games’

The mother of an Israeli man held hostage in Gaza and seen in a newly released video by Hamas says “enough with the games” and calls for more pressure on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Einav Zangauker told a demonstration in Tel Aviv on Saturday night that like her son Matan, “there are a few dozen who are currently alive. Don’t allow them to be brought back dead in bags. Take to the streets.”

Matan Zangauker, speaking under duress, appealed to the public to protest in front of Netanyahu’s home and “not let him sleep even for a minute.” Zangauker also referred to 420 days of being held by Hamas militants and said “isolation is killing us.”

Police used a water cannon on the demonstrators as thousands took to the streets for the weekly anti-government protests.

Iran-backed militias watch Syria events before a decision on support

Two officials with Iran-backed Iraqi militias in Syria say the militias are monitoring the situation and have not made a decision to enter in support of Iran’s ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad.

One of the officials said Iranian militias had withdrawn to Iraq from their positions in Syria.

“All the militias are waiting to see what Bashar Assad will do in Damascus. If he resists and does not allow Damascus to fall, it is possible that the Iraqi factions will intervene for the purpose of support,” he said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

— Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad

Multi-country talks on Syria end, with more to come

Multi-country discussions on Syria have ended on the sidelines of the Doha Summit. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein says the countries will issue a statement, and there will be follow-up talks “taking into consideration the practical and real situation on the ground.”

He said the talks, which lasted over two hours Saturday evening, focused on how to stop the fighting. Eight key countries including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran gathered with the U.N. special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen.

When asked where Syrian President Bashar Assad is, Iraq’s foreign minister replied, “I don’t know.” He declined to speculate on whether Assad would be overthrown. Opposition fighters have reached the Damascus suburbs.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says Israeli airstrikes kill 6

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says two Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday killed six people and wounded five others.

The ministry said an airstrike on the village of Beit Leif killed five people and wounded five, while a drone strike on the village of Deir Serian killed one person.

Israel’s military said it was looking into the report.

Despite a ceasefire that went into effect on Nov. 27 to end the 14-month fighting between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants that had escalated into all-out war, violations of the truce have continued.

Northern Gaza hospital reports new Israeli bombardment

The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza says the facility came under heavy Israeli bombardment again on Saturday and three medical staff were killed.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safia in a statement posted by Gaza’s Health Ministry said the hospital was hit by over 100 projectiles and bombs, and electricity was cut off. He said the surgery department and neonatal unit were hit, and he pleaded for “immediate coordination for repair operations.”

Kamal Adwan is one of the last remaining hospitals in northern Gaza. Israeli forces are pressing an offensive that has almost completely sealed off the area from humanitarian aid for two months.

Israel’s military said it wasn’t aware of any attack Saturday.

The hospital director on Friday said Israeli strikes had killed at least 29 people including four medical staff.

About 2,000 Syrian soldiers cross into Iraq, official says

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi government spokesperson says about 2,000 Syrian army soldiers have crossed into Iraq seeking refuge as opposition forces advance in Syria.

Bassem al-Awadi said the soldiers’ equipment and weapons were registered and taken into custody by the Iraqi army. “We dealt with them according to the principle of good neighborliness and humanity,” he said Saturday.

Al-Awadi also said Iraqi officials are concerned about the security of the al-Hol camp and other facilities in northeast Syria where suspected Islamic State group members and their families are detained. The facilities are guarded by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces.

Al-Awadi said there is “high security coordination” between Iraqi officials and those forces to “prevent the prisoners from escaping.”

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