Syria dwell: ‘The longer term is ours’ says Syrian insurgent chief; Israel carries out airstrikes in Damascus, says report – newest updates | Syria

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Ukraine’s international ministry stated the autumn of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad underscores Russia’s weak spot and lack of ability to struggle on two fronts, Reuters experiences.

Russia had strengthened Assad’s authorities by staging air strikes in opposition to opposition targets since 2015 and had operated out of two bases on Syrian territory.

However Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has sapped appreciable navy assets.

“Occasions in Syria show the weak spot of Putin’s regime, which is incapable of combating on two fronts and abandons its closest allies for the sake of continued aggression in opposition to Ukraine,” the international ministry stated in a press release.

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Up to date at 12.46 EST

UN chief hails finish to ‘dictatorial regime’ in Syria

UN Secretary-Normal António Guterres on Sunday praised the top of Syria’s “dictatorial regime” and known as on the nation to concentrate on rebuilding within the wake of President Bashar al-Assad’s sudden downfall.

“After 14 years of brutal struggle and the autumn of the dictatorial regime, at this time the individuals of Syria can seize an historic alternative to construct a steady and peaceable future,” Guterres stated in a press release.

“I reiterate my name for calm and avoiding violence at this delicate time, whereas defending the rights of all Syrians, with out distinction.”

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Peter Beaumont

Bashar al-Assad has fled Syria – however the place is the previous dictator now?

The destiny and whereabouts of former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad remained unclear on Sunday as his ally Russia, which had lengthy sustained him in workplace, stated he had resigned and departed the nation.

“Because of negotiations between B. Assad and plenty of contributors within the armed battle on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, he determined to resign from the presidency and left the nation, giving directions for a peaceable switch of energy,” Russia’s international ministry stated in a press release. It added: “Russia didn’t take part in these negotiations.”

Assad had not been pictured since a gathering with the Iranian international minister in Damascus every week in the past when he vowed to “crush” the rebels heading in direction of town.

Islamist rebels declared they’d ousted Assad after seizing management of the capital on Sunday, ending his household’s a long time of autocratic rule after greater than 13 years of civil struggle.

There have been unconfirmed media experiences that Assad had been visiting Moscow late final month when rebels reached Aleppo, earlier than returning to Syria. The Kremlin declined to touch upon the matter on the time and it’s unclear whether or not Russia has supplied him refuge now.

Amid questions over Assad’s whereabouts, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, Syria’s prime minister, informed al-Arabia that he had not been capable of converse with Assad since Saturday regardless of claims by state media on that day that Assad remained in Damascus in workplace.

Hakan Fidan, Turkey’s international minister, stated on Sunday that he believed Assad was “most likely outdoors of Syria”.

Consideration had centered on a flight that left Damascus early on Sunday and disappeared from flight trackers outdoors Homs, however it was unclear who was on on board and whether or not it had landed.

The top of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, had reported {that a} aircraft believed to be carrying Assad “left Syria through Damascus worldwide airport earlier than the military safety forces left” the power.

Rami Abdul Rahman of SOHR stated he had info that the aircraft was meant to take off at 10pm on Saturday. Though there seems to have been no flight at the moment, a Syrian Air Ilyushin Il-76T cargo aircraft did take off from the airport hours later with the Flightradar24 monitoring website displaying that it first flew east from the capital then north-west and dropping altitude close to the central metropolis of Homs the place the flight transponder sign was misplaced.

Different experiences centered on a flight to Sharjah within the UAE that departed a bit earlier however a diplomatic adviser to the Emirati president informed reporters in Bahrain that he had no info that Assad was within the nation.

Learn the total evaluation from senior worldwide correspondent Peter Beaumont right here:

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From physician to brutal dictator: the rise and fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad

Peter Beaumont

Peter Beaumont is a senior worldwide reporter for the Guardian.

On the face of it at the least, the Bashar al-Assad of 2002 introduced a starkly totally different determine to the brutal autocrat he would turn out to be, presiding over a fragile state based on torture, imprisonment and industrial homicide.

He had been president then for simply two years, succeeding his father, Hafez, whose personal identify was a byword for brutality.

For some time the gawky former ophthalmologist, who had studied drugs in London and later married a British-Syrian spouse, Asma, an funding banker at JP Morgan, was eager to indicate the world that Syria, beneath his management, may comply with a distinct path.

Reaching out to the west, he pursued a public relations marketing campaign to indicate the younger Assad household as someway abnormal regardless of the palaces and the ever seen equipment of repression.

Visiting Damascus in that 12 months forward of Bashar’s state go to to the UK, organized by then prime minister Tony Blair – the excessive level of that engagement – I used to be invited for a personal espresso with Assad who sat on a white couch in an expensively tailor-made swimsuit.

Suggesting some uncertainty, he was inquisitive about how Syria was seen on the earth, floating potentialities for a change, together with a reset within the relationship between Damascus and Israel.

It was a constructed iteration of the Assads – highlighting Asma’s much-vaunted “charitable” works and Bashar’s transient embrace by the west – that nodded to an ambition to rework Hafez’s Syria into one thing extra like a model of Jordan’s paternalistic royal household. Extra manicured. Actually extra PR savvy. A dictatorship all the identical.

Within the midst of the dialog, nonetheless, Bashar proffered a chilling and nearly throwaway line as he mirrored on the earlier 12 months’s 9/11 assault on the US by al-Qaida and the next US invasion of Afghanistan.

The world ought to know, Bashar insisted, that his father had been “proper” all alongside in his brutal crushing of Islamist insurgents.

Learn the total story right here:

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Up to date at 12.12 EST

Saudi Arabia says it stands by Syrian individuals

Saudi Arabia says it’s happy with the “optimistic steps” taken to ensure the security of the Syrian individuals and says it stands by the Syrian individuals and their selections at this “essential stage”, Reuters experiences.

It known as on the worldwide neighborhood to face by Syria with out interfering in its inner affairs.

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Up to date at 12.12 EST

EU chief affords to assist rebuild a Syria that protects minorities

European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen stated the EU would assist to rebuild a Syria that safeguards minorities after the dramatic fall of Bashar al-Assad.

“Europe is able to assist safeguarding nationwide unity and rebuilding a Syrian state that protects all minorities,” she stated in a press release on X.

“The merciless Assad dictatorship has collapsed. This historic change within the area affords alternatives however shouldn’t be with out dangers,” added the fee president.

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Up to date at 11.47 EST

Amnesty Worldwide known as on Sunday for perpetrators of rights violations in Syria to face justice after Bashar al-Assad’s fall from energy, calling it a “historic alternative” to finish a long time of abuses.

“Suspected perpetrators of crimes beneath worldwide regulation and different critical human rights violations have to be investigated, and if warranted, prosecuted for his or her crimes in truthful trials,” Amnesty Worldwide head Agnes Callamard stated in a press release.

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Right here’s how Syrians residing in Turkey are reacting to the top of the Assad household’s 50 years of rule:

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Up to date at 11.55 EST

US president Joe Biden is anticipated to fulfill along with his nationwide safety crew on Sunday to obtain an replace on the scenario in Syria, a White Home spokesperson stated in a publish on X.

The US has about 900 troops in Syria, together with US forces working with Kurdish allies within the opposition-held northeast to stop any resurgence of the Islamic State group.

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Up to date at 11.11 EST

Statues of the deposed Assad household dynasty have been toppled round Syria as the federal government collapses, as this video report exhibits:

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Up to date at 12.15 EST

‘I really feel as if I’m in a dream,’ Syrians react to speedy fall of Assad authorities

William Christou

The highway to Damascus was lined with discarded military uniforms. In a panic, Syrian military troopers stripped down within the streets within the early hours of Sunday morning, realising their chief, Bashar al-Assad, had deserted them after 54 years of his household’s rule over Syria.

Syrian military tanks which have been purported to cease the lightning insurgent offensive which began simply 11 days earlier stood empty in entrance of checkpoints with posters of the late-leader Hafez al-Assad, his face half torn. Out of reflex, a driver stopped and rolled down the window, however there was nobody on the checkpoint.

“No extra checkpoints, no extra bribes,” Mohammed remarked, smiling as he sped in direction of the Syrian capital metropolis.

Damascus was nonetheless in a state of disbelief, smoke from battles the night time earlier than hung over town like a fog. Home windows shook from the occasional explosion, the goal and the warring get together unknown. Simply hours earlier than, it was introduced that Bashar al-Assad had fled the capital and that his regime had fallen.

The top of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Mohammed al-Julani, essentially the most outstanding of the insurgent leaders in Syria, introduced that the ex-Syrian prime minister Mohammed Gaza al-Jalali would lead a transitional authorities within the coming months.

Residents of Syria nonetheless have been dazed by the day’s occasions. “I really feel as if I’m in a dream, I haven’t slept and I can’t absorbed what’s occurred,” Fatimeh, a Syrian initially from Idlib, stated as she approached Damascus. “I’m from Idlib,” she stated as soon as extra, saying for years she wouldn’t dare say the place she was from when she was in Damsacus, for concern that any affiliation with the province held by Islamist rebels would provoke retaliation.

Al-Julani, who dropped his nom de guerre in favor of his beginning identify – Ahmad al-Shaara – was additionally chasing after insurgent forces. It was fighters from the southern province of Daraa, not HTS, who reached the gates of Damascus. HTS fighters have been preoccupied with securing Homs, Bashar al-Assad’s final lifeline to his coastal strongholds of Tartus and Latakia.

The insurgent chief arrived to the long-lasting Omayyad mosque within the previous metropolis of Damascus in his first public look after the autumn of the Assad authorities. Seeing the insurgent chief within the mosque, situated within the former heartland of the federal government, would have been unthinkable just some days earlier. To Syrians, the message was clear: Bashar al-Assad was gone, and rebels have been in management.

“I’m so excited for them [HTS] to reach, they may cease the stealing. For years we haven’t been capable of afford bread, issues will likely be higher now,” Mohammed stated.

Others expressed some reservations concerning the Islamist group, cautious of any revolutionary teams – significantly Islamist ones – after 13 years of bitter civil struggle. However warning, was delayed for one more day, at this time was for celebration.

“The emotions, they’re indescribable. I’m offended, I’m pleased and I’m unhappy. However now that the regime has fallen, I can relaxation,” Mohammed Ahmad, a resident of Kafr Halab, in northern Syria, stated.

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Up to date at 11.04 EST

The UK-based struggle monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, has confirmed experiences that Israeli airstrikes have focused authorities safety buildings in Damascus at this time.

“Israeli strikes focused a safety complicated in Damascus close to the previous regime’s buildings” together with intelligence, customs and a navy headquarters, the struggle monitor stated. There was no rapid remark from the Israeli navy on the airstrikes.

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Up to date at 10.54 EST

Israel carries out airstrikes on main safety complicated in Damascus – report

Israel performed three airstrikes in opposition to a significant safety complicated within the Kafr Sousa district of Damascus, together with a analysis centre the place it had beforehand stated Iranian scientists developed missiles, two regional safety sources have informed Reuters. Now we have not but been capable of independently confirm this declare.

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Spain’s international ministry has urged for there to be an “inclusive political transition” in Syria after the autumn of the Assad authorities.

In a press release, the ministry stated:

We name on all events in Syria, within the area, and within the worldwide neighborhood, to make sure that the historic occasions the nation is experiencing result in a peaceable and inclusive political transition, in keeping with the phrases of UN safety council decision 2254, which ensures the nation’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

We stay in everlasting contact with the Spanish neighborhood within the nation through the Spanish embassy in Damascus and are prepared to reply to any eventuality.

Spain, together with UK, France and Germany, are among the many western international locations which have publicly welcomed the autumn of the regime.

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Syrian insurgent chief seen in Damascus making a speech to cheering crowd – report

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, chief of Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that led the anti-government insurgent offensive, has visited Damascus’ landmark Umayyad Mosque, a correspondent from Agence France-Presse (AFP) stated.

He has reportedly given a speech as the group chanted “Allahu akbar (God is best)”. Video footage circulating on-line exhibits al-Jolani getting into the mosque, with crowds seen cheering him on.

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Israeli navy tells residents of 5 cities in southern Syria to remain dwelling ’till additional discover’

The Israeli navy has issued a warning to 5 cities in southern Syria, calling on residents to remain at dwelling “till additional discover” on account of ongoing fight within the space. The cities are: Ofaniya, Quneitra, al-Hamidiyah, western Samadanism and Qahtaini.

In a publish on X, the Israel Protection Forces’ (IDF) Arabic spokesperson, stated:

The combating inside your space is forcing the IDF to behave and we don’t intend to hurt you. In your security, you will need to keep at dwelling and never exit till additional discover.

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Up to date at 10.42 EST

In an earlier publish, we reported that the UK’s deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, had welcomed the autumn of the Assad regime in Syria and known as for a political decision.

Now the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, has echoed her feedback, saying he needs to assist guarantee peace is restored in Syria and hopes {that a} political resolution “prevails” over violence. Starmer stated:

The developments in Syria in latest hours and days are unprecedented, and we’re chatting with our companions within the area and monitoring the scenario carefully.

The Syrian individuals have suffered beneath Assad’s barbaric regime for too lengthy and we welcome his departure.

Our focus is now on making certain a political resolution prevails, and peace and stability is restored.

We name on all sides to guard civilians and minorities, and guarantee important help can attain essentially the most weak within the coming hours and days.

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Syrian rebels seize the capital: How the night time unfolded – video

Here’s a video report that includes the primary occasions over the past day, throughout which period insurgent forces declare they captured Damascus and ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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‘The Arab spring shouldn’t be but over,’ Syrian civil society president says

Patrick Wintour

Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor

“Right now and tonight we rejoice, however tomorrow we roll up our sleeves and begin to kind our new inclusive Syria as a result of now we have a lot work to do,” Hind Kabawat, the president of the ladies led Syrian civil society and former member of the Syrian Negotiation Council, vowed. “Tomorrow is the primary day of our lives residing in freedom however it’s so essential we maintain the civic house within the weeks forward”.

Chatting with the Guardian after an evening anxiously awaiting occasions in Damascus, she stated: “Syrian civil society on the bottom was in a totally totally different place from 20 years in the past – a lot stronger, vibrant and inventive. At root there are three messages – no punishment, no revenge and no sectarianism”.

A veteran of negotiations in Geneva in 2015 and President of Tastakel, a non revenue group dedicated to inter religion dialogue and working inside Syria, she added:

We learnt from Iraq the place they destroyed all of the establishments. We’d like these Syrian establishments. We can’t punish the small troopers that haven’t any blood on their palms. We’re not going to have individuals taken into the sq.. These concerned in crimes could have a good trial.

She stated for her the revolution’s turning level had come when the Christians in Aleppo realised the Islamic militia wouldn’t endanger them.

She defined:

When the Christian individuals in Aleppo woke as much as uncover there was no regime they feared what was coming subsequent. The Christians had been informed for thus lengthy by President Assad that he was their protector. I too was fearful. There have been so many disappointments, and folks stated to me ‘now we have seen this film earlier than’.

However civil society went to the Christians on the day of Santa Barbara competition (December 4th ) and reassured them and distributed bread, so Aleppo was fantastic. We had been so scared about sectarianism, however it went so easily. We had movies and telephone calls to our organisation saying all is ok.

After which the revolutionaries went to the Christian church in Hama and Homs saying we aren’t going to enter. They went to Marmorita, and stated ‘we wish you to be protected. All we’re asking is you’re taking the revolutionary inexperienced flag and we take a video and we’ll depart you alone’. So now the christian neighborhood is protected.

She stated: “The worldwide neighborhood deserted us saying ‘let’s normalise with Assad’ however the Syrian individuals didn’t surrender and we stated ‘it is a Syrian led struggle for our nation and we’ll struggle for our freedom alone if essential’. Right now there are layers. Sure there’s the navy, however they’re along with civil society. That is Syria for all.”

She continued: “Civil society, particularly the younger individuals, know what they need and they’re going to watch the navy teams to verify there’s extra civil house. The Arab Spring shouldn’t be but over.”

She stated she had gone to the identical faculty as President Bashir al-Assad and accused him of getting the “ego of a dictator. He by no means listens and by no means wished to hear. We thought at some point he can be higher, however he ended with 40,000 individuals in jail”.

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Up to date at 10.13 EST