By Maya Gebeily and Timour Azhari
DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Syrians woke up on Monday to a hopeful if unsure future, after rebels seized the capital Damascus and President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, ending a 13-year civil warfare and greater than 50 years of his household’s brutal rule.
The lightning advance of a militia alliance spearheaded by Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate, marked one of many greatest turning factors for the Center East in generations. Assad’s fall worn out a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised affect throughout the Arab world.
Moscow gave asylum to Assad and his household, Russian media reported and Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to worldwide organizations in Vienna, mentioned on his Telegram channel on Sunday.
Worldwide governments welcomed the tip of the Assads’ autocratic authorities, as they sought to take inventory of a new-look Center East.
U.S. President Joe Biden mentioned Syria is in a interval of threat and uncertainty, and it’s the first time in years that neither Russia, Iran nor the Hezbollah militant group held an influential function there.
HTS remains to be designated as a terrorist group by the U.S., Turkey and the United Nations, though it has spent years making an attempt to melt its picture to reassure worldwide governments and minority teams inside Syria.
Japan’s chief cupboard secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, mentioned on Monday Tokyo was paying shut consideration to developments in Syria.
Assad’s overthrow limits Iran’s potential to unfold weapons to its allies and will value Russia its Mediterranean naval base. It might additionally permit hundreds of thousands of refugees scattered for greater than a decade in camps throughout Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to lastly return residence.
NOW TO REBUILD
The rebels face a monumental process of rebuilding and operating a rustic after a warfare that left lots of of 1000’s lifeless, cities pounded to mud and an financial system hollowed by world sanctions. Syria will want billions of {dollars} in support.
“A new history, my brothers, is being written in the entire region after this great victory,” mentioned Ahmed al-Sharaa, higher generally known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the top of HTS.
Chatting with an enormous crowd on Sunday at Damascus’ Umayyad Mosque, a spot of monumental non secular significance, Golani mentioned with onerous work Syria can be “a beacon for the Islamic nation.”
The Assad police state was generally known as one of many harshest within the Center East with lots of of 1000’s of political prisoners held in horrifying situations.
On Sunday, elated however usually confused inmates poured out of jails. Reunited households wept in pleasure. Newly freed prisoners have been filmed operating by the Damascus streets holding up their fingers to point out what number of years that they had been in jail.
The White Helmets rescue group mentioned it had dispatched emergency groups to seek for hidden underground cells nonetheless believed to carry detainees.
With a curfew declared by the rebels, Damascus was calm in a single day, with roads main into town largely empty. One buying centre had been looted on Sunday, and a few folks rampaged inside Assad’s presidential place, leaving carrying furnishings.
The insurgent coalition mentioned it was working to finish the switch of energy to a transitional governing physique with govt powers, referring to constructing “a Syria together.”
Golani is a Sunni Muslim, which is almost all in Syria, however the nation is residence to a variety of non secular sects, together with Christians and Assad’s fellow Alawites, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.
WORLD STUNNED
The tempo of occasions shocked world capitals and raised issues about extra regional instability on high of the Gaza warfare, Israel’s assaults on Lebanon and tensions between Israel and Iran.
The U.S. Central Command mentioned its forces carried out dozens of airstrikes concentrating on recognized Islamic State camps and operatives in central Syria on Sunday.
Secretary of Protection Lloyd Austin mentioned on Sunday he spoke with Turkish Minister of Nationwide Protection Yasar Guler, emphasizing the significance of defending civilians and that the US is watching intently.
Throughout Syria’s civil warfare, which erupted in 2011 as an rebellion in opposition to Assad, his forces and their Russian allies bombed cities to rubble. The refugee disaster throughout the Center East was one of many greatest of recent occasions and brought about a political reckoning in Europe when one million folks arrived in 2015.
In recent times, Turkey had backed some rebels in a small redoubt within the northwest and alongside its border. The US, which has about 900 troops in Syria, backed a Kurdish-led alliance that fought Islamic State jihadists from 2014-2017.
