New Delhi:
Ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and household have landed in Moscow and have been granted asylum, Russia state media reported in the present day, hours after Islamist-led rebels took management of his nation.
“Assad and members of his household have arrived in Moscow,” a Kremlin supply informed the TASS and Ria Novosti information businesses. “Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds,” he added.
There was buzz on social media with flight trackers speculating the mysterious whereabouts of Assad for many a part of Sunday.
A Syrian Air aircraft took off from Damascus airport across the time the capital was taken by rebels, in keeping with information from the Flightradar web site.
The plane initially flew in the direction of Syria’s coastal area, a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect, however then made an abrupt U-turn and flew in the wrong way for a couple of minutes earlier than disappearing off the map.
The sudden change in course and disappearance of the aircraft from monitoring may point out it had been shot down, or that it had switched off its transponder.
With Assad and household in Russia now, it’s clear the aircraft had switched off its transponder.
Assad’s departure comes lower than two weeks after the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group challenged greater than 5 many years of the Assad household rule with a lightning offensive.
“After 50 years of oppression below Baath rule, and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and displacement… we announce in the present day the top of this darkish interval and the beginning of a brand new period for Syria,” the insurgent factions stated on Telegram.
The Islamist chief of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, visited the capital Damascus’s landmark Umayyad Mosque, as crowds greeted him with smiles and embraces. HTS is rooted within the Syrian department of Al-Qaeda.
Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, HTS has sought to melt its picture lately.
Throughout Syria, individuals toppled statues of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s father and the founding father of the system of presidency that he inherited. For the previous 50 years in Syria, even the slightest suspicion of dissent may land one in jail or get one killed.
As rebels entered the capital, HTS stated its fighters broke right into a jail on the outskirts of Damascus, asserting an “finish of the period of tyranny within the jail of Sednaya”, which has change into a by-word for the darkest abuses of Assad’s period.
UN conflict crimes investigators on Sunday described Assad’s fall as a “historic new starting” for Syrians, urging these taking cost to make sure the “atrocities” dedicated below his rule should not repeated.
The fast developments got here simply hours after HTS stated it had captured the strategic metropolis of Homs, the place prisoners have been additionally launched. Homs was the third main metropolis seized by the rebels, who started their advance on November 27.
US President Joe Biden was holding an in depth eye on the “extraordinary occasions” unfolding in Syria, the White Home stated. US president-elect Donald Trump stated that Assad had “fled his nation” after dropping Russia’s backing.
With inputs from AFP