The Syrian government fell early yesterday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the al-Assad family after a sudden rebel offensive sprinted across government-held territory and entered the capital in 10 days.
Syrian state television aired a video statement by a group of men saying that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown and all detainees in jails have been set free.
The man who read the statement said the Operations Room to Conquer Damascus, an opposition group, called on all opposition fighters and citizens to preserve state institutions of “the free Syrian state.”
Photo: AFP
The statement emerged hours after the head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said al-Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus following the 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 turn its functions over to a transitional government.
“I am in my house and I have not left, and this is because of my belonging to this country,” Jalali said in a video statement. He said he would go to his office to continue work in the morning and called on Syrian citizens not to deface public property.
The rebels said they freed people held at the notorious Saydnaya prison, where rights groups say thousands were tortured and killed. A video circulating online purported to show rebels breaking open cell doors and freeing dozens of female prisoners, many of whom appeared shocked and confused. At least one small child could be seen among them.
Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that al-Assad took a flight yesterday from Damascus.
As daylight broke over Damascus, crowds gathered to pray in the city’s mosques and to celebrate in the squares, chanting “God is great.”
“My feelings are indescribable,” said Omar Daher, a 29-year-old lawyer. “After the fear that he [al-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.”
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