Celebrations across Syria as Assad flees

Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has fled Syria as Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus Sunday, triggering celebrations across the country and beyond at the end of his oppressive rule.

Russian news agencies late Sunday said Assad and his family were in Moscow.

Crowds ransacked Assad's luxurious home after the rebels earlier Sunday declared he had fled, in a spectacular end to five decades of brutal Baath party rule.

The foreign ministry of his key backer, Russia, had announced earlier on Sunday that Assad resigned from the presidency and left Syria, without saying where.

Residents in the capital were seen cheering in the streets as the rebel factions heralded the departure of "tyrant" Assad, saying: "We declare the city of Damascus free."

AFPTV footage showed a column of smoke rising from central Damascus, and AFP correspondents in the city saw dozens of men, women and children wandering through Assad's home after it had been looted.

The rooms of the residence had been left completely empty, save some furniture and a portrait of Assad discarded on the floor, while an entrance hall at the presidential palace not far away had been torched.

"I can't believe I'm living this moment," tearful Damascus resident Amer Batha told AFP by phone.

"We've been waiting a long time for this day," he said, adding: "We are starting a new history for Syria."

Assad's reported departure comes less than two weeks after the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group challenged more than five decades of Assad family rule with a lightning offensive.

"After 50 years of oppression under Baath rule, and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and displacement... we announce today the end of this dark period and the start of a new era for Syria," the rebel factions said on Telegram.

Prime Minister Mohammed al-Jalali said he was ready to cooperate with "any leadership chosen by the Syrian people".

The head of war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP: "Assad left Syria via Damascus international airport before the army security forces left" the facility.

AFP has been unable to independently verify some of the information provided by the different parties.

- Prisoners set free -

Around the country, people toppled statues of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad's father and the founder of the system of government that he inherited.

For the past 50 years in Syria, even the slightest suspicion of dissent could land one in prison or get one killed.

As rebels entered the capital, HTS said its fighters broke into a jail on the outskirts of Damascus, announcing an "end of the era of tyranny in the prison of Sednaya", which has become a by-word for the darkest abuses of Assad's era.

UN war crimes investigators on Sunday described Assad's fall as a "historic new beginning" for Syrians, urging those taking charge to ensure the "atrocities" committed under his rule are not repeated.

The rapid developments came just hours after HTS said it had captured the strategic city of Homs, where prisoners were also released.

Homs was the third major city seized by the rebels, who began their advance on November 27.

US President Joe Biden was keeping a close eye on the "extraordinary events" unfolding in Syria, the White House said.

US president-elect Donald Trump said that Assad had "fled his country" after losing Russia's backing.

- 'Syria is ours' -

Rebel factions aired a statement on Syrian state television, urging fighters and citizens to safeguard the "property of the free Syrian state".

State TV broadcast a message proclaiming the "victory of the great Syrian revolution".

The Islamist leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, visited Damascus's landmark Umayyad Mosque, as crowds greeted him with smiles and embraces, AFP images showed.

HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.

Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, HTS has sought to soften its image in recent years.

Before Sunday's announcements, residents had described to AFP a state of panic in Damascus, but morning saw chants and cheering, with celebratory gunfire and shouts of "Syria is ours and not the Assad family's".

On Sunday afternoon the rebels announced a curfew in the capital until 5:00 am (0200 GMT) Monday.

The commander of Syria's US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls much of northeast Syria, hailed as "historic" the fall of Assad's "authoritarian regime".

- 'We're going home' -

The Observatory on Sunday said Israel struck Syrian army weapons depots Sunday on the outskirts of Damascus.

Assad's rule had for years been supported by Lebanese group Hezbollah, whose forces "vacated their positions around Damascus", a source close to the group said Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the overthrow of Assad was a "historic day in the... Middle East" and the fall of a "central link in Iran's axis of evil".

"This is a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, Assad's main supporters," he added.

The rebel offensive began the very day a ceasefire took effect in Lebanon after nearly a year of conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The UN envoy for Syria said the country was at "a watershed moment", while Turkey, which has historically backed the opposition, called for a "smooth transition".

Iran, a key backer of Assad throughout the civil war, said it expected "friendly" ties with Syria to continue, even as its embassy in Damascus was vandalised.

Since the start of the rebel offensive, at least 910 people, mostly combatants but also including 138 civilians, have been killed, the Observatory said.

Syria's war killed more than 500,000 people, and forced half of the population to flee their homes.

"I can barely remember Syria," said Reda al-Khedr, who was only five years old when he and his mother escaped Syria's Homs in 2014.

"But now we're going to go home to a liberated Syria," he told AFP in Cairo.