Syrians storm Bashar al-Assad’s presidential palace in Damascus as rebels declare the nation is ‘free’ and tear down statues of deposed chief – as search begins for ‘tyrant’ after he flees throughout dramatic collapse of his bloodthirsty regime

Syrians have stormed Bashar al-Assad’s presidential palace in Damascus as rebels declare that the country is ‘free’ from the ‘tyrant’.

The opposition fighters reached the suburbs of the capital yesterday for the first time since the region was recaptured by government troops in 2018.

Syrian state television showed the rebels milling around inside the despot’s palace after he fled this morning on a plane to an unknown destination. 

Military and intelligence officials are being quizzed by the rebel soldiers about al-Assad’s whereabouts as they try to pinpoint his movements. 

The president hasn’t been seen or heard from since rebels stormed the capital city, according to CNN.

A statue of the late father of al-Assad in a main square in Jermana suburb, ten kilometres from the capital, has also been toppled.

Following the capture of Damascus, the HTS (Hayyet Tahrir al-Sham) said on Telegram that it was the end of a dark era and the beginning of a new one.

The rebels said that people displaced or imprisoned under the half-century reign of Assad can now come home.

HTS said it will be a ‘new Syria’ where ‘everyone lives in peace and justice prevails’.

One resident said the city was on edge, with security forces on the streets and many shops running out of staple foods.

The Syrian army withdrew from much of the country’s south on Saturday but later said it was fortifying positions in the Damascus suburbs and in the south. 

Syrian rebel commander Hassan Abdul Ghany has also said that insurgent forces have ‘fully liberated’ Syria’s central city of Homs.

The fall of Homs and threat to the capital now pose an immediate existential danger to the Assad dynasty’s five-decade reign over Syria and the continued influence there of its main regional backer, Iran.

Syrian rebel commander Hassan Abdul Ghany has also said that insurgent forces have ‘fully liberated’ Syria’s central city of Homs.

The fall of Homs and threat to the capital now pose an immediate existential danger to the Assad dynasty’s five-decade reign over Syria and the continued influence there of its main regional backer, Iran.

The most powerful insurgent leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, said in a statement that rebels were on the cusp of taking the whole country and ‘the end of the criminal regime is near’. 

The government’s abandonment of the key city after less than a day of fighting leaves Assad’s 24-year rule dangling by a thread with insurgents also advancing towards the capital Damascus.

Seizing Homs, an important crossroads between the capital and the Mediterranean, effectively cuts off Damascus from the coastal stronghold of Assad’s minority Alawite sect, and from Russia’s air and naval base.

The Syrian army and security commanders left Homs on Saturday by helicopter for the coast while a large military convoy withdrew by land, a senior army officer said. Rebels said they were entering the city centre.

Thousands poured onto the streets there to celebrate, residents said.

Homs residents and rebels said the insurgents had captured the central prison and were freeing thousands of detainees. Residents said state security and intelligence personnel had evacuated their offices after burning papers.

Syria’s state news agency denied reports that Assad had already fled to Russia claiming he continued to govern from Damascus.

However, following the statement claiming it was ‘false news’, a source has told CNN that Assad was ‘nowhere to be found’ at his usual residences in the capital.

Lebanon said it is closing all its land border crossings with Syria except for a main one that links Beirut with Damascus. Jordan closed a border crossing with Syria because of the security situation on the Syrian side.

The rapidly developing events in Syria have again put the region on edge.

Government forces reportedly withdrew as rebel groups amassed in the city’s suburbs, wrestling for control after more than a week of intensified fighting.

Armed groups reached the suburb of Darayya this afternoon, some five miles from the centre, according to the Turkish Anadolu Agency.

‘Our forces have begun the final phase of encircling the capital, Damascus,’ said rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani today, with the Islamist-led alliance that launched the offensive 10 days ago. 

‘Damascus awaits you,’ HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, said in a statement Saturday addressed to rebel fighters on Telegram.

Syrians still in the nominally government-controlled territory of Jaramana seized the opportunity to pull down a statue of Assad’s father as the regime faces collapse.

The staggering assault has seen rebels opposed to the regime make the fastest battlefield advance by either side since the civil war began almost 13 years ago.

Assad’s office said today that the President was staying put in the capital and continuing his duties after his children and British-born wife fled to Russia last week, and his brothers-in-law allegedly travelled to the UAE, per Syrian security officials.

Assad’s allies in Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, distracted or worn-down by other conflicts, meanwhile showed no signs of intervening.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told CNN that Turkey wishes that neighboring Syria can ‘quickly attain the peace and tranquility it has longed for’ during 13 years of civil conflict.

He said: ‘I want to say this openly: We do not have our eyes on land — not even a pebble — that belongs to another country.’

Charles Lister, director of the Syria and countering terrorism and extremism programs at the Middle East Institute, told Bloomberg that Assad’s future has ‘never looked more fragile’.

Russia also appears not to be in a position to help Assad regain ground with focus and resources directed to Ukraine.

‘Russia doesn’t have a plan to save Assad and doesn’t see one emerging as long as the Syrian president’s army continues to abandon its positions,’ a source ‘close to the Kremlin’ told Bloomberg.

Iran, likewise, has been hesitant, or unable, to funnel its support to Syria. On Friday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he would would only help Assad ‘to the extent necessary’, but previously promised to ‘consider’ sending troops.

The capture of Hama has given rebel forces, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), control of a strategic central city they never managed to seize before.

Jihad Yazigi, editor of the Syria Report newsletter previously told Reuters: ‘Assad now cannot afford to lose anything else. The big battle is the one coming against Homs. If Homs falls, we are talking of a potential change of regime.’

It follows a staggering effort to seize Aleppo, the main northern city in Syria, last week as part of a blitz offensive beginning on November 27.

The collapse of Syrian government control in the north has sharply illustrated a shift in the balance of power since Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, a lynchpin of Assad’s forces, suffered catastrophic losses in its war with Israel.

While Hezbollah has reportedly sent 2,000 fighters to Syria, per a source close to the Iran-backed proxy group today, Assad’s backing from allies continues to wither.

Rebel forces were just 12 miles (20km) from Damascus by 11am GMT on Saturday, posing an imminent threat to the capital, according to a war monitor and rebels.

The Syrian army reportedly withdrew its forces from all towns about 10km (6.2 miles) from the capital, a monitor reported soon after.

The Syrian defence ministry, loyal to Assad, denied the army had fled positions.

‘There is no truth to news claiming our armed forces, present in all areas of the Damascus countryside, have withdrawn,’ it said.

The Syrian government was also forced to evacuate from its positions in Quneitrea, near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, the main ally of the US against the regime, meanwhile seized key areas in Deir ez Zor and Raqqa on December 6, making it harder for Iran to move forces in to help Assad or resupply Iranian-backed forces like Hezbollah. 

Video shared on social media by reporters claimed to show regime forces routing on foot from the town of Zakiah, a mere 16 miles (25.7km) from Damascus.

President Bashar al-Assad has reportedly returned to the capital to continue carrying out duties, officials said today following reports he had left.

Meanwhile, Syrians in Jaramana – a suburb of the capital – tore down a statue of Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, as some waved the flag of the Druze.

The suburb is still nominally controlled by the Assad regime at the time of writing, and it did not appear to be militant rebel groups (who are still several miles from Jaramana and Damascus) pulling down the statue, contrary to other reports. 

Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP that local rebel fighters now also controlled all of Daraa province. 

Rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, with the Islamist-led alliance that launched the offensive in the country’s northwest, said ‘we are now less than 20 km from the southern gate of the capital Damascus’. 

‘The advance towards the capital continues,’ he added.

Israel’s military now assesses that the rebels pose a direct threat to Assad’s rule. 

While a weakened Assad regime plays to Israel’s interests, there remains debate around sending troops in – amid an ongoing conflict with Hamas in Gaza and clashes with Iran – and anxiety around helping Sunni jihadists once aligned with al-Qaeda.

The IDF announced on Saturday afternoon that an attack had been carried out by ‘armed individuals’ at a UN post in the Hader area of Syria.

It said it was assisting UN forces in repelling the attack and would continue to operate in the Golan Heights in order to protect Israel and its citizens. 

Assadist forces have been backed by intense Russian airstrikes, but rebels continue to push through Assad’s lines.

Since Russia does not share a land border with Syria, it also depends on Turkey’s goodwill to allow warships to pass through the Bosporus.

While Turkey and Russia were able to work together to broker a truce in May 2020, Turkish forces have backed opposition groups in an effort to displace ISIS.

For Russia, Syria represents a strategic stronghold key to its efforts to project power in the Middle East. 

The loss of influence would be ‘devastating’ for Russia, Nicole Grajewski, fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Wall Street Journal.

‘To see Russian planes leave Syria as rebel forces move onward towards their air bases, and their assets in Damascus fall, this would be so devastating for the Russian image of itself,’ she said. 

‘It would be akin to a Saigon moment for them,’ she added.

Ukrainian intelligence has assessed that Russian forces have ‘suffered significant losses, with some units of the aggressor state surrounded’.

‘Hundreds of Moscow troops are listed as missing in Syria,’ it reported.

Rebel groups were rumoured to have received operational training from Ukrainian special forces, learning from tactics developed during the war in Ukraine, the Kyiv Post reported. 

Assad relied heavily on Russian and Iranian backing during the most intense years of the conflict, helping him to claw back most territory and Syria’s biggest cities before front lines froze in 2020.

But Russia has been focused on the war in Ukraine since 2022, and many in the top leadership of Hezbollah, the most powerful Iran-aligned force, were killed by Israel over the past two months. 

Iran, meanwhile, has seen its proxies across the region degraded by Israeli airstrikes.

And Syrian troops are exhausted and hollowed out by 13 years of war and economic crises, with little will left to fight.

‘The coming days and weeks will be critical in determining whether the rebel offensive poses an existential threat to the Assad regime or whether the regime manages to regain its footing and push back on recent rebel gains,’ said Mona Yacoubian, an analyst with the United States Institute for Peace, as reported the Associated Press.

‘While weakened and distracted, Assad’s allies are unlikely to simply cave to the rebels’ offensive,’ she wrote in an analysis.

Abu Mohammed al-Golani (AKA Abu Mohammad al-Julani), the main insurgent commander, has vowed to protect Syria’s religious minorities as HTS makes gains.

In public remarks clearly intended to soften his image and reassure foreign countries, Golani has also emphasised his split years ago with Al Qaeda and Islamic State, and said he has always opposed attacks outside Syria.

HTS and the other rebel groups are trying to consolidate their rule in Aleppo, bringing it under the administration of the so-called Salvation Government they established in their northwestern enclave.

The Institute for the Study of War assessed ‘support to the Assad regime will almost certainly fail to stop the opposition offensive at this time unless ground forces are deployed rapidly and in larger numbers’.