Bashar al-Assad has fled Syria; Damascus is overtaken by rebels; the regime in Syria is overthrown

Main thread for the recent Syrian opposition offensives

Al-Jazeera
FOX News
Reuters
BBC Live Thread

Al-Jazeera:

Opposition declares Damascus ‘free of tyrant al-Assad’​

  • Syria’s armed opposition says they have captured the capital, Damascus, and that President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country.
  • The announcement comes after rebels seized the city of Homs in a lightning offensive hours earlier.
  • The commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, says the government’s collapse is near and promises to protect people in areas the group controls.
  • Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Russia issue a joint statement saying the crisis is a “dangerous development” and calling for a political solution.

Syrian opposition suggests it will not seek revenge​

The armed opposition says the “new Syria” will be a place of “peaceful coexistence”, where justice would prevail and all Syrians’ dignity would be preserved.
“We turn the page on the dark past and open a new horizon for the future,” the rebels said in a statement.
Opposition leaders, including HTS chief al-Julani, have stressed in recent weeks that they aim to build a state for all Syrians in an effort to dispel concerns about sectarianism and the group’s previous ties to al-Qaeda.

Syrian PM says he remains in his home in Damascus​

Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali says he does not plan on leaving his home as he aims to ensure that public institutions continue to function.
“I urge all to think rationally and to think about they country,” al-Jalali said. “We extend our hand to the opposition who have extended their hand and asserted that they will not harm anyone who belongs to this country.”
He also called on citizens to protect public property.
The Middle East has seen chaos with the fall of governments in the past. When invading American forces toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003, state agencies and public sites were looted as anarchy prevailed.

Celebrations in Damascus​

The Reuters news agency, citing witnesses, is reporting that thousands of people in cars and on foot are congregating in central Damascus, chanting, “Freedom!”
Videos posted online, verified by Al Jazeera, show several people in the Ummayad Square, standing on an abandoned military tank and singing in celebration.
#Syria: regime soldiers have abandoned the Umayyad Square in the center of #Damascus. Residents are taking over the streets. (xitter link)

FOX News notes:
Trump urges US to stay out of Syrian civil war, blaming Obama for failure as Islamists close in on capital

Trump warned on the social media platform Truth Social: "Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!"
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Kendall Motor Oil said:
Kurds are a different story as they're one homogeneous-ish group, not some lines on a map containing different ones. Its why Kurds have survived so long.
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The Turks will just use their groups they backed to genocide the Kurds for them, but nobody will care because it's brown on brown genocide and it'll be denied for ever happening just like the Armenian Genocide. The real difference will be that any survivors won't form some kind of rump state and will instead move to Europe.
 
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The phrasing on this part of the al-Jazeera live feed made me laugh:
Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle says the end of al-Assad’s rule must be an “opportunity for the Syrian people to decide their own future, free of repression and sectarian violence”.

HTS, the dominant armed opposition faction that led the offensive that toppled the Syrian president, is designated as a “terrorist” group by the US.

“Having worked tirelessly over the past decade as an advocate for the Free Syria movement in Congress, I am relieved to see that the butcher has fallen,” Boyle said in a social media post.
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Democratic politician: I am so happy about this result.
The largest faction involved are terrorists.
Democratic politician: I have worked tirelessly for this outcome.
 
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A plane that left syria experienced a drastic decrease in altitude shortly before disappearing from flight tracker. The theory is that this plan had Assad on it and the plane crashed and he is now dead.
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There are multiple independent tweeter accounts that have reported on this btw and there are some fancy 3d diagrams of the plane descending altitude. If you open the tweet you'll see the plane suddenly be "out of coverage"
 
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neger psykolog said:
A plane that left syria experienced a drastic decrease in altitude shortly before disappearing from flight tracker. The theory is that this plan had Assad on it and the plane crashed and he is now dead.
View attachment 6728767

There are multiple independent tweeter accounts that have reported on this btw and there are some fancy 3d diagrams of the plane descending altitude. If you open the tweet you'll see the plane suddenly be "out of coverage"
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Please God save our based secularist dictator Bashar al-Assad.
 
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Assad was a tyrant but he largely protected the Orthodox Christians in the region from Muslim aggression; If only to placate his eastern allies.

Now that he's gone one of the largest Christian populations in the middle east will suffer greatly. I'm not going to cheer too hard for his defeat even if he was a bad person.
 
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George Lucas said:
Please God save our based secularist dictator Bashar al-Assad.
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It's obviously a cover. The rebels may have gone from nothing to complete victory in 10 days, but Assad and his guard were absent for almost a day before that plane took off, and there were also reports of a plane leaving Damascus and landing in the UAE earlier that day. No way that the guy who didn't even attempt to make a last stand just fled at the 11th hour.
Baguette Child said:
Assad was a tyrant but he largely protected the Orthodox Christians in the region from Muslim aggression; If only to placate his eastern allies.

Now that he's gone one of the largest Christian populations in the middle east will suffer greatly. I'm not going to cheer too hard for his defeat even if he was a bad person.
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An "ex"Al-Qaeda member is the one who leads the most powerful rebel group. If the russian ships stationed off the coast leave (and it seems that for the time being they won't) it's going to be a massacre/exodus that may very well de-stabilize Lebanon even further
 
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Baguette Child said:
Assad was a tyrant but he largely protected the Orthodox Christians in the region from Muslim aggression; If only to placate his eastern allies.

Now that he's gone one of the largest Christian populations in the middle east will suffer greatly. I'm not going to cheer too hard for his defeat even if he was a bad person.
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Maybe it's time for mid east Christian groups to stop being pansies for the nth century in a row and actually fight back for once?
 
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Dicksmash Turbofist said:
The Church thrives under persecution. No matter what comes to pass his will be done.
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That's not the point.
The point is that what kind of Church or secularist would continually support a bloodthirsty psychopath dictator juset because he claims to protect Christians?
Fucking up Syria, Libya, etc. and whatever else comes is stupid. But hot dam if it hadn't been the west, these motherfuckers would have probably done stupid shit on their own.
More so, if the niggers of Syria managed to migrate en masse to Europe, why on Earth didn't the Christians send their people away from those hellholes? And this is not a question of sanctity or dedication of faith. This is a question or preserving your family and kids from this whole Middle East thing that's been going on for centuries.
 
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RA-5C Vigilante said:
Bound to happen honestly. Russia was the only thing aaving Bashars ass, and then when ISIS got close to finishing him off, the whole world came in and saved him inadvertently.

Libya 2.0? Maybe. But I think that with Turkey and Israel nearby, there’s actually stable nations around that give a shit about keeping things in check. We’ll see how it goes.
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Why would Israel want a stable Syria? A divided, war ravaged Syria can't threaten them.
 
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Would be a terrible shame if that disjoint coalition that were only united because of assad being their collective enemy would turn against eachother now that assad is gone.
Would be absolutely terrible if this would lead to another few million of refugees re-settling in germany and raping their women to death.
 
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