Syria live updates: Syrian rebels topple president Bashar al-Assad after years of war

Syria has a “historic opportunity” which must be seized to redress “decades of grave human rights violations”, the secretary general of Amnesty International has said. Speaking following the news that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been ousted, Amnesty’s Agnès Callamard called on opposition forces to “break free from the violence of the past. The most important step is justice, and not retribution.
“We urge all parties to the present conflict to fully respect the laws of armed conflict,” she said. “This includes the obligation not to attack anyone who clearly expresses an intention to surrender, including government forces, and to treat anyone taken into custody humanely.”
“After over five decades of brutality and repression, the people of Syria may finally have an opportunity to live free of fear with their rights respected. Under the rule of Bashar al-Assad, and before him his father Hafez al-Assad, Syrians have been subjected to a horrifying catalogue of human rights violations that caused untold human suffering on a vast scale.
“This included attacks with chemical weapons, barrel bombs, and other war crimes, as well as murder, torture, enforced disappearance and extermination that amount to crimes against humanity. This historic opportunity must be now seized and decades of grave human rights violations redressed.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had left office and departed the country after giving orders there be a peaceful handover of power.
In a statement, the ministry did not say where Assad was now and said Russia has not taken part in the talks around his departure.
“As a result of negotiations between B. Assad and a number of participants in the armed conflict on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, he decided to resign from the presidency and left the country, giving instructions for a peaceful transfer of power.
“Russia did not participate in these negotiations,” the ministry said.
Moscow was extremely worried by events in Syria and urged all sides to refrain from violence, it said.
“We urge all parties involved to refrain from the use of violence and to resolve all issues of governance through political means,” the statement said.
“In that regard, the Russian Federation is in contact with all groups of the Syrian opposition.”
It said Russia’s military bases in Syria had been put on a state of high alert, but that there was no serious threat to them at the current time.
Reuters
France calls for peaceful transition
France on Sunday welcomed news of the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and called for fighting to end with a peaceful political transition in the country.
“Now is the time for unity in Syria,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Reuters
US president-elect Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Sunday the following:
“Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer… Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success.
“Likewise, Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness.
“There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin. Too many lives are being so needlessly wasted, too many families destroyed, and if it keeps going, it can turn into something much bigger, and far worse. I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The World is waiting!”
Since the beginning of Syria’s civil war, Turkey’s military has launched several military interventions across the border into Syria, mostly against Syrian Kurdish-led forces. Turkey now effectively controls a zone along Syria’s northern border.
Turkey also supports factions such as the Syrian National Army, a coalition of armed Syrian opposition groups. Analysts say it probably gave tacit approval to the offensive led by HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham).
Throughout Syria’s civil war, Russia has been one of Assad’s most loyal foreign backers, sending Russian troops to support his forces and jets to bomb his enemies. It has maintained a strategic military presence in Syria with air and naval bases, which it uses to support military operations in the region.
Because of the grinding war of attrition in Ukraine, analysts say Russia has been unable to support Syria’s government as forcefully as it has in the past. Russian air strikes that attempted to slow the rebel advance have been relatively sparse.
Syria is a core part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” a network of countries and groups that includes Hizbullah, Palestinian militant group Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen that hopes to destroy Israel and reduce American influence in the Middle East.
Iran smuggles weapons to Hizbullah across Iraq and Syria. Iran and Hizbullah have repaid the favour by sending thousands of militants to fight on Assad’s side during the civil war. On Friday, Iran began to evacuate its military commanders and personnel from Syria, according to regional officials and three Iranian officials, in a sign of its inability to help Assad hold power.
The role of the United States in the Syrian civil war has shifted several times. The Obama administration initially supported opposition groups in their uprising against the government, providing weapons and training, with limited effect.
After the rise of the Islamic State group in 2014, US forces fought the terrorist group with air strikes and assistance to Kurdish forces, and then stayed in northeastern Syria to prevent a resurgence. In 2019, then-president Donald Trump withdrew many of those forces, but the US still maintains about 900 troops, based in Kurdish-controlled oil-drilling areas in the northeast and a garrison in the southeast near Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan.
Israel’s military activities in Syria have been mostly focused on air strikes against Hizbullah and Iranian targets, especially senior military personnel, weapons production facilities and the transport corridor that Iran uses to send weapons to Hizbullah.
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On November 27th Syrian rebels launched a shock offensive with gunmen capturing Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, and the central city of Hama, the fourth largest.
The rebel group are led by Islamist alliance Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, along with an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army.
Their lightning offensive, taking over several key cities in the space of days, was the most direct challenge to president Bashar al-Assad’s power in years and may signal the end of his 24-year rule.
HTS is now the most powerful rebel faction in Syria.
It is designated as a terrorist group by the US and there are serious human rights concerns in the area it controls, including executions for those accused of affiliation with rival groups and over allegations of blasphemy and adultery.
The Syrian civil war started 13 years ago, during the Arab Spring, and escalated into a bloody, multifaceted conflict involving domestic opposition groups, extremist factions and international powers, including the United States, Iran and Russia. More than 500,000 Syrians have died, and millions more have fled their homes.
Welcome to The Irish Times live coverage of events unfolding in Syria – rebels declared on Sunday that president Bashar al-Assad’ regime has ended, ending his family’s iron-fisted rule after more than 13 years of civil war in a seismic moment for the Middle East.
We will be bringing you the latest from reporters across the globe as the Syrian situation progresses through the day.