DAMASCUS: Ousted president Bashar al-Assad broke his silence on Monday (Dec 16) after fleeing Syria, saying in an announcement that he only left once Damascus had fallen and denounced the country’s new leaders as “terrorists”.
Assad fled to Russia simply over every week in the past, as a lightning offensive spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) wrested from his management metropolis after metropolis till the rebels reached the Syrian capital.
The collapse of Assad’s rule shocked the world and sparked celebrations round Syria and past after his crackdown on democracy protests in 2011 sparked one of many deadliest wars of the century.
Rooted in Syria’s department of Al-Qaeda, HTS is proscribed by a number of Western governments as a terrorist organisation, although it has sought to reasonable its rhetoric and pledged to guard the nation’s spiritual minorities.
Lengthy earlier than the emergence of HTS and jihadist teams within the Syrian warfare, nevertheless, Assad persistently branded his opponents, together with non-violent protesters, as “terrorists”.
“My departure from Syria was neither deliberate nor did it happen through the remaining hours of the battles,” mentioned an announcement on the ousted presidency’s Telegram channel.
Assad was propped up all through the warfare by Russia and Iran.
“Moscow requested … an instantaneous evacuation to Russia on the night of Sunday, Dec 8” after he moved that day to Latakia, the place Russia operates a naval base, the assertion mentioned.
“When the state falls into the arms of terrorism and the power to make a significant contribution is misplaced, any place turns into void of objective,” added the assertion, launched in English.
Assad’s fall sparked rejoicing in Syria and world wide after 5 a long time of rule by his clan, which had zero tolerance for dissent and operated a posh internet of prisons to detain anybody even suspected of dissent.
“WE WANT OUR CHILDREN”
To the victims of a few of Assad’s worst atrocities, the top of his period introduced a glimmer of hope that they could discover closure.
As HTS and its allies superior by means of Syria, they opened jail gates to free individuals suspected of dissent who had been held for days, months, years and even a long time.
“We wish our kids, alive, useless, burned, ashes, buried in mass graves … simply inform us,” Ayoush Hassan, 66, instructed AFP at Saydnaya, one of many prisons Assad had used to strike concern into Syrian society.
She travelled to the jail in Damascus from her house in northern Syria, however may discover no hint of her lacking son.
In line with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, greater than 100,000 individuals died in Syria’s jails and detention centres from 2011.
Ghazi Mohammed al-Mohammed, a survivor of detention, instructed AFP that officers seized him whereas he was on a visit to Damascus, took away his papers and mentioned to him: “Now you are quantity 3006.”
He doesn’t even know why he was arrested.
“In the direction of the top I simply wished to die, ready for after they would execute us. I used to be virtually comfortable, as it might imply my struggling was over,” he mentioned.
The warfare sparked by Assad’s crackdown on the revolt killed greater than 500,000 individuals, in accordance with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and compelled greater than half the inhabitants to flee their properties.
