Mystery surrounded the whereabouts of Bashar al-Assad, who was now not in Damascus when rebels captured the Syrian capital on Sunday, ending greater than 5 a long time of his household’s rule.
Two senior military officers mentioned Assad had boarded a aircraft early on Sunday in Damascus for an unknown vacation spot.
Russia, considered one of Assad’s closest allies, confirmed that Assad had left Syria however didn’t say the place he was, together with whether or not Moscow had given him refuge.
“As a results of negotiations between B. Assad and a lot of members within the armed battle on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, he determined to resign from the presidency and left the nation, giving directions for a peaceable switch of energy,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry mentioned in an announcement.
Assad has not spoken in public for the reason that sudden insurgent advance per week in the past, when insurgents seized northern Aleppo in a shock assault earlier than marching right into a succession of cities as frontlines crumbled.
There was additionally no official announcement on Sunday of the whereabouts of Assad’s spouse Asma or their kids, the eldest of whom has lengthy studied in Russia and obtained a level from a college in Moscow final yr.
A Syrian Air aircraft took off from Damascus airport across the time the capital was reported to have been taken by rebels, based on information from the Flightradar web site.
The plane initially flew in the direction of Syria’s coastal area, a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect, however then made an abrupt U-turn and flew in the other way for a couple of minutes earlier than disappearing off the map. Reuters couldn’t verify who was on board.
Two Syrian sources mentioned the sudden change in course and disappearance of the aircraft from monitoring might point out it had been shot down, or that it had switched off its transponder.
The aircraft departed Damascus quickly after rebels had taken the central metropolis of Homs, reducing the capital off from the coast the place Assad’s Russian ally has air and naval bases.
The solely trackable flight departing Syria seen after midnight on Flightradar24, a flight monitoring web site, left Homs for the UAE, hours after rebels had captured town.
As the insurgent advance gathered steam over the previous week, there was hypothesis that Assad may search refuge in Moscow or along with his different fundamental ally Iran. Syrian state media had mentioned on Saturday he was nonetheless in Damascus.
He had visited Moscow simply earlier than the insurgent offensive. Iranian information businesses printed {a photograph} of him on Saturday that they mentioned confirmed him assembly a prime Iranian official in Damascus.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)