This story is breaking … elsewhere
- Syria’s armed opposition says its fighters have captured the capital, Damascus, and that President Bashar al-Assad has fled. His whereabouts remain unknown.
- The commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, says all state institutions will remain under the supervision of al-Assad’s prime minister until they are handed over officially.
- The announcements come hours after the opposition groups seized several cities in a lightning offensive.
- Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkiye and Russia issued a joint statement earlier in the night, describing the crisis as a “dangerous development” and calling for a political solution.
Seems the Islamist rebels already have their solution. The autocrat is gone. What comes next is the question. ISIS? A Taliban? Al-Qaeda?
More from Al Jazeera:
Cars flooding into Syria after al-Assad’s ouster
Nour Qormosh, reporting near Idlib, Syria
We are here, by the N-5 Highway. Cars are moving on the highway with people returning to their homes in Syria for the first time in 14 years.
The joy of the people is insurmountable. We’ve talked to the civilians here as they transport their belongings back into the country. Their joy is shared across the Syrian geography – from Idlib to Hama, Homs, Damascus, and Deraa.
This is the most significant moment in the history of the Syrian revolution.
Two senior Syrian officers told Reuters that Assad had fled Damascus, his destination unknown. The report could not be independently verified.
The senior Emirati diplomat Anwar Gargash declined to say whether Assad was fleeing to the United Arab Emirates.
“When people ask where is Bashar al-Assad going to, I say, you know, when you really look at this, this is really at the end of the day a footnote in history,” he told reporters at a conference in Bahrain.
When opposition forces threatened Assad a decade ago, other government worried that an Islamist government might replace him (Washington Post):
What if Assad fell, analysts asked, only to be replaced by groups that Washington regarded as terrorists? The scenario was given a name: the “catastrophic success.”
The same question is being asked with urgency as intelligence agencies around the world contemplate the sweeping gains over the past week by the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS — an Arabic name that translates to the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant.
The group’s pedigree is well known, with historic links to both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. From Jerusalem and Amman to Washington and Paris, governments are bracing for the real possibility that Damascus could come under the sway of a militant faction that the United States has officially labeled a terrorist organization.
Updates are rolling in every few minutes. It’s too early to know much more. Not that the Sunday talkies won’t spend the morning asking “experts” to speculate. So if speculation your jam, have at it. The dust won’t clear for days.