Fall of the al-Assad regime

Fall of the Assad regime

Part of the 2024 Syrian opposition offensives and Syrian civil war
File:Bashar al-Assad in May 2024.png Bashar al-Assad in 2024, approximately seven months before his overthrow
Date	8 December 2024
Location	Syria
Outcome	Opposition victory Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fled Syria following the fall of Damascus Collapse of pro-government forces and the Syrian Arab Republic The Syrian opposition took control of the capital and most of Syria 2024 Israeli invasion of Syria

On 8 December 2024, the Syrian Arab Republic under Bashar al-Assad collapsed amid major offensives by the Syrian opposition led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as part of the Syrian civil war that began in 2011. The fall of Damascus marked the end of the regime of the al-Assad family, which had ruled Syria as a totalitarian hereditary dictatorship since Hafez al-Assad assumed the presidency in 1971 as a result of the Corrective Revolution.

As the Southern Operations Room encroached on Damascus while attempting to find the former president, reports emerged that Assad had fled the capital on a plane (possibly Syrian Air Flight 9218) to an unknown destination. The Syrian rebels subsequently declared victory over the regime on state television, while Russia's foreign ministry announced Assad's resignation and departure from Syria.

Background

See also: Al-Assad family, Bashar al-Assad, and Neo-Ba'athism

The al-Assad family, also known as the Assad dynasty, is a Syrian political family that has ruled Syria since Hafez al-Assad became the president of Syria in 1971 under the Syrian Ba'ath Party. After his death in June 2000, he was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad.

Hafez al-Assad built his regime as a bureaucracy that was marked by a distinct cult of personality, uncharacteristic in modern Syrian history. Images, portraits, quotes and praises of Assad are displayed everywhere from schools to public markets and government offices; and Hafez al-Assad is referred to as the "Immortal Leader" and the "Sanctified One" (al-Muqaddas) in official Assadist ideology. Hafez re-organised the Syrian society along militaristic lines and persistently invoked conspiratorial rhetoric on the dangers of foreign-backed plots abetted by fifth columnists and promoted the armed forces as a central aspect of public life.

Since Hafez al-Assad's seizure of power in 1970, state propaganda has promoted a new national discourse based on unifying Syrians under "a single imagined Ba'athist identity," as well as Assadism. Fervently loyalist paramilitaries known as the Shabiha (tr. ghosts) deify the Assad dynasty through slogans such as "There is no God but Bashar!" and pursue psychological warfare against non-conformist populations.

Bashar al-Assad

Following the death of Hafez, the personality cult was inherited by his son and successor Bashar al-Assad who is hailed by the party as the "Young Leader" and "Hope of the People". Highly influenced by the model of the North Korean Kim dynasty, official propaganda ascribes divine features to the Assad dynasty, and reveres the Assad patriarchs as the founding fathers of modern Syria.

In 2011, the United States, European Union, and majority of the Arab League called for Assad to resign following the crackdown on Arab Spring protesters during the events of the Syrian revolution, which led to the Syrian civil war. The civil war has killed around 580,000 people, of which a minimum of 306,000 deaths are non-combatant. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, pro-Assad forces caused more than 90% of those civilian deaths. The Assad government has perpetrated numerous war crimes during the course of the Syrian civil war, and Assad's army, the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, has also carried out several attacks with chemical weapons. The deadliest chemical attack was a sarin gas strike in Ghouta on 21 August 2013, which killed between 281 and 1,729 people.

In December 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay stated that findings from an inquiry by the UN implicated Assad in war crimes. Investigations by the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism and OPCW-UN IIT concluded, respectively, that the Assad government was responsible for the 2017 Khan Shaykhun sarin attack and 2018 Douma chemical attack. On 15 November 2023, France issued an arrest warrant against Assad over the use of banned chemical weapons against civilians in Syria. Assad has categorically denied the allegations of these charges and has accused foreign countries, especially the United States, of attempting regime change.

Opposition takeover

Military advances

See also: Battle of Damascus (2024), 2024 Homs offensive, and 2024 Battle of Aleppo

File:Northwestern Syria offensive (2024).jpg

Map of the 2024 Syrian opposition offensives.

On 7 December 2024, opposition forces secured complete control of Homs following approximately twenty-four hours of concentrated military engagement. The rapid collapse of government defenses resulted in the hasty withdrawal of security forces, who destroyed sensitive documentation during their retreat. The capture granted insurgent forces control over critical transportation infrastructure, particularly the highway junction connecting Damascus to the Alawite coastal region, where both Assad's support base and Russian military installations were situated.

Assad-allied Hezbollah forces withdrew from nearby al-Qusayr, evacuating approximately 150 armored vehicles and hundreds of fighters. The reduction in support from key allies, including Russia's diminished involvement due to its focus on its invasion of Ukraine, and Hezbollah's concurrent engagement in conflict with Israel, were believed to contribute to the regime's weakened position.

The takeover of Homs by opposition forces prompted widespread public celebrations, with residents participating in street demonstrations. Celebrants chanted anti-Assad slogans including: "Assad is gone, Homs is free" and "Long live Syria, down with Bashar al-Assad", removed regime symbols which included portraits of Assad, while opposition fighters conducted victory celebrations including celebratory gunfire.

On 7 December, Syrian rebels announced that they started surrounding Damascus after capturing nearby towns, with rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani stating that "our forces have begun implementing the final phase of encircling the capital Damascus." The rebels started encircling the capital after capturing Al-Sanamayn, a town 20 kilometres (12 mi) from the southern entrance of Damascus. By the evening, pro-government forces had left the towns on the outskirts of Damascus, including Jaramana, Qatana, Muadamiyat al-Sham, Darayya, Al-Kiswah, Al-Dumayr, Daraa and sites near the Mezzeh Air Base.

The Syrian Army attempted to maintain public order through state media broadcasts, urging citizens to disregard what they termed "false news" aimed at destabilizing national security. Military leadership assured the population of their continued commitment to defending the country, though their ability to do so appeared increasingly limited. Opposition reconnaissance units penetrated the capital's defenses, establishing positions in strategic locations throughout the city. Special operations teams conducted searches for Assad within Damascus, though their efforts to locate him proved unsuccessful.

Loss of political control

In the main square of Jaramana, protestors took down a statue of Hafez al-Assad. In the evening, pro-government forces reportedly withdrew from several suburbs where large-scale protests broke out.

Senior Assad regime officials in Damascus reportedly engaged in negotiations with opposition forces regarding potential defections. These developments coincided with Iranian officials' denial of reports suggesting Assad had fled the country, though sources indicated his whereabouts in Damascus remained unknown. Following the entrance of opposition forces, Assad's presidential guard was no longer deployed at his usual residence. As of 7 December 2024 early evening, rebel forces found no strong intelligence on al-Assad's location and attempted to find him.

On 8 December, Ha'yat Tahrir al-Sham announced on its official Twitter/X account that it had released its inmate population from Sednaya Prison, one of Syria's largest detention facilities, located in Damascus's periphery. The organization deemed the release as a symbolic and strategic victory for its forces in the face of prior human rights abuses, and representative of the downfall of the Assad regime's injustices.

The opposition's entry into Damascus occurred with minimal resistance due to a lack of military dispatches to areas of the city and the rapid dissolution of government defensive positions, leading to the capture of several districts. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that opposition forces successfully seized several critical facilities in Damascus, including the state-media General Organization of Radio and TV building and Damascus International Airport. Their advances also secured control of major transportation arteries and strategic neighbourhoods, particularly the influential Mezzeh district.

Departures

In the early hours of 8 December, Assad reportedly departed Damascus in a private aircraft for an undisclosed location amid rapidly deteriorating security conditions in the capital, according to two senior Syrian army officials. At the same time, Syrian residents reported hearing chants of Allahu Akbar ("God is great") and heavy gunfire across Damascus. Senior military officers later confirmed Assad's departure from Damascus International Airport, after which government troops stationed at the facility were dismissed from their posts. According to Rami Abdel Rahman (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights), Bashar al-Assad had "left Syria via Damascus international airport".

First Lady Asma al-Assad relocated to Russia along with the couple's three children approximately one week before opposition forces began their advance toward Damascus. Concurrent reports indicated that members of Assad's extended family, including relatives from his sister's lineage, took refuge in the United Arab Emirates. In the days prior to the opposition's advance, Egyptian and Jordanian officials were reported to have urged Bashar al-Assad to leave the country and develop a government in exile, although the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the Jordanian embassy denied doing so.

Following the departures of members of the Assad family, videos showing groups of people entering and exploring inside Bashar al-Assad's empty residence in al-Maliki were circulated online.

Political transition

HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani stated on Telegram that Syrian public institutions would not immediately be given to its military forces, and would instead temporarily be held by Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali until the full political transition was completed. Al-Jalali announced in a social media video that he planned to stay in Damascus and cooperate with the Syrian people, while expressing hope that Syria could become "a normal country" and begin to engage in diplomacy with other nations.

Israeli invasion

Main article: 2024 Israeli invasion of Syria

Israeli forces initiated military operations in Syria's Quneitra Governorate. Armored units advanced into the buffer zone between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the rest of Syria, targeting areas including Tel Ayouba in the central Quneitra countryside with artillery fire. The operation marked the first time in 50 years that Israeli forces crossed the Syrian border fence, following ceasefire agreements on 31 May 1974 in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War.

Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said that 1974 border agreement with Syria was no longer valid and ordered the IDF to re-occupy the Purple Line, which the IDF had withdrawn from in 1974.

In addition, Israel was suspected have to carried out airstrikes in Syria, targeting Khalkhala air base and the Mazzeh district of Damascus.

Reactions

Local

Opposition forces

The President of the Syrian National Coalition, Hadi al-Bahra, announced on Sunday the fall of Bashar Al-Assad.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the primary opposition force involved in Assad's ousting, declared Syria "liberated" following Assad's departure. The group issued proclamations via social media platforms announcing the conclusion of what they termed a "dark era" and promised a "new Syria" where "everyone lives in peace and justice prevails". Their statements specifically addressed displaced persons and former political prisoners, extending invitations for their return.

Public reactions

Damascus witnessed public celebrations, particularly in the symbolic Umayyad Square, traditionally a center of government authority housing the Ministry of Defense and Syrian Armed Forces headquarters. Civilians gathered around abandoned military equipment, with social media footage documenting celebrations including music and public demonstrations. Defense ministry officials reportedly evacuated their headquarters during these developments.

International

File:Chittagong City Breaks Into Celebration After Assad's Fall 02.jpg

Celebrations in Chittagong After Assad's Collapse

The rapid advancement of opposition forces drew significant international attention. The Biden administration's officials began considering the likelihood of Assad's regime collapsing within days. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed hope for peace and stability in Syria after thirteen years of conflict. Israel's military maintained close surveillance of the situation, particularly regarding Iranian movements, while also supporting United Nations forces in repelling attacks by armed groups. Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was critical of Assad's lack of action on societal, economic, and political issues during the periods of reduced fighting throughout the war. In remarks about the state of the Syrian Government Al Thani emphasized the importance of establishing a new political process and engaging in diplomacy with the new Syrian government.

Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, welcomed the events and said the end of the Assad regime "is a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah".

Lebanon

Hundreds of people celebrated in Tripoli and Akkar, in the north of the country, and in Bar Elias, which are mostly populated by Sunni Muslims that oppose Hezbollah and the Assad regime, after the fall of Damascus. The Syrian Ba'ath party office in Halba was stormed and a portrait of Assad was thrown and trampled.

Analysis

Senior fellow Natasha Hall from the Middle East Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies attributed the regime's collapse to the weakening of Assad's traditional allies, with Russia focused on its war in Ukraine and Iran facing regional challenges. Additionally, she posited that Syria's severe economic conditions, with approximately 90 percent of the population living below the poverty line and many living in displacement camps, contributed to the erosion of regime support.

Senior analyst Jerome Drevon from the International Crisis Group remarked that it would be "extremely challenging" for the Syrian opposition to decide on a new governing system in Syria given the diversity of the rebel coalition, noting that while "some groups are more structured, more organized," others are "more local entities."

See also

• Syrian revolution