2 weeks Ago
Strikes heard in Damascus overnight, CNN team says Strikes could be heard in Damascus in the early hours of Monday morning, according to a CNN team in the Syrian capital. It was not immediately clear who had carried out the strikes. Reuters reported that Israel had conducted three airstrikes in the Syrian capital on Sunday, citing two regional security sources.
Israel’s military declined to comment when asked by CNN if it had conducted strikes on Damascus. Across the world, Syrians are celebrating the Assad's regime's fall From Sydney to Stockholm, Syrian communities across the globe are celebrating the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime following more than 50 years of his family’s brutal dictatorship. In Germany, home to the largest number of Syrian refugees outside the Middle East, hundreds took to the streets of the capital Berlin on Sunday – many holding posters of Assad’s face crossed out in red.
“We lost hope several years ago. But now hope is returning,” Muhamad Hamzalimam told the AFP news agency. “We’re ready for whatever lies ahead.
We are simply happy. It couldn’t be better.” In the Swedish capital, hundreds of Syrians gathered at a major public square, waving flags in the green, red, black and white colors of the Syrian opposition, while Syrians also celebrated in Dublin and London.
Mohammad Hajji Mahmoud, a 19-year-old student in the British capital, said the news that Assad had been toppled was “unbelievable.” “Syria’s free, liberated again. So now it’s our time to rebuild it, and then, you know, get a new country,” he told the AFP news agency.
Similar scenes took place in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, near the Syrian border. “The people are very happy,” Syrian Medjit Zein told AFP in Gaziantep. “And not only here.
Those who live abroad or in Syria as well. We are saved from the cruel Assad, we are very happy. May god make all dictators fall like Assad.
” Turkey, which shares a long border with Syria, is home to about 3.1 million Syrian refugees. Ferrari F50 among dozens of cars seen in videos that appear to show Assad's collection Video footage appears to show deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s car collection, housed in a garage near his main palace in Damascus.
One video, filmed by an individual driving among the collection and verified by CNN, shows more than 40 luxury vehicles in a large warehouse in western Damascus, north of the Al-Mazzeh neighborhood. Some of the cars seen in the footage include a red Ferrari F50 – which routinely sells for over $3 million – a Lamborghini, a Rolls Royce and a Bentley. At least one of the vehicles bears a Damascus license plate.
Another video filmed by people walking through the garage shows the same car collection. In the face of an astonishingly swift rebel offensive, Assad and his family fled to Moscow and were granted political asylum, an official source in Russia told CNN earlier. Analysis: Syrian rebel leader’s victory speech held a message for Iran, Trump and Israel In his long journey from young al Qaeda fighter two decades ago, to rebel commander espousing sectarian tolerance, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani has had plenty of time to plan to fine-tune his narrative .
It is no surprise that the Islamist rebel chose Damascus’s venerated Umayyad Mosque – not a TV studio, nor newly absented presidential palace, but a place of towering religious significance, which at 1,300 years old is one of the world’s most ancient mosques – to deliver that message. It was a message to all those who had taken him to power, and propelled his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters at startling speed across Syria to oust President Bashar al-Assad. To the newly liberated Syrians: “This victory, my brothers, has come through the suffering of those who endured imprisonment,” he said.
In a country where the God you chose, and how you pray, can define your class, limit your aspirations and pit you against your neighbor, Jolani sent a very clear signal in the Umayyad Mosque. He is a Sunni Muslim, part of Syria’s majority. Assad was an Alawite.
There are Christians, Druze, Shia Muslims, Ismailis and more. Yet the words he chose appeared intended to break those old bounds. “This new triumph, my brothers, marks a new chapter in the history of the region, a history fraught with dangers (that left) Syria as a playground for Iranian ambitions, spreading sectarianism, stirring corruption,” he said.
To Iran: He sent an apparent message to Tehran’s theocracy — that their meddling is over, their easy land access to their mega proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon is over, their support for Syrian Hezbollah is over, and gone too is the home they once had for Iran’s weapons stockpiles. To US and Israel: This is a message Jolani will know is being heard in Tel Aviv and Washington, where he is considered to be a member of a proscribed terrorist organization with a $10 million bounty on his head. “Your interests are understood in the new Syria,” he said.
An understanding on his part that these are the powers capable of bringing him down. Jolani’s message was also tuned for regional powers he’ll need to keep onside, promising to clean shop. “Syria is being purified,” he said, referring to the country’s regional reputation as a narco state, saying Assad’s Syria had “become the world’s leading source of Captagon,” an amphetamine-type drug, and criminality through the region.
US believes significant portions of rebel group HTS maintain strong links to ISIS, a senior official says The US believes significant portions of Syria’s rebel coalition Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) maintain strong links to ISIS, according to a senior US official. HTS has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Turkey, the United Nations and several Western nations. In 2018, the US placed a $10 million bounty on its military leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani .
In an exclusive interview with CNN , Jolani pushed back against the enduring terror designation of HTS, calling the label “primarily political and, at the same time, inaccurate,” arguing that some extreme Islamist practices had “created a divide” between HTS and jihadist groups. He claimed that he was opposed to some of the more brutal tactics used by other jihadi groups, which led to his severing ties with them. He also claimed he was never personally involved in attacks on civilians.
With rebels in control of the capital, what's next for war-weary Syria? The red, white, green and black Free Syrian Army flag flew over Damascus on Sunday as thousands of residents lined the main square in bursts of defiant jubilation after President Bashar al-Assad relinquished his grip on power. In just 11 days, a rebel alliance charged through Syria in the boldest challenge to Assad in years – following decades of his dynasty’s brutal reign, marked by fighting, bloodshed and oppression. “This is a momentous moment, not just for the Syrian people, but for the people of the Middle East, Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians or otherwise,” Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told CNN on Sunday.
“This is a regime that, for over 50 years, under the mantra of freedom, unity and socialism, oppressed, tortured and disappeared many millions in Syria.” As the anti-regime coalition starts to disband Assad’s military and lays out its vision for a post-Assad Syria, experts wonder if the next phase will be a new dawn for a people strangled by a brutal autocracy – or whether sectarianism will bring a different type of authoritarian rule. Syria’s armed opposition ultimately plans to form a government defined by institutions and a “council chosen by the people,” Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the militant figure driving the latest rebel swing, told CNN.
He heads the dominant group in the coalition, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a former al Qaeda affiliate. Read more about whether rebellion could lead to a new dawn in Syria..
