A Wall Street Journal investigation has revealed the dramatic final hours of the Assad regime.
On Saturday, as rebel forces began encircling Damascus, Assad ordered his troops to hold their positions and defend the capital, confident that his loyal Syrian army would come to his rescue.
By Saturday night, Assad was gone.
A planned address to the nation never materialized, and even the president's inner circle had no idea where Bashar al-Assad had fled. Hours later, they would learn that the president had escaped even before rebels reached the capital.
The Wall Street Journal, speaking with sources inside Syria, has uncovered the regime's final moments and the Syrian military's last hours before rebels completed their takeover of the country.
"The regime had fallen before they even reached Damascus," said Mohammed Ala Ghanem, a Syrian-American opposition activist in Washington. "Syrian Arab Army soldiers abandoned their posts, police deserted their stations, and Bashar al-Assad simply fled," he told the American newspaper.
The rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, had waited years for this opportunity, which arrived just over a year after October 7th. Hezbollah had been significantly weakened and lost its leader, while Iran had suffered heavy blows from Israel that impacted both the country and the Shiite axis's morale. Russia, after nearly three years of continuous war with Ukraine, was no longer present to save the Syrian dictator. It was the perfect moment to strike, and within 11 days, Damascus fell.
A resident of Hama who gave a ride to a Syrian soldier wandering through the city last week described the soldier as "terrified."
In their desperation, the country's national security directors discussed peaceful surrender terms with the rebels - without authorization from Assad, who by then was already on a plane to Moscow.
The big bad Iran was also no help: Iran reportedly told its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and affiliated militias to stay out of the fight, while also negotiating safe passage for its personnel and striking a deal for its fighters to peacefully surrender territory to the rebels. Just last week, a Tehran-bound Iranian aircraft, potentially carrying support for the Assad regime, was forced to turn back after Israeli threats of interception.
Al-Assad and his family are now safely ensconced in Russia, while the rest of the world waits to see how this will play out.
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