This is the situation in Syria after the fall of Bashar Al Assad’s regime

The insurgents broke into official Syrian television this Sunday and announced that they had “liberated” the city of Damascus“the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has fallen” and they have “liberated all the oppressed from the regime’s prisons.”

In a message from the television set, a man proclaimed that “with the grace of God, the city of Damascus was liberated, and the tyrant Bashar al-Assad fell and all the oppressed were freed from the regime’s prisons,” according to which It is the first statement from the insurgents’ Damascus Operations Room.

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“The Damascus Operations Room asks citizens to preserve the properties of the free Syrian country,” said the unidentified man, surrounded by eight other men dressed in civilian clothes.

“May Syria live free for all Syrians in all its segments,” he said in the minute he appeared.

Abu Mohamed al Jolani, Islamist leader of the insurgent coalition that has taken the capital Damascus from Al Assad, today proclaimed victory.

“Oh, my revolutionary brothers, pray to God to thank him for the victory he has given us through your arms,” ​​he said in a statement.

The insurgents today declared Damascus “free” from President Bashar al-Assad after twelve days of offensive initiated by a coalition led by the Islamist group Levant Liberation Organization along with other factions backed by Türkiye to defeat the Syrian Government.

Precisely, the Syrian Prime Minister, Mohamed Ghazi al Jalali, assured this Sunday that he extends his hand to “every Syrian who is interested in this country to preserve its institutions.”

The rebels said shortly after that public institutions in Syria will remain under Al Jalali’s supervision until they are “officially handed over”

Government of Lebanon speaks out, after the fall of the Al Assad regime in Syria

The Government of Lebanon defended this Sunday the sovereignty and integrity of Syria and respect for the will of the Syrian people, after the fall this morning of the regime of Bachar al-Asadwho is believed to have fled the country after rebel groups took control of the capital.

“The Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Migrants follows with great interest the current events taking place in Syria and reaffirms the importance of preserving the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria and non-interference in its internal affairs” , indicated a statement from the Ministry after a meeting between its head, Abdullah Bu Habib, with the Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati.

The Lebanese Government also stressed its desire to “build the best relations with the Syrian State and its representatives, so that the common interests of the two countries are preserved”; his respect for the “will of the Syrian people“, and the importance of having “good neighborly” relations.

EFE

“It depends solely on the Syrian people to elect their representatives, their political system and shape the future of their country for the good of Syria,” the Foreign Ministry statement indicated.

The Lebanese Shiite militia party Hezbollah, which accumulates great power in Lebanon but has been weakened after the war with Israel, was one of the main allied groups of the overthrown Damascus regimeand both had the support of Iran.

The regime of the Al Assad family, which ruled the Arab country since 1971, collapsed this Sunday at the hands of the insurgents, most of them Islamists, led by the Levant Liberation Organization (Hayat Tahrir al Sham or HTS, in Arabic), which They took Damascus with little resistance after just 12 days of offensive.

Bashar al-Assad fled the country on a “special” plane according to the NGO Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and his whereabouts are unknown, while the Military Operations Command of the coalition of Islamist and pro-Turkish groups responsible for his fall proclaimed Damascus “free of tyrant Bashar al-Assad.

Who is Bashar Al Assad and how long did he last in power in Syria?

Al Asad (Damascus, 1965) studied Medicine and specialized in ophthalmology in the Syrian capital, where after finishing his studies he worked as a military doctor for a time. The young man, to whom no political aspirations were attributed, then went to London to continue his professional training.

However, two years later, in 1994, a fortuitous family tragedy would change the course of his life forever: the traffic accident that ended the life of his brother Basel, the eldest son and presumed heir to power of the then president. Syrian, Hafez al Assad.

Bachar was called to Syria by his father and he embarked on five years of preparation to eventually take the lead of the country, just as the first-born had done in the years before his death, gaining experience in the military ranks and weight in public life.

The moment came in 2000 when Hafez al Asad He died after almost three decades in power, which he had gained through a coup d’état.

Although he was not initially chosen to inherit from his father, after obtaining it he clung to it tooth and nail, silencing his adversaries, quelling mass revolts and surviving more than ten years of civil war.

The Constitution was immediately amended so that Bachar, then 34 years old, met the age requirements – minimum 40 years – and a referendum was held that supported his elevation to the head of state.

After four decades of Baath Party governments, almost all led by his father, Assad was initially seen as a hope for change and a likely instigator of democratic and open-minded reforms.

However, soon came the arrest campaigns of activists and opponents, and, a decade later, the brutal repression of the protests that broke out in Syria against its Government within the framework of the “Arab Spring.”

He resisted pressure from the streets and was one of the few leaders who remained in power since the revolts that broke out in 2011 and overthrew the governments of several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, although at the cost of a civil war. and the practical liquidation of Syrian unity.

Its survival since 2016 was in the hands of its Russian allies and the Iranian Shia militiasLebanese and Iraqi that allowed him to recover territory from the insurgents, at the cost of brutal devastation of the cities and territories that had rebelled.

Formally, he held power with large electoral “victories”, such as in the last elections in 2021, where he managed to win 95% of the votes.

However, his mandate faced growing popular discontent due to the serious economic crisis and the shortage of basic products, which has led the vast majority of the population to suffer food insecurity and live below the poverty line.

Added to this are 14 million internally displaced people and refugees to other countries, most of them in the Middle East, and an entire reconstruction process ahead, something that was considered almost impossible given the international isolation of the Al Assad Government and the multiple international sanctions imposed by the West.

As soon as its main allies were involved in more acute problems than the Syrian one (Ukraine and Lebanonfundamentally), their weaknesses were exposed and, ultimately, paved the way for their downfall.