HOW AL-ASSAD’S FINAL HOURS IN SYRIA UNFOLDED

Fri 13 December 2024:

Bashar al-Assad told almost no one about his plans to flee Syria as his 24-year reign, and his family’s half-century regime, collapsed.

Reuters, quoting people with knowledge of the events, said aides, officials and relatives were kept in the dark. Just hours before he escaped, al-Assad urged a meeting of army and security chiefs to hold out, assuring them that Russian support was on its way.

The report added that on December 8, the day he left the country, al-Assad told his office manager that he was going home, but instead, headed to the airport. He summoned his media adviser to his home to write a speech, but when she arrived, he was gone. He didn’t even inform his younger brother, Maher, an army commander, about his plan.

Assad’s last prime minister, Mohammed Jalali, said he spoke to his then-president on the phone on Saturday night at 10.30 pm.

“In our last call, I told him how difficult the situation was and that there was huge displacement (of people) from Homs toward Latakia … that there was panic and horror in the streets,” he told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV this week.

“He replied: ‘Tomorrow, we will see’,” Jalali added. “‘Tomorrow, tomorrow’, was the last thing he told me.”

Jalali said he tried to call Assad again as dawn broke on Sunday, but there was no response.

Three members of Assad’s inner circle said he initially wanted to seek refuge in the United Arab Emirates, as rebels seized Aleppo and Homs and were advancing towards Damascus.

They said he was rebuffed by the Emiratis who feared an international backlash for harbouring a figure subject to U.S. and European sanctions for allegedly using chemical weapons in a crackdown on insurgents, accusations that Assad has rejected as a fabrication.

The UAE government didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday that Russia had spent a lot of effort in helping stabilise Syria in the past but its priority now was the conflict in Ukraine.

Four days after that trip, on Dec. 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met with Assad in Damascus. By that time, the rebels from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist group had taken control of Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo and were sweeping southwards as government forces crumbled.

Assad was visibly distressed during the meeting, and conceded that his army was too weakened to mount an effective resistance, a senior Iranian diplomat told Reuters.

In the end, al-Assad fled without a last word, flying under the radar as the aircraft that carried him switched off its transponder and disappeared from tracking.

Since arriving in Moscow, where he was granted political asylum, al-Assad has not been seen or heard from. His wife Asma and their three children were already waiting for him there.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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