President Joe Biden says he will not supply offensive weapons that Israel can use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah — the last major Hamas stronghold in Gaza — over concern for the well-being of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there
He didn’t look like a dictator. Awkward and gangly, his mannerisms unassuming, at least until he opened his mouth, Bashar al-Assad exuded none of the machismo of other Arab strongmen like Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein.
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination on Sunday, as rebels said they had infiltrated the capital with no sign of army deployments.
Hezbollah played a major part propping up Assad through years of war in Syria, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel - a redeployment which weakened Syrian government lines. His downfall has stripped Hezbollah of a vital ally along Lebanon's eastern border.
Israeli leaders are watching events across the border in Syria with trepidation, as 50 years of detente were upended in a matter of hours.
PM Netanyahu said the 1974 disengagement agreement had "collapsed" with the rebel takeover of Syria.
Israel will step up airstrikes on Syrian stores of advanced weaponry, Israeli officials said on Monday, and keep a 'limited' troop presence on the ground, hoping to head off any threat that could emerge in the fallout of president Bashar al-Assad's overthrow. Israel has watched the upheaval in Syria with a mixture of hope and concern as it weighs the consequences of one of the most significant strategic shifts in the Middle East in years. While Assad's fall wiped out a bastion from which Israel's arch-foe Iran had exercised influence in the region, the lightning advance of a disparate group of rebel forces with roots in the Islamist ideology of Al Qaeda poses risks.
Syria's prime minister said Monday that most cabinet ministers are still working from offices in Damascus after rebels entered the capital over the weekend and overthrew President Bashar Assad. Streams of refugees crossed back into Syria from neighboring countries, hoping for a more peaceful future.
Syrian President Bashar Assad fled the country on Sunday, bringing to a dramatic close his nearly 14-year struggle to hold onto control as his country fragmented in a brutal civil war that became a proxy battlefield for regional and international powers. The exit of the 59-year-old Assad stood in stark contrast to his first months as Syria’s unlikely president in 2000, when many hoped he would be a young reformer after three decades of his father’s iron grip. As the uprising hemorrhaged into an outright civil war, he unleashed his military to blast opposition-held cities, with support from allies Iran and Russia.
First they tried to shoot the lock off. Then they tried crowbarring it. Maybe someone found a key.
It took just 11 days to end the 13-year rebellion against Bashar al-Assad, an offensive so rapid that what unfolds next in Syria itself is, to an extent, anyone’s guess.
Islamist-led rebels declared that they have taken Damascus in a lightning offensive on Sunday, sending President Bashar al-Assad fleeing and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria.The president's reported departure comes less than two weeks since the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group launched its campaign challenging more than five decades of rule by the Assad family.
It is thought thousands of people could still be trapped in hidden parts of the notorious Saydnaya prison.
President Joe Biden said the US sought to prevent ISIS from regrouping amid the chaos of Assad's fall.
Syria's new rebel leaders are facing the daunting task of healing a divided nation - and the toppling of the Assad regime has not put an end to fighting in the country.
Fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime marks end of a chapter for citizens that began with Arab spring uprising
STORY: :: U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters say they have full control of Deir el-Zor as rebels advance across the country ::December 7, 2024:: Deir el-Zor, Syria:: Khaled Hassan, Syrian Kurdish fighter"We, the forces of the Deir el-Zor Military Council, entered the city of Deir el-Zor today in al-Qusour neighborhood and we released the prisoners. Now Deir el-Zor is under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces. We are the sons of Deir el-Zor and we liberated our city from the Syrian regime, the Damascus government, and the Iranian and affiliated militias."SDF forces were seen patrolling the streets of Deir el-Zor on the banks of the Euphrates river, armed and driving in pick up trucks, one day after seizing the eastern Syrian city. The SDF advance came as Syrian rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, entered suburbs of the key city of Homs on Saturday, sources said, pressing a lightning fast advance as government forces battle to save President Bashar al-Assad's 24-year rule.The rebels had already taken the northern city of Aleppo last week and the city of Hama earlier this week, dealing the biggest blows to Assad in years.
Initially seen as a potential reformer, Bashar al-Assad ruled Syria by imposing a brutal regime that imprisoned tens of thousands of dissidents and killed hundreds of thousands as he clung to power during Syria’s civil war. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad oversaw a merciless crackdown on a pro-democracy revolt that morphed into one of the bloodiest wars of the century.On Sunday, as rebels entered the capital, a Syrian war monitor said he had left the country, in what could spell the end not jus
Syrian insurgents toppled President Bashar al-Assad's on Sunday after a stunning, two-week offensive that saw major cities slip from the regime’s fingers one by one, until rebel forces captured the capital Damascus almost without a fight. More than 50 years of Assad family rule in Syria collapsed with astonishing speed after insurgents burst out of a rebel-held enclave in the country’s north, capturing Aleppo and a string of other cities in a matter of days, before converging on Damascus. Opposi
Police said a manhunt was underway to find three suspects following the fire
The Syrian government fell early Sunday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a sudden rebel offensive sprinted across government-held territory and entered the capital in 10 days. Syrian state television aired a video statement by a group of men saying that President Bashar Assad has been overthrown and all detainees in jails have been set free. The man who read the statement said the Operations Room to Conquer Damascus, an opposition group, called on all opposition fighters and citizens to preserve state institutions of “the free Syrian state.”
