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  • Why Syria’s army collapsed so suddenly

    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.

  • Watching with trepidation and glee, Netanyahu orders military to seize Syria buffer zone

    Israeli leaders are watching events across the border in Syria with trepidation, as 50 years of detente were upended in a matter of hours.

  • Assad has left Damascus, says Russia, as Syrian army declares end of his rule

    The Syrian government has fallen after a lightning offensive by anti-regime forces across the country - ending President Bashar al Assad's 24-year rule. Mr Assad has left office and the country after giving orders for there to be a peaceful transfer of power, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday. Russia was not involved in the talks surrounding his departure, the ministry said, but has been in touch with opposition groups - and urged all sides to refrain from violence.

  • The fall of Bashar Assad after 13 years of war in Syria brings to an end a decades-long dynasty

    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.

  • Israel seizes Golan buffer zone after Syrian troops leave positions

    PM Netanyahu said the 1974 disengagement agreement had "collapsed" with the rebel takeover of Syria.

  • Toddler released from jail with hopes of Syria on his shoulders

    First they tried to shoot the lock off. Then they tried crowbarring it. Maybe someone found a key.

  • Why the next twist could bring yet more pain after Assad

    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.

  • Rebels declare end of Assad rule in Syria

    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.

  • The US military struck 75 ISIS targets in Syria as Assad's government fell

    President Joe Biden said the US sought to prevent ISIS from regrouping amid the chaos of Assad's fall.

  • Reports of people trapped underground at notorious Syrian prison

    It is thought thousands of people could still be trapped in hidden parts of the notorious Saydnaya prison.

  • Iron-fisted Assad never quelled the Syrian rebels who came back to topple him

    President for 24 years, Assad flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination early on Sunday, two senior army officers told Reuters. Rebels declared the city "free of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad". A half-century of Assad family rule was over, army command told officers, according to a Syrian officer.

  • Syria hit by US and Israeli airstrikes as war bloggers fret about 'threat' to Russian bases

    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. In northern Syria, Turkey-backed opposition fighters are still battling US-allied Kurdish forces, while both Israel and the US launched airstrikes on Syria on Sunday. President Bashar al Assad fled Damascus with his family on Sunday morning and their whereabouts were unknown until Russian state media confirmed they had been given asylum in Moscow "on humanitarian grounds".

  • Two wars changed Syria’s fortune. What comes next is impossible to know

    The swiftly changing fate of Bashar al-Assad was not really made in Syria, but in southern Beirut and Donetsk.

  • ‘Beyond our dreams’: exiled Syrian activists set sights on returning home

    Fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime marks end of a chapter for citizens that began with Arab spring uprising

  • Iron-fisted Assad under threat as Syrian rebels draw closer

    President Bashar al-Assad used Russian and Iranian firepower to beat back rebel forces during years of civil war but never defeated them, leaving him vulnerable when his allies were distracted by wars elsewhere and his enemies went on the march. The rebels' lightning advance through western Syria marks one of the most serious threats to half a century of Assad family rule in Damascus, and a seismic moment for the Middle East. Statues of Assad's father and brother were toppled in cities taken by the rebels, while pictures of him on billboards and government offices have been torn down, stamped on, burned or riddled with bullets.

  • Former al Qaeda chief Abu Mohammed al-Golani led overthrow of Syria's Assad

    BEIRUT (Reuters) -As the commander of al Qaeda's franchise in the Syrian civil war, Abu Mohammed al-Golani was a shadowy figure who kept out of the public eye, even when his group became the most powerful faction fighting to topple Bashar al-Assad. Today, he is the most recognisable of Syria's triumphant rebels, having gradually stepped into the limelight since severing ties to al Qaeda in 2016, rebranding his group, and leading the rebels who ousted Assad after 13 years of civil war. "The future is ours," Golani, now going by his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, said in a statement read on Syria's state TV, underlining the central role he is expected to play as Syria turns the page on 50 years of Assad family rule.

  • Syrian government falls in stunning end to 50-year rule of Assad family

    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.”

  • Melbourne synagogue fire a terrorist attack ‘on the Jewish people’, police believe

    Victoria police make formal declaration over Friday’s attack at the Adass Israel synagogue in Ripponlea

  • Syria war – latest: Putin grants Assad asylum as deposed president arrives in Moscow, Russia says

    Syria rebel fighters raced into Damascus unopposed on Sunday, overthrowing President Assad

  • Celebrations across Syria as Assad flees

    Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has fled Syria as Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus Sunday, triggering celebrations across the country and beyond at the end of his oppressive rule.US president-elect Donald Trump said that Assad had "fled his country" after losing Russia's backing.