Syrians poured into streets echoing with celebratory gunfire on Sunday after a stunning opposition advance reached the capital, putting an end to the Assad family's 50 years of iron rule but raising questions about the future of the country and the wider region.
Joyful crowds gathered in central squares in Damascus, waving the Syrian revolutionary flag in scenes that recalled the early days of their uprising, before a brutal crackdown and the rise of an insurgency plunged the country into a nearly 14-year civil war.
Others gleefully ransacked the presidential palace and the Assad family residence after President Bashar al-Assad and other top officials vanished, their whereabouts unknown.
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a former al-Qaeda commander who cut ties with the group years ago and says he embraces pluralism and religious tolerance, leads the biggest opposition faction and is poised to chart the country's direction.
The end of Assad's rule deals a major blow to Iran and its allies, already weakened by over a year of conflict with Israel. The opposition now face the daunting task of healing bitter divides in a country ravaged by war and still split among different armed factions.
Syrian state television aired a video statement early Sunday by a group of opposition fighters saying that Assad had been overthrown and all prisoners had been set free. The man who read the statement called on opposition fighters and citizens to preserve the institutions of “the free Syrian state.”
The statement emerged hours after the head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location.
Many of the capital’s residents were in disbelief at the speed at which Assad lost his hold on the country after a grinding civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced half the country's prewar population of 23 million and drew in several foreign powers.
Celebrations erupt across the capital
As daylight broke over Damascus, crowds gathered to pray in the city’s mosques and to celebrate in the squares, chanting “God is great.” People also chanted anti-Assad slogans and honked car horns. People picked up weapons that had apparently been discarded by security forces and fired them in the air.
Revelers filled Umayyad Square in the city center, where the Defense Ministry is located. Men fired celebratory gunshots into the air and some waved the three-starred Syrian flag that predates the Assad government and was adopted by the revolutionaries.
Soldiers and police officers left their posts and fled, and looters broke into the Defense Ministry. Videos from Damascus showed families wandering into the presidential palace, with some emerging carrying stacks of plates and other household items.
“I did not sleep last night, and I refused to sleep until I heard the news of his fall,” said Mohammed Amer Al-Oulabi, 44, who works in the electricity sector. “From Idlib to Damascus, it only took them (the opposition forces) a few days, thank God. May God bless them, the heroic lions who made us proud.”
Syria’s al-Watan newspaper, which was historically pro-government, wrote: “We are facing a new page for Syria. We thank God for not shedding more blood. We believe and trust that Syria will be for all Syrians.”
The newspaper added that media workers should not be blamed for publishing government statements in the past.
“We only carried out the instructions and published the news they sent us,” it said. “It quickly became clear now that it was false.”
A statement from the Alawite sect — to which Assad belongs and which has formed the core of his base — called on young Syrians to be “calm, rational and prudent and not to be dragged into what tears apart the unity of our country.”
