As his regime fell aside, Bashar Assad saved his escape plans tightly hid, deceiving aides, officers, and even shut relations, in line with greater than a dozen people with perception into the scenario who spoke to Reuters.
Hours earlier than he escaped for Moscow, Assad assured a gathering of about 30 military and safety chiefs on the protection ministry on Saturday that Russian navy assist was on its method and urged floor forces to carry out, in line with a commander who was current and requested anonymity to discuss the briefing.
Civilian workers have been none the wiser, too.
Assad advised his presidential workplace supervisor on Saturday when he completed work he was going residence however as a substitute headed to the airport, in line with an aide in his interior circle.
He additionally referred to as his media adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, and requested her to return to his residence to write down him a speech, the aide stated. She arrived to search out nobody was there.
“Assad didn’t even make a last stand. He didn’t even rally his own troops,” stated Nadim Houri, govt director of the Arab Reform Initiative regional think-tank. “He let his supporters face their own fate.”
Reuters was unable to contact Assad in Moscow, the place he has been granted political asylum. Interviews with 14 individuals accustomed to his closing days and hours in energy paint an image of a pacesetter casting round for out of doors assist to increase his 24-year rule earlier than leaning on deception and stealth to plot his exit from Syria within the early hours of Sunday.
Most of the sources, who embody aides within the former president’s interior circle, regional diplomats and safety sources and senior Iranian officers, requested for his or her names to be withheld to freely focus on delicate issues.
Assad did not even inform his youthful brother, Maher, commander of the Army’s elite 4th Armoured Division, about his exit plan, in line with three aides. Maher flew a helicopter to Iraq after which to Russia, one of many individuals stated.
Assad’s maternal cousins, Ehab and Eyad Makhlouf, have been equally left behind as Damascus fell to the anti-regime forces, in line with a Syrian aide and Lebanese safety official. The pair tried to flee by automotive to Lebanon however have been ambushed on the best way by the opposition forces who shot Ehab lifeless and wounded Eyad, they stated. There was no official affirmation of the demise and Reuters was unable to independently confirm the incident.
Assad himself fled Damascus by aircraft on Sunday, Dec. 8, flying below the radar with the plane’s transponder switched off, two regional diplomats stated, escaping the clutches of anti-regime forces storming the capital. The dramatic exit ended his 24 years of rule and his household’s half a century of unbroken energy, and introduced the 13-year civil struggle to an abrupt halt.
He flew to Russia’s Hemeimeem airbase within the Syrian coastal metropolis of Latakia, and from there on to Moscow.
Assad’s instant household, spouse Asma and their three youngsters have been already ready for him within the Russian capital, in line with three former shut aides and a senior regional official.
Videos of Assad’s residence, taken by the opposition and residents who thronged the presidential complicated following his flight and posted on social media, counsel he made a hasty exit, displaying cooked meals left on the range and a number of other private belongings left behind, akin to household photograph albums.
Russia and Iran: No navy rescue
There can be no navy rescue from Russia, whose intervention in 2015 had helped flip the tide of the civil struggle in favor of Assad, or from his different staunch ally Iran.
This had been made clear to the Syrian chief within the days main as much as his exit, when he sought support from varied quarters in a determined race to cling to energy and safe his security, in line with the individuals interviewed by Reuters.
Assad visited Moscow on Nov. 28, a day after Syrian opposition forces attacked the northern province of Aleppo and lightning drive throughout the nation, however his pleas for navy intervention fell on deaf ears within the Kremlin which was unwilling to intervene, three regional diplomats stated.
Hadi al-Bahra, the top of Syria’s primary opposition overseas, stated that Assad did not convey the fact of the scenario to aides again residence, citing a supply inside Assad’s shut circle and a regional official.
“He told his commanders and associates after his Moscow trip that military support was coming,” Bahra added. “He was lying to them. The message he received from Moscow was negative.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov advised reporters on Wednesday that Russia had spent a variety of effort in serving to stabilize Syria prior to now however its precedence now was the battle in Ukraine.
Four days after that journey, on Dec. 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met with Assad in Damascus. By that point, the fighters from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group had taken management of Syria’s second-largest metropolis Aleppo and have been sweeping southwards as regime forces crumbled.
Assad was visibly distressed throughout the assembly and conceded that his military was too weakened to mount an efficient resistance, a senior Iranian diplomat advised Reuters.
Assad by no means requested that Tehran deploy forces in Syria although, in line with two senior Iranian officers who stated he understood that Israel might use any such intervention as a cause to focus on Iranian forces in Syria and even Iran itself.
The Kremlin and Russian international ministry declined to touch upon this text, whereas the Iranian international ministry was not instantly accessible to remark.
Assad confronts personal downfall
After exhausting his choices, Assad lastly accepted the inevitability of his downfall and resolved to go away the nation, ending his household’s dynastic rule which dates again to 1971.
Three members of Assad’s interior circle stated he initially wished to hunt refuge within the United Arab Emirates, as HTS seized Aleppo and Homs and have been advancing towards Damascus.
They stated he was rebuffed by the Emiratis who feared a world backlash for harboring a determine topic to U.S. and European sanctions for allegedly utilizing chemical weapons in a crackdown on the opposition.
The UAE authorities did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
Yet Moscow, whereas unwilling to intervene militarily, was not ready to desert Assad, in line with a Russian diplomatic supply who spoke on situation of anonymity.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, attending the Doha discussion board in Qatar on Saturday and Sunday, spearheaded the diplomatic effort to safe the security of Assad and his secure exit to Russia, two regional officers stated.
One Western safety supply stated that Lavrov did “whatever he could” to safe Assad’s secure departure.
Moscow additionally coordinated with neighboring states to make sure that a Russian aircraft leaving Syrian airspace with Assad on board wouldn’t be intercepted or focused, three of the sources stated.
Qatar’s international ministry did not instantly reply to queries about Assad’s exit, whereas Reuters was unable to succeed in HTS for remark. A Turkish authorities official stated there was no Russian request to make use of Turkish airspace for Assad’s flight.
Assad’s final prime minister, Mohammed Jalali, stated he spoke to his then-president on the cellphone on Saturday evening at 10.30 p.m.
“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 advised 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 stated he tried to name Assad once more as daybreak broke on Sunday, however there was no response.
Source: www.dailysabah.com