Assad's government falls as rebels sweep into Damascus
A lightning offensive ended more than 50 years of Assad family rule in Syria as the president fled the country.
The government of President Bashar al-Assad collapsed on Sunday as rebel forces swept into Damascus, bringing a stunning and sudden end to more than five decades of rule by the Assad family and to a civil war that had devastated Syria for nearly 14 years.
The fall came with astonishing speed. A rebel coalition led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham had launched an offensive from the northwest just days earlier, capturing the major city of Aleppo and then Hama and Homs in rapid succession as government forces melted away with little resistance. By the weekend the path to the capital was open.
Assad fled the country, reportedly to Russia, his most important backer. Crowds poured into the streets of Damascus and other cities in celebration, toppling statues of the Assad family and storming the notorious prisons where tens of thousands had been detained and tortured, freeing those still held inside.
The war, which began in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring uprisings and drew in regional and global powers, had killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions. Its abrupt end raised urgent questions about what would come next, and whether Syria's fractured armed groups and communities could build a stable new order.
World leaders responded with a mixture of relief at the fall of a brutal ruler and caution about the uncertain and potentially volatile transition ahead in a country at the heart of the Middle East.