Ousted Syrian leader Bashar al Assad issues first statement since fall of regime
A lightning rebel advance this month ended more than 50 years of Assad family rule, sparking jubilant scenes on the streets of Syria.
Monday 16 December 2024 23:40, UK
Former Syrian leader Bashar al Assad has issued his first statement since the fall of his regime.
In a social media post, he claimed he had planned to keep fighting rebel forces before Russia evacuated him.
The comments, the first in public since his regime was toppled more than a week ago, were made on the Syrian presidency's Telegram channel.
The statement said he left Damascus for Russia on 8 December - "a day after the fall" of the city, adding: "At no point during these events did I consider stepping down or seeking refuge.
"The only course of action was to continue fighting against the terrorist onslaught."
Assad left the Syrian capital following a lightning offensive by anti-regime forces across the country - bringing his 24-year rule to an abrupt end.
He claimed he had remained in Damascus "carrying out my duties" until rebel forces got into the city and only then, in co-ordination with Russian forces, was he moved to Moscow's base in the coastal province of Latakia.
Assad claimed he had planned to keep fighting.
But as it emerged his own forces had collapsed completely in the face of the rebel advance, the airbase where he was staying came under attack from drones, he said.
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"With no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow requested that the base's command arrange an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday 8th December," he added.
His whereabouts, as well as those of his wife Asma and their three children, were initially unknown, until Russia said Assad had left Syria after negotiations with the rebel groups.
If this is Assad's bid to save his reputation, it is too little too late
The former president's statement reads like a desperate attempt at exoneration.
He wants his people, regime loyalists, to believe he didn't flee like a coward but was with them until the very last, hemmed in at Russia's Hmeimim airbase and with no other option but to take the next available flight to Moscow.
"At no point during these events did I consider stepping down or seeking refuge", he writes. Not, then, until he did exactly that.
It's been eight days since he left Syria, three weeks since he has delivered any kind of message to the people who stuck with him throughout this long and terrible civil war.
As my colleague Stuart Ramsay reports, Syria's Alawites, the minority sect which the Assad family belong to, are terrified of payback in the new Syria.
How could they not feel abandoned? Why did he not reach out sooner? And what good does sending this message do now?
If he wants this to pave his way to a comeback, it is hard to see that happening.
And as the state reveals its secrets in underground prison cells, in the files of the Mukhabarat, in the captagon factories, it is hard to see Assad the way he describes himself, as a "custodian of the national project, supported by the faith of the Syrian people who believed in its vision".
If this was a bid to restore his people's faith in him, it is too little far too late.
Assad also claimed he had "never sought positions for personal gain" and instead considered himself "a custodian of a national project, supported by the faith of the Syrian people".
However, he seemingly makes no reference to potentially returning.
The leader of the Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) group which forced Assad from power, ending more than 50 years of his family's rule, has vowed to bring Assad and his cronies to justice.
Assad, his brother Maher and two army generals are also wanted in France, where last year authorities issued an international arrest warrant for alleged complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity, including a 2013 chemical attack on a rebel-held Damascus suburb.
Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the UK had sent a delegation of senior officials to Syria for meetings with the new interim authorities, as well as members of civil society groups.
He said the delegation "underlines our commitment to Syria", and added the UK would support an "inclusive transitional political process that is Syrian-led and Syrian-owned".
Ann Snow, the UK's special representative for Syria, met with HTS leader Ahmad al Sharaa in Damascus later on Monday.
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The UN estimated in 2022 that over 300,000 civilians had been killed by the end of March 2021 in the Syrian civil war, which started in 2011.
In 2021, researchers estimated a further 250,000 fighters had also been killed in the first 10 years of the conflict.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) estimated government forces and allied Iranian militias were responsible for around 87% of those deaths.
The victims include almost 30,000 children.
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Assad's government also institutionalised torture, according to human rights groups.
Assad's Sednaya prison complex was dubbed the "human slaughterhouse" where jailers carried out mass hangings and executions, Amnesty International said in a 2017 report.