Former Syrian President Bashar Assad fled the country just hours before rebel forces seized the capital, with the details of his exit showing a chaotic retreat.
Reuters spoke with 14 people close to Assad or who were familiar with his exit. The report showed Assad’s desperation in the final days of his rule, desperately fighting for the survival of his regime, and then his own survival.
Here are six details revealed by the exiled dictator’s chaotic exit from the country.
Assad fled just hours before rebels took Damascus
The writing was on the wall for Assad’s regime by Dec. 7 — Russia had signaled it wouldn’t intervene, Iranian forces were evacuating, and Damascus was being closed in from two fronts.
Despite projecting confidence, Assad had reportedly been despairing at the inability of his army to resist throughout the week. His departure appears to have been a last-minute decision after being in constant contact with international actors in an attempt to save his government.
Videos taken by rebel forces raiding his private residences showed cooked food still on the stove, private family photo albums, and most of his possessions still in place. The bodies of his deceased father, mother, and older brother were left behind at their mausoleum in Latakia, which was exhumed and desecrated by rebels on Wednesday.
Assad fled Damascus in the early hours of Dec. 8, when rebels were in the outskirts of the city and just a few hours before they arrived in central Umayyad Square. His private aircraft flew under the radar with the transponder switched off. He first flew to the Russian Hmeimim air base in Latakia, then on to Russia. His wife and children had been sent to Moscow a week earlier.
Assad was widely believed to have been killed on the night of his departure after a monitored aircraft exhibited signs that it had been shot down. His survival was only revealed several hours later, when Russia confirmed that he had arrived at the capital safely.
Assad kept his plans to flee a secret from everyone, including his commanders and close family
It’s unknown when exactly Assad decided the situation was hopeless, or when he made his decision to flee, but he kept the plan a secret from nearly everyone in his inner circle.
He held a meeting with about 30 army and security chiefs on the night of Dec. 7 at the country’s defense ministry, according to an anonymous commander present at the meeting. With just hours until the arrival of rebel forces, Assad assured his commanders that Russian military assistance was on the way, urging ground forces to hold out.
Just hours later, he fled the country without telling anyone. He told his presidential office manager that he was headed home after finishing work on Saturday, but instead went to the airport. He called his media adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, asking her to come to his home to write a speech. She arrived to find the home abandoned.
Assad even misled his prime minister, Mohammed Jalali, who stayed behind in Damascus to hand over the government to the rebels. He said that he spoke with Assad on the phone for the last time at 10:30 p.m. on Dec. 7, informing him of the dire situation.
“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 told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV.
“He replied: ‘Tomorrow, we will see,’” Jalali said. “‘Tomorrow, tomorrow’ was the last thing he told me.”
His call at dawn on Dec. 8 went unanswered.
The plans were so secret that he didn’t even notify his younger brother, Maher al Assad, one of the most important figures in the former government and commander of the country’s best fighting unit, the 4th Armored Division. Maher al Assad only realized what was happening after his brother had departed, boarding a helicopter at the last minute to fly to Iraq. He then took a flight to Russia.
A Syrian aide and Lebanese security official told Reuters that the former president’s secrecy even cost the lives of some of his family members. Two maternal cousins, Ehab and Eyad Makhlouf, allegedly tried to flee the capital by car to Lebanon but were ambushed by rebels who killed Ehab and wounded Eyad. Reuters noted that it was unable to independently verify the incident.
Assad misled commanders about foreign intervention
Assad traveled to Moscow the day after the beginning of the Hayat Tahrir al Sham, or HTS, offensive into Aleppo, when the weakness of the Syrian Arab Army was beginning to be known. Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly informed Assad at the meeting that Russia could not assist in a major capacity, as its priorities were in Ukraine. Despite this, Assad apparently didn’t inform his commanders, saying until hours before the fall of the capital that Russian assistance was on its way.
Russia’s unwillingness to intervene to save Assad became clearer days before Damscus’s fall, with sources close to the Kremlin reporting that Putin was disgusted by the melting away of the SAA.
“Russia doesn’t have a plan to save Assad and doesn’t see one emerging as long as the Syrian president’s army continues to abandon its positions,” a source close to the Kremlin told Bloomberg.
Assad refused to call for Iranian intervention over fears of Israel
The other possible deus ex machina was Iran, Assad’s other stalwart ally. To the surprise of many, it never came to Assad’s decisive aid, withdrawing its troops in the days before Assad’s fall. While many analysts assumed it was too distracted by Israel, Iranian officials and media suggested that it was actually because Assad never asked for intervention, something confirmed by Reuters.
According to the outlet, Assad was worried that an Iranian intervention would in turn draw the intervention of Syria’s neighbor, Israel. Two senior Iranian officials said that Assad believed Israel would begin targeting Iranian forces on a large scale if an intervention came or even target Iran itself.
The Hezbollah and Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Front Iraqi militias were deployed to Syria but ultimately saw little or no action.
Israel would intervene following Assad’s collapse, destroying the Syrian navy, air force, and other military hardware while establishing a buffer zone within Syria.
Russia played the key role in allowing Assad to flee
Though Russia decided against decisive intervention to save Assad, it played the decisive role in allowing the personal survival of him and his family.
A Russian diplomatic source told Reuters that the Kremlin went to great lengths to ensure Assad’s safety and ability to flee to Russia without incident. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov personally engaged with Turkey and Qatar to rein in HTS not to shoot down his plane.
Turkey exerts some control over HTS, contrary to its public insistence to the contrary
Turkey’s apparent ability to reign in HTS to allow Assad’s safe exit indicates it has some control over the group, despite its public insistence to the contrary. According to three sources speaking with Reuters, Turkey facilitated Assad’s safe exit by reining in HTS.
HTS, an outgrowth of al Qaeda, is designated a terrorist organization by the United States. Turkey has close ties to the government it helped set up in Idlib, but insisted that it’s unconnected to HTS. The advanced equipment of HTS, including armored vehicles and advanced drones, led many to speculate that Turkey may have more involvement with the group than previously thought.
Turkish security sources told Middle East Eye in the first days of HTS’s offensive into Aleppo that Ankara had greenlighted the attack. The following week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to endorse its march on Damascus.
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“Idlib, Hama, Homs, and of course, the ultimate target is Damascus. The opposition’s march continues,” he said. “Our hope is that this march in Syria proceeds without any accidents or troubles.”
A Turkish official told Reuters that Russia hadn’t requested to use Turkish airspace for Assad’s flight, but didn’t address allegations of connections between Ankara and HTS.
