CNN: Search Intensified For Suddenly Missing Assad

• 8.12.2024, 12:49

Rebels interrogate Syrian military and intelligence officers.

Syrian rebels have declared Damascus liberated. Bashar al-Assad's regime has fallen, and the president is being actively sought after after suddenly fleeing the capital.

According to CNN, citing informed sources, an active search is underway for Assad. Rebels are interrogating Syrian military and intelligence officers who may have known about his movements.

The Syrian leader has not been seen or heard from in public since rebels entered the capital early Sunday morning.

Journalist Barak Ravid said Assad left Damascus around midnight last night and flew to a Russian base in Syria with the intention of continuing on to Moscow from there. It is unclear whether he left Syria.

A US official told the journalist that the Americans tracked Assad leaving Damascus last night. He was expected to fly to Moscow.

The fighters entered the presidential palace grounds. The newspaper notes that the rebels fired into the air, celebrating the liberation of Damascus. In a televised statement, the rebels declared the Syrian capital Damascus liberated.

“Damascus has been liberated, the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has been toppled, and the oppressed prisoners in the regime’s prisons have been freed,” the spokesman said, reading the statement, surrounded by about a dozen other rebels.

“Long live a free Syria for all Syrians,” he added.

Syrian rebels have previously claimed to have taken control of the notorious Saydnaya military prison north of Damascus, according to a statement on Sunday. It is unknown how many other prisons there are in the capital.

Amnesty International called the Saydnaya prison a “human slaughterhouse” in a 2017 report after widely documenting mass hangings there.