People walks through the halls of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s presidential palace in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Roaming the opulent Damascus home of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Abu Omar felt a sense of giddy defiance being in the residence of the man he said had long oppressed him.

“I am taking pictures, because I am so happy to be here in the middle of his house,” said the 44-year-old, showing photographs he took on his mobile phone.

He was among the dozens an AFP correspondent saw entering Assad’s home after Assad fled the country — to Moscow according to Russian news agencies — as rebels took control of the capital in an 11-day lightning offensive.

The swift campaign by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies ended more than five decades of brutal rule by the Assad family.

“I came for revenge. They oppressed us in incredible ways,” Abu Omar added from the compound of three six-storey buildings in the upscale al-Maliki neighbourhood.

Jubilant men, women, and children wandered the home and its sprawling garden in a daze, the rooms stripped bare except for some furniture and a portrait of Assad discarded on the floor.

Residents in the Syrian capital were seen cheering in the streets, as the rebel factions heralded the departure of “tyrant” Assad.

The government fell more than 13 years after Assad’s crackdown on anti-government protests ignited Syria’s civil war, which has drawn in foreign powers, jihadists and claimed more than half a million lives.

Luxurious palace while Syria reels under power outages

On Sunday, video circulating online showed crowds peeking into the bedrooms in the Assad residence, which was previously off limits to ordinary citizens.

They could be seen snatching clothes, plates and whatever belongings they could find including a Louis Vuitton cardboard shopping bag.

In one video, a man could be heard yelling that everything was on “Sale! Sale!”.

Umm Nader, 35, came with her husband from a nearby district to tour the residence that once inspired fear and awe, and which one visitor now described as a “museum”.

“I came to see this place that we were banned from, because they wanted us to live in poverty and deprivation,” she told AFP.

Nader said the former inhabitants of the residence had left without cutting off the heating and electricity, “meanwhile our children are getting sick from the cold.”

Daily power outages that last for hours have been a fact of life in Syria, reeling from successive economic crises after more than a decade of war and Western sanctions.

Most of the population has been pushed into poverty, according to the United Nations.

An AFP correspondent also saw a charred reception hall at the Damascus presidential palace a couple kilometres away.

As he moved from room to room, Abu Omar said he felt overjoyed.

“I no longer feel afraid. My only concern is that we unite (as Syrians) and build this country together,” he said, full of emotion

The fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government Sunday (December 8, 2024) brought to a dramatic close his nearly 14-year struggle to hold onto power as his country fragmented amid a brutal civil war that became a proxy battlefield for regional and international powers.

Mr. Assad’s downfall came as a stark contrast to his first months as Syria’s unlikely president in 2000, when many hoped he would be a young reformer after three decades of his father’s iron grip. Only 34 years old, the Western-educated ophthalmologist was a rather geeky tech-savvy fan of computers with a gentle demeanour.

But when faced with protests against his rule that erupted in March 2011, Mr. Assad turned to the brutal tactics of his father in an attempt to crush them. As the uprising haemorrhaged into an outright civil war, he unleashed his military to blast opposition-held cities, with support from allies Iran and Russia.

PROFILE | Abu Muhammad al-Jolani: Syria’s jihadist-in-chief

International rights groups and prosecutors alleged widespread use of torture and extrajudicial executions in Syria’s government-run detention centres.

The Syrian war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. As the uprising spiralled into a civil war, millions of Syrians fled across the borders into Jordan, Turkiye, Iraq and Lebanon and on to Europe.

His departure brings an end to the Assad family rule, spanning just under 54 years. With no clear successor, it throws the country into further uncertainty.

Until recently, it seemed that Mr. Assad was almost out of the woods. The long-running conflict had settled along frozen conflict lines in recent years, with Mr. Assad’s government regaining control of most of Syria’s territory while the northwest remained under the control of opposition groups and the northeast under Kurdish control.

While Damascus remained under crippling Western sanctions, neighbouring countries had begun to resign themselves to Mr. Assad’s continued hold on power. The Arab League reinstated Syria’s membership last year, and Saudi Arabia in May announced the appointment of its first ambassador to Syria since severing ties with Damascus 12 years earlier.

However, the geopolitical tide turned quickly with a surprise offensive launched by opposition groups based in northwest Syria in late November. Government forces quickly collapsed, while Mr. Assad’s allies, preoccupied by other conflicts — including Russia’s war in Ukraine and the yearlong wars between Israel and the Iran-backed militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas — appeared reluctant to forcefully intervene.

Mr. Assad’s whereabouts were not clear Sunday (December 8, 2024), amid reports he had left the country as insurgents took control of the Syrian capital.

He came to power in 2000 by a twist of fate. His father had been cultivating Bashar’s oldest brother Basil as his successor, but in 1994 Basil was killed in a car crash in Damascus. Bashar was brought home from his ophthalmology practice in London, put through military training and elevated to the rank of colonel to establish his credentials so he could one day rule.

When Hafez Assad died in 2000, Parliament quickly lowered the presidential age requirement from 40 to 34. Bashar’s elevation was sealed by a nationwide referendum, in which he was the only candidate.

Hafez, a lifelong military man, ruled the country for nearly 30 years during which he set up a Soviet-style centralized economy and kept such a stifling hand over dissent that Syrians feared even to joke about politics to their friends.

Also Read | India issues travel advisory for Syria, advises citizens to restrict movements

He pursued a secular ideology that sought to bury sectarian differences under Arab nationalism and the image of heroic resistance to Israel. He formed an alliance with the Shiite clerical leadership in Iran, sealed Syrian domination over Lebanon and set up a network of Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups.

Bashar initially seemed completely unlike his strongman father.

Tall and lanky with a slight lisp, he had a quiet, gentle demeanour. His only official position before becoming President was head of the Syrian Computer Society. His wife, Asma al-Akhras, whom he married several months after taking office, was attractive, stylish and British-born.

The young couple, who eventually had three children, seemed to shun trappings of power. They lived in an apartment in the upscale Abu Rummaneh district of Damascus, as opposed to a palatial mansion like other Arab leaders.

Initially upon coming to office, Mr. Assad freed political prisoners and allowed more open discourse. In the “Damascus Spring,” salons for intellectuals emerged where Syrians could discuss art, culture and politics to a degree impossible under his father.

EXPLAINED | What’s happening in Syria?

But after 1,000 intellectuals signed a public petition calling for multiparty democracy and greater freedoms in 2001 and others tried to form a political party, the salons were snuffed out by the feared secret police who jailed dozens of activists.

Instead of a political opening, Mr. Assad turned to economic reforms. He slowly lifted economic restrictions, let in foreign banks, threw the doors open to imports and empowered the private sector. Damascus and other cities long mired in drabness saw a flourishing of shopping malls, new restaurants and consumer goods. Tourism swelled.

Abroad, he stuck to the line his father had set, based on the alliance with Iran and a policy of insisting on a full return of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, although in practice Mr. Assad never militarily confronted Israel.

In 2005, he suffered a heavy blow with the loss of Syria’s decades-old control over neighbouring Lebanon after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. With many Lebanese accusing Damascus of being behind the slaying, Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from the country and a pro-American government came into power.

At the same time, the Arab world became split into two camps — one of U.S.-allied, Sunni-led countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the other Syria and Shiite-led Iran with their ties to Hezbollah and Palestinian militants.

Throughout, Mr. Assad relied for largely on the same power base at home as his father: his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam comprising around 10% of the population. Many of the positions in his government went to younger generations of the same families that had worked for his father. Drawn in as well were the new middle class created by his reforms, including prominent Sunni merchant families.

Also Read | Key players in Syria’s long-running civil war, reignited by a shock rebel offensive

Mr. Assad also turned to his own family. His younger brother Maher headed the elite Presidential Guard and would lead the crackdown against the uprising. Their sister Bushra was a strong voice in his inner circle, along with her husband Deputy Defence Minister Assef Shawkat, until he was killed in a 2012 bombing. Bashar’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf, became the country’s biggest businessman, heading a financial empire before the two had a falling out that led to Makhlouf being pushed aside.

Mr. Assad also increasingly entrusted key roles to his wife, Asma, before she announced in May that she was undergoing treatment for leukaemia and stepped out of the limelight.

When protests erupted in Tunisia and Egypt, eventually toppling their rulers, Mr. Assad dismissed the possibility of the same occurring in his country, insisting his regime was more in tune with its people. After the Arab Spring wave did move to Syria, his security forces staged a brutal crackdown while Mr. Assad consistently denied he was facing a popular revolt, instead blaming “foreign-backed terrorists” trying to destabilize his regime.

His rhetoric struck a chord with many in Syria’s minority groups — including Christians, Druze and Shiites — as well as some Sunnis who feared the prospect of rule by Sunni extremists even more than they disliked Mr. Assad’s authoritarian rule.

Ironically, on February 26, 2001, two days after the fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to protesters and just before the wave of Arab Spring protests swept into Syria — in an email released by Wikileaks as part of a cache in 2012 — Mr. Assad e-mailed a joke he’d run across mocking the Egyptian leader’s stubborn refusal to step down.

“NEW WORD ADDED TO DICTIONARY: Mubarak (verb): To stick something, or to glue something. … Mubarak (adjective): slow to learn or understand,” it read.

A military vehicle belonging to the Syrian regime forces and seized by anti government forces burns after it was hit by regime forces, in the Hama governorate, on December 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Islamist-led rebels entered Syria’s third city Homs late Saturday (December 7, 2024) taking control of some districts, a war monitor said, drawing a swift denial from the defence ministry.

FOLLOW MORE:Syria civil war LIVE updates: Syrian rebels captures Homs central prison; Syrian government forces withdraw

The loss of Homs would be another major blow to the forces of President Bahar al-Assad, as it lies at a strategic crossroads between Damascus and his stronghold on the Mediterranean coast.

“Rebel factions entered the city of Homs and took control of some neighbourhoods after the withdrawal of security forces and the army from their last positions in the city,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Hundreds of detainees had escaped from the city’s central prison, he added.

The defence ministry countered that the city remained under its control, its troops maintaining their positions around the city.

“The reports published by media platforms affiliated to terrorist organisations about the entry of terrorists into the city of Homs are baseless,” it said in a statement.

“The situation is secure and stable, and our armed forces are deployed around the city positioned on solid defence lines.”

AFP has been unable to independently verify some of the information provided by the government and the rebels, as its journalists cannot reach some of the areas where the rebels say they are present.