Syria’s deposed president Bashar al-Assad has denied that his exit from the country was pre-arranged, saying that he stayed until he was trapped on a military base that was under attack.
In his first statement since a rebel offensive began taking territory almost three weeks ago, Assad said he stayed in Damascus until the early hours of Sunday, December 8th, when he moved to the Russian base at Hmeimim on the Mediterranean coast.
The former leader said that as drone attacks were launched against the base and as leaving by land became impossible, Moscow put in a request to the base’s command for an immediate evacuation to Russia.
“My departure was neither planned nor did it occur during the final hours of the battle,” Assad said. “At no point during these events did I consider stepping down or seeking refuge, nor was such a proposal made by any individual or party.”
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The statement was published by the former Syrian presidency’s official Telegram channel and Facebook page, which it said was the “only viable option” after attempts to publish through Arab and international media outlets were unsuccessful. It was also carried by the Russian state newswire Tass.
Assad was overthrown on December 8th by rebel forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an offshoot of a former al-Qaeda affiliate that swept through Syria in a lightning offensive to end the Assad family’s half-century of rule, which was characterised by brutal repression and corruption.
As the rebels advanced towards the capital on December 7th, Syrians around the world tuned in to state television after widespread rumours that Assad would make a speech.
Instead, an army commander gave a short statement, warning Syrians not to believe what he claimed was a media campaign to sow strife.
Reuters reported last week that Assad confided in almost no one about his plans to flee Syria. Instead, aides, officials and even relatives were deceived or kept in the dark, more than a dozen people with knowledge of the events told Reuters.
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Meanwhile, Israel has hit Syria’s coastal Tartus region with “the heaviest strikes” in the area in more than a decade, a war monitor group has said.
“Israeli warplanes launched strikes targeting a series of sites including air defence units and ‘surface-to-surface missile depots’,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in what it said were “the heaviest strikes in Syria’s coastal region since the start of strikes in 2012”.
The observatory said that “violent explosions” were heard in the coastal city of Tartous “as a result of the successive strikes and the flying of ground-to-ground missiles from the warehouses”.
The EU is sending a senior diplomat to Damascus to make contact with Syria’s new Islamist-led leaders, in a further sign of western engagement after the fall of Assad.
The EU’s high representative for foreign policy, Kaja Kallas, said she had tasked a top diplomat to go to Damascus on Monday " to make the contacts with the new government and people there”.
She was speaking ahead of a meeting of the EU’s 27 foreign ministers, who she said would discuss how to engage with Syria’s new leadership. – Copyright the Financial Times 2024. Additional reporting: Reuters.