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The night before, Assad had even asked his close adviser Buthaina Shaaban to prepare aspeech – which the ousted leader never gave – before flying from Damascus Airport to Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria, and from there out of the country.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fled the country before rebel forces seized Damascus and toppled his government. Photo / Getty Images
Assad left even “without telling ... his close confidants in advance”, a former aide told AFP, requesting anonymity for security reasons.
“From the Russian base, a plane took him to Moscow.”
“His brother Maher”, who commanded the Syrian Army’s feared Fourth Brigade, “heard about it by chance while he was with his soldiers defending Damascus. He decided to take a helicopter and leave, apparently to Baghdad”, added the former aide.
Inside the Presidential Palace in Damascus. Parts of the palace were ransacked in recent days as rebel forces in Syria seized the capital from longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, who fled the country to Russia. Photo by / Getty Images
Other top officials in Assad’s Government and sources told AFP what happened in the final hours of the iron-fisted leader’s 24-year rule.
All spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
Leaderless
When Islamist-led rebel forces launched their offensive in Syria’s north on November 27, Assad was in Moscow, where his wife Asma has been treated for cancer.
Two days later, when their son Hafez was defending his doctoral thesis at a Moscow university, the whole family were there, but not Bashar, according to a presidential palace official.
On November 30, when Assad returned from Moscow, Syria’s second city of Aleppo was no longer under his Government’s control.
People roam inside the Presidential Palace in Damascus after rebel forces in Syria seized the capital from longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, who fled the country to Russia. Photo / Getty Images
The following week, the rebels took Hama and Homs in quick succession, before eventually reaching the capital.
Another palace official said he did not see Assad the day before Damascus fell last Sunday.
“On Saturday Assad didn’t meet with us. We knew he was there, but did not have a meeting with him,” said the top official.
“We were at the palace, there was no explanation, and it caused great confusion at the senior levels and on the ground,” he said.
“Actually, we had not seen him since the fall of Aleppo, which was very strange.”
Syrian refugees cross the border area of Masnaa with Syria watched by Lebanese soldiers securing the site following the fall of the Syrian regime. Photo / Getty Images
During that fateful week, Assad called a meeting of the heads of Syria’s intelligence services to reassure them.
But the longtime leader did not show up, and “Aleppo’s fall shocked us”, said the same top palace official.
“On Thursday, I spoke at 11.30am with troops in Hama who assured me the city was under lockdown and not even a mouse could make it in,” an Army colonel told AFP.
“Two hours later they received the order not to fight, and to redeploy in Homs to the south,” added the officer of the next strategic city sought by the rebels on their way to Damascus.
“The soldiers were helpless, changing clothes, throwing away their weapons and trying to head home. Who gave the order? We don’t know.”
The Governor of Homs told a journalist that he had asked the Army to resist. But no government forces defended the city.
Delay
On Saturday morning, someone in the halls of power in Damascus brought up the idea of Assad making a speech.
“We started to set up the equipment. Everything was ready,” said the first palace official.
“Later on we were surprised to learn that the speech had been postponed, maybe to Sunday morning.”
Hama residents demonstrate in support of the armed groups against the regime. Posters of the regime are removed from the streets. Tanks abandoned by the regime are also seen on the roads leading to Hama. Photo / Getty Images
According to him, top officials and aides were unaware that while this was happening, the Syrian Army had already begun destroying its archives by setting them on fire.
Still on Saturday, at around 9pm (local time), “the President calls his political adviser Buthaina Shaaban to ask her to prepare a speech for him, and to present it to the political committee which is meant to meet on Sunday morning”, said a senior official close to Assad.
“At 10pm she calls him back, but he no longer picks up the phone.”
That evening, Assad’s media director Kamel Sakr told journalists: “The President is going to deliver a statement very soon”.
But then Sakr, too, stopped answering his phone, as did Interior Minister Mohammed al-Rahmoun.
“I was shocked. It was just the two of us in the office. The palace was almost empty, and we were totally confused,” said the official.
At 2.30am he left the palace.
In the city centre, “arriving at Umayyad Square, there were plenty of soldiers fleeing, looking for transportation”, he said.
“There were thousands of them, coming from the security compound, the Defence Ministry and other security branches. We found out that their superiors had ordered them to flee.”
The official said it was a “frightening” scene.
“Tens of thousands of cars leaving Damascus, and even more people marching on the road on foot. It was that moment I realised everything was lost and that Damascus had fallen.”
