Bashar al-Assad’s residence in Damascus was ransacked Sunday after rebels seized management of the Syrian capital, forcing the deposed president to flee the nation.
Photos from the Associated Press present Assad’s residence in shambles, with empty cupboards and books, work and different private belongings scattered throughout the flooring. In one picture, a person is seen trying to take a lamp whereas others canvas the room. In one other, a gaggle of individuals pose with smiles and peace indicators the place Assad as soon as lived.
The reactions from Syrians since Assad’s downfall mirror the deep animosity that he engendered throughout the nation. For greater than 50 years, the Assad household dominated with an iron grip and continuously deployed Syria’s feared safety forces to crush dissent.
Assad, who took energy in 2000 following the demise of his father, was recognized for his violent crackdowns on opposition over greater than a decade of civil warfare in Syria. The U.S. and the United Nations have each blamed Assad for a chemical weapons assault that killed tons of — and maybe greater than 1,000 individuals — in 2013. An worldwide arrest warrant was issued in opposition to Assad final 12 months after France’s prime court docket accused him of complicity in warfare crimes through the civil warfare.
Within hours of rebels getting into the Syrian capital, Assad landed in Russia, the place in accordance the nation’s state-run information company Tass, he was granted asylum.
The swift insurgent marketing campaign began lower than two weeks in the past, when fighters launched a sequence of lightning offensives — first capturing the northern metropolis of Aleppo after which advancing south towards the regime facilities of energy, as uprisings broke out in massive swaths of the nation.