BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian government appeared to have fallen early Sunday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a lightning rebel offensive.

The head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said President Bashar Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus after a remarkably swift advance across the country.

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said the government was ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition and hand over its functions to a transitional government.

  • TheTechnician27
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    364 days ago

    Not sure if I would have preferred al-Assad having to live out the rest of his life in exile and constantly look over his own shoulder… Or seeing him imprisoned in Syria and/or publicly hanged for his crimes against humanity. But I guess with him having fled via plane, we’ll all have to accept the former.

      • TheTechnician27
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        4 days ago

        That’s a rumor that’s going around. The flight path makes no sense for a VIP (for example, flying over the city center of occupied Homs), and while it was pretty clearly a crash of a military plane, that doesn’t at all imply it was al-Assad’s. We don’t know the destination, just that he boarded a plane, but I’m guessing we’ll see him turn up soon enough.

        • @[email protected]
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          24 days ago

          Might’ve been trying to make it to the Russian Airbase near Latakia and may not have had clearance to fly over Lebanon. Might’ve been trying for Iraq originally, but got denied.

          But yeah, whether or not that plane was carrying Assad is just speculation.

        • @RubberElectrons
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          04 days ago

          Yeah, we’ll have to see. Sucks for whoever was actually on this plane though.

          • @Coreidan
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            14 days ago

            That’s what you get for hanging out with a scum bag

            • @RubberElectrons
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              -14 days ago

              Word. “You are the friends you keep”, and so forth.