The departure of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from the country was unplanned, according to a statement released Monday by the Syrian presidency’s Telegram account and purportedly coming from Assad.
The statement from the Syrian Presidency account on Telegram said:
“My departure from Syria was neither planned nor did it occur during the final hours of the battles, as some have claimed. On the contrary, I remained in Damascus, carrying out my duties until the early hours of Sunday December 8th 2024.”
When Assad arrived at the Latakia base, he said “it was clear that our forces had been completely withdrawn from all fighting positions and that the last positions of the army had fallen and the situation continued to deteriorate.” The former Syrian president stressed that Moscow then offered to organise an immediate evacuation to Russia. He also added:
This happened the day after the fall of Damascus, after the fall of the last military positions and the consequent paralysis of all remaining state institutions.
The former president added that during these events he “never once thought of resigning or seeking asylum.”
Assad emphasised in the statement that during the rebel offensive,”‘terrorism spread throughout Syria and eventually reached Damascus on the evening of Saturday the 7th.”
This was followed by “questions about the fate and whereabouts of the president,” which came “amid a flood of disinformation and stories that are far from the truth.”
The president’s statement should have been published even earlier, he added. But “the circumstances prevailing at the time, including a complete shutdown of communications for security reasons, led to a delay in the publication of this statement. Moscow and the date of December 16 are listed there as the place of publication of the statement.
The statement also said:
“When the state falls into the hands of terrorism and the ability to make a meaningful contribution is lost, any position becomes void of purpose, rendering its occupation meaningless.”
Bashar al-Assad’s escape from the country was organised with the help of Russian intelligence officers, Bloomberg quoted sources as saying. They took him out via a Russian airbase in Syria.
During Assad’s departure, the transponder of the aircraft was switched off so that it would not be tracked. At the same time, before leaving, Russia convinced the former Syrian president that he would lose the fight against armed rebels, the agency claimed.
Syria’s central bank under Bashar al-Assad ‘s presidency sent several planes to Moscow with millions of dollars and euros in cash, Financial Times previously reported, citing confidential documents.
Assad kept his plans to leave the country secret and before his escape allegedly assured officers that Russia would help, Reuters reported earlier, citing sources.
“Hours before his escape to Moscow, Assad assured at a meeting with about 30 army and security chiefs at the defence ministry on Saturday that Russian military support was on the way and urged ground forces to hold on,” the agency quoted the interlocutors as saying.
The authors of the materials also stress that Assad hid his plans to flee for so long that he did not even inform his younger brother Maher Assad, the commander of the elite 4th Armoured Division.
