Former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has issued his first statement since fleeing the country after the collapse of his regime.
Assad said he had no plans to leave Syria after the fall of Damascus a week ago, but the Russian military evacuated him after its base came under attack.
In a statement posted to his Facebook page, Assad said he left Damascus on the morning of 8 December, hours after insurgents stormed the capital.
He said he moved in coordination with Russian allies to the Hmeimim airbase in the coastal province of Latakia, western Syria, where he planned to “oversee combat operations” and “continue fighting against the terrorist onslaught”.
“As the field situation in the area continued to deteriorate, the Russian military base itself came under intensified attack by drone strikes,” his statement reads.
“With no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow requested that the base’s command arrange an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday 8 December.
“This took place a day after the fall of Damascus, following the collapse of the final military positions and the resulting paralysis of all remaining state institutions.
“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. The only course of action was to continue fighting against the terrorist onslaught.”
Several armed groups, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), launched a lightning offensive against Assad’s forces in late November, culminating in their capture of the capital Damascus without resistance on 8 December.
In the immediate aftermath, Assad was reported to have fled the country for Moscow. This was officially confirmed by Russia’s deputy foreign minister on 10 December.
In his statement, Assad claimed that he “never sought positions for personal gain” during his presidency and had always considered himself “a custodian of a national project, supported by the faith of the Syrian people”.
He added: “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.”
Moscow has deployed troops to Syria since 2015, supporting the Assad regime in its campaign against anti-government forces following an uprising in 2011 after the Arab Spring.
In recent days, Russia began evacuating troops from Syria in coordination with HTS, with planes leaving from the same airbase where Assad was evacuated from.
The UK has confirmed it has made “diplomatic contact” with HTS, which remains a proscribed terrorist organisation.
On Sunday, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the Government had spoken to the organisation “as you would expect”, as it forms a transitional administration.
HTS was originally set up under a different name, Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2011, pledging allegiance to the jihadist terror group al-Qaeda the following year.
It separated from al-Qaeda in 2016, renaming itself HTS as it merged with other factions – but the UN, US and UK, among other countries, have continued to designate it as a terrorist group.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed that Washington officials have also been in direct contact with HTS.
Sir Keir Starmer on Friday told a virtual meeting of the G7 leaders that “the fall of Assad’s brutal regime should be welcomed but we must be cautious about what comes next”.
Last year, the Syrian Network for Human Rights – an independent human rights group – estimated that the civil war had resulted in 230,000 civilian deaths between March 2011 and June 2024.
The group estimated that government forces and allied Iranian militias were responsible for around 87 per cent of those deaths.
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