Ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has said he was evacuated to Russia from the Hmeimim base in Syria on the evening of 8 December as it came under drone attacks, after leaving Damascus that morning with opposition fighters closing in.
The comment, in a statement that was published on the Syrian presidency’s Telegram channel and dated 16 December from Moscow, was Mr Assad’s first in public since he was toppled more than a week ago by a rebel offensive.
Mr Assad denied that he left Syria in the final hours of battles.
He said he remained in Damascus carrying out his duties until the early hours of 8 December before moving to Lattakia in coordination with Russia as rebel forces entered Damascus.
He added that Russia requested the evacuation of the Hmeimim air base on the evening of 8 December as it came under intensified attack from drone strikes.
Mr Assad said that at no point did he consider stepping down or seeking refuge, adding that the only course of action was to continue fighting against what he called “the terrorist onslaught”.
Nations step up outreach to Syria’s post-Assad rulers
The statement from Mr Assad comes as governments around the world are stepping up efforts to engage with Syria’s new interim rulers.
The lightning offensive that captured Damascus led to celebrations across the country and beyond.
However, the surprise fall caught many governments by surprise, and has left them scrambling for a new policy.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that led the offensive, is rooted in Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, and is still designated a terrorist group by several Western governments.
Diplomats, including UN envoy Geir Pedersen who was in Syria, have urged an inclusive new administration focused on nation-building and justice.
Mr Pedersen met with HTS chief Mohammed al-Jolani and called for “justice and accountability for crimes”.
“We need to make sure that that goes through a credible justice system, and that we don’t see any revenge,” he said.
A Qatari delegation also landed in Syria to meet transitional government officials and pledge “full commitment to supporting the Syrian people”.
Qatar’s embassy is set to resume operations, 13 years after it closed in the early stages of an anti-government uprising that sparked years of civil war.
Unlike other Arab countries, Qatar never restored ties with Assad’s Syria.
Aid and diplomacy
Both Britain and the United States also confirmed they were in touch with HTS despite officially considering the organisation a terrorist group.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile said his country was coordinating on providing aid including wheat, flour and oil to Syria.
Rebels entered Damascus after an 11-day offensive that came over a decade into the civil war sparked by Mr Assad’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests which erupted in 2011.
The war has killed upwards of 500,000 people and displaced more than half the country’s population.
‘Massive destruction’
A cautious sense of calm is returning to many cities, with children in Syria streaming back to school for the first time since Mr Assad fled.
Syria’s interim governor acknowledged that major obstacles lay ahead.
UN envoy Mr Pedersen called for “increased, immediate” aid during his Syria visit.
HTS has sought to moderate its rhetoric in recent years, but its seizure of power has sparked some concern over the protection of religious and ethnic minorities.
Syrian Christians attending their first Sunday church service since Mr Assad’s fall said they were largely reassured so far.
“Thank God, our situation is good,” said Ibtissam al-Khouli at a Damascus church.
“Everyone feels comfortable, there’s no fear,” she told journalists..
The interim government insists they will protect the rights of all Syrians, and the rule of law.
Russian evacuation
Mr Assad was propped up by key allies including Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, Iran, and Russia, whose foreign ministry said it had evacuated some diplomatic staff from Syria.
They left “by a special flight of the Russian Air Force from the Hmeimim airbase,” the ministry said.
The rebel advance began on 27 November, as a ceasefire took effect in the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, which battered the militant group.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted his country has “no interest in confronting Syria”, despite carrying out hundreds of strikes over the past week.
Those strikes continued this morning, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reporting raids on military sites in the country’s coastal Tartus region.
Read more about the conflict in Middle East
The UK-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, said the raids were “the heaviest strikes” in the area in more than a decade.
Israel has also ordered troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, a move denounced by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and which the UN said violated a 1974 armistice.
And Israel’s government on yesterday approved a plan to double the population in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights.
