On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria collapsed during a major offensive by opposition forces. The offensive was spearheaded by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian National Army (SNA), and the Southern Operations Room (SOR), as part of the Syrian civil war that began with the Syrian revolution in 2011. The capture of Syria's capital, Damascus, marked the end of the Assad family's rule, which had governed Syria as a totalitarian hereditary dictatorship since Hafez al-Assad assumed power in 1970 after a successful coup d'état.
As the SOR advanced towards Damascus, reports emerged that Bashar al-Assad had fled the capital aboard a plane to Russia, where he joined his family, already in exile, and was granted asylum. Following his departure, opposition forces declared victory on state television. Concurrently, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Assad's resignation and departure from Syria.
The swift fall of the Assad regime was met with shock and surprise throughout the world, and among the Syrian people as well. Syrian opposition fighters were reportedly surprised at how quickly the Assad government had collapsed in the wake of their offensive. Analysts viewed the event as a significant blow to Iran's Axis of Resistance due to their use of Assad's Syria as a waypoint to supply arms and supplies to Hezbollah, a key ally. Several Western academics and geopolitical commentators likened the regime's collapse to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, comparing the broader geopolitical shifts that occurred after both events.
Background
The Assad family had ruled Syria since 1971, when Hafez al-Assad seized power and became the president of Syria under the Syrian Ba'ath Party. After his death in June 2000, he was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad.
Hafez al-Assad built his governmental system as a bureaucracy that was marked by a distinct cult of personality. Images, portraits, quotes and praises of Assad were displayed everywhere from schools to public markets and government offices. He was referred to as the "Immortal Leader" and the "Sanctified One" (al-Muqaddas). Assad reorganized Syrian society along militaristic lines, persistently invoked conspiratorial rhetoric on the dangers of foreign-backed plots abetted by fifth columnists, and promoted the armed forces as a central aspect of public life.
After Hafez al-Assad's seizure of power in 1970, state propaganda promoted a new national discourse based on unifying Syrians under "a single imagined Ba'athist identity," as well as Assadism. Fervently loyalist paramilitaries known as the Shabiha (transl. 'ghosts') deified Assad and pursued psychological warfare against non-conformist populations.
Bashar al-Assad
After Hafez al-Assad's death, his son and successor Bashar al-Assad inherited the existing personality cult, with the party hailing him as the "Young Leader" and "Hope of the People." Drawing influence from North Korea's hereditary leadership model, official propaganda in Syria ascribed divine features to the Assad family and revered the Assad patriarchs as the founding fathers of modern Syria.
In 2011, the United States, European Union, and most Arab League countries called for Assad to resign following the crackdown on Arab Spring protesters during the events of the Syrian Revolution, which led to the Syrian civil war.
As of 2022 the civil war had killed around 580,000 people, of whom at least 306,000 were non-combatants. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, pro-Assad forces caused more than 90% of the civilian deaths. The Assad government perpetrated numerous war crimes during the course of the Syrian civil war, and Assad's military, the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, also carried out several attacks with chemical weapons. The deadliest chemical attack was a sarin gas strike in Ghouta on 21 August 2013, which killed between 281 and 1,729 people.
In December 2013, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay stated that findings from an inquiry by the UN implicated Assad in war crimes. Investigations by the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism and OPCW-UN IIT concluded, respectively, that the Assad government was responsible for the 2017 Khan Shaykhun sarin attack and 2018 Douma chemical attack. On 15 November 2023, France issued an arrest warrant against Bashar al-Assad over the use of banned chemical weapons against civilians in Syria. Assad categorically denied the allegations, and accused foreign countries, especially the United States, of attempting regime change.
Opposition takeover
Military advances
Planning by Syrian opposition forces for a military offensive against Aleppo began in late 2023 but was delayed by Turkish objections. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sought negotiations with the Assad government, to "determine Syria's future together," but received a negative response, following which he allowed the HTS-led opposition troops to begin their offensive against the Assad government.
On 6 December, in a face-to-face interview with CNN, Abu Mohammad al-Julani declared that the offensive's goal was to remove Assad from power. Using his birth name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, he explicitly pledged to protect minority groups and outlined plans for establishing a government grounded in institutions and a "council chosen by the people". He also expressed his intention to facilitate the return of Syrian refugees to their homes.
On 7 December 2024, opposition forces secured complete control of Homs following approximately twenty-four hours of concentrated military engagement. The rapid collapse of government defenses resulted in the hasty withdrawal of security forces, who destroyed sensitive documentation during their retreat. The capture granted insurgent forces control over critical transportation infrastructure, particularly the highway junction connecting Damascus to the Alawite coastal region, where both Assad's support base and Russian military installations were situated.
Assad-allied Hezbollah forces withdrew from nearby al-Qusayr, evacuating approximately 150 armored vehicles and hundreds of fighters. The reduction in support from key allies, including Russia's diminished involvement due to its focus on its invasion of Ukraine, and Hezbollah's concurrent engagement in conflict with Israel, were believed to contribute to the government's weakened position.
The takeover of Homs by opposition forces prompted widespread public celebrations, with residents participating in street demonstrations. Celebrants chanted anti-Assad slogans including: "Assad is gone, Homs is free" and "Long live Syria, down with Bashar al-Assad", removed government symbols which included portraits of Assad, while opposition fighters conducted victory celebrations including celebratory gunfire.
On 7 December, Syrian rebels announced that they started surrounding Damascus after capturing nearby towns, with rebel commander Hassan Abdul Ghani stating that "our forces have begun implementing the final phase of encircling the capital Damascus." The rebels started encircling the capital after capturing Al-Sanamayn, a town 20 kilometres (12 mi) from the southern entrance of Damascus. By the evening, pro-government forces had left the towns on the outskirts of Damascus, including Jaramana, Qatana, Muadamiyat al-Sham, Darayya, Al-Kiswah, Al-Dumayr, Daraa and sites near the Mezzeh Air Base.
The Syrian Army attempted to maintain public order through state media broadcasts, urging citizens to disregard what they termed "false news" aimed at destabilizing national security. Military leadership assured the population of their continued commitment to defending the country, though their ability to do so appeared increasingly limited. Opposition reconnaissance units penetrated the capital's defences, establishing positions in strategic locations throughout the city. Special operations teams conducted unsuccessful searches for Assad within Damascus.
In April 2025, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israeli F-16 fighter jets intercepted Iranian aircraft suspected to be carrying airborne divisions to assist the Assad regime at some point during the opposition offensive, forcing them to turn back.
Loss of political control
In the main square of Jaramana, protestors took down a statue of Hafez al-Assad. In the evening, pro-government forces reportedly withdrew from several suburbs where large-scale protests had broken out.
Senior Assad government officials in Damascus reportedly engaged in negotiations with opposition forces regarding potential defections. These developments coincided with Iranian officials' denial of reports suggesting Assad had fled the country, though sources indicated his whereabouts in Damascus remained unknown. Following the entrance of opposition forces, Assad's presidential guard was no longer deployed at his usual residence. By the early evening of 7 December 2024 rebel forces attempting to find Assad had found no useful intelligence on his whereabouts.
On 8 December, Ha'yat Tahrir al-Sham announced on its official X account that it had released its prisoners from Sednaya Prison in Damascus's periphery, one of Syria's largest detention facilities. The organization deemed the release as a symbolic and strategic victory for its forces in the face of prior human rights abuses, and representative of the downfall of the Assad government's injustices. After its capture of Sednaya Prison, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham published a list of escaped prison staff, who became among the most wanted fugitives in Syria after the Assad family.
The opposition's entry into Damascus met minimal resistance, due to an apparent lack of military dispatches to areas of the city and the rapid dissolution of government defensive positions, allowing the capture of several districts. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) confirmed that opposition forces successfully seized several critical facilities in Damascus, including the state-media General Organization of Radio and TV building and Damascus International Airport. Their advance also secured control of major transportation arteries and strategic neighbourhoods, particularly the influential Mezzeh district, where the Presidential Palace of Syria is located.
Departure of the Assad family
First Lady Asma al-Assad had moved to Russia with the couple's three children about a week before opposition forces had begun their advance toward Damascus. Concurrent reports indicated that members of Assad's extended family, including relatives from his sister's lineage, took refuge in the United Arab Emirates. In the days before the opposition's advance, Egyptian and Jordanian officials were reported to have urged Bashar al-Assad to leave the country and form a government-in-exile, although the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the Jordanian embassy denied doing so.
In the early hours of 8 December, Assad departed from Latakia International Airport to Moscow, Russia in a private aircraft, after which government troops stationed at the facility were dismissed from their posts. According to Rami Abdel Rahman (SOHR), Bashar al-Assad had "left Syria via Damascus international airport". Following efforts by Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov to facilitate his departure, Assad, who left under great secrecy, was reported to have gone first to the Russian-operated Khmeimim Air Base near Latakia before proceeding to Moscow. Mikhail Ulyanov (Russia's ambassador to international organizations in Vienna) announced on Telegram that Assad and his family had been granted asylum in Russia. The Russian government said that Assad resigned the presidency following a personal decision. On 16 December, the Telegram account of the Syrian presidency published a statement attributed to Assad saying that he had gone to a Russian military base in Latakia Governorate "to oversee combat operations" following the fall of Damascus but was evacuated out of the country by Russia after coming under siege from rebel forces, adding that he had no intention of resigning or going into exile.
The brother of Bashar al-Assad Maher al- Assad, fled alongside him to Russia via a military aircraft, traveling from Damascus to Latakia, and subsequently from Latakia to Moscow. While two of their cousins, Ihab and Iyad Makhlouf, tried to flee to Lebanon by car but were reportedly ambushed by rebels who killed Ihab and injured Iyad. On 27 December, Rasha Khazem, the wife of Bashar's cousin Duraid Assad — who is in turn the son of Bashar's uncle Rifaat al-Assad, was arrested along with her daughter Shams in Lebanon while they were attempting to fly out to Egypt. Rifaat was reported to have left via Lebanon the previous day. The Syrian embassy in Beirut was subsequently closed after reports emerged that Rasha and Shams' passports were forged at the office.
Following the departures of members of the Assad family, videos showing groups of people entering and exploring inside Bashar al-Assad's empty residence in al-Maliki were circulated online.