The last days of Bashar al-Assad

On the eve of his capital’s fall, Bashar al-Assad climbed into a Russian armored car with his eldest son Hafez and drove away, leaving relatives, friends and loyalists frantically searching for the man who had promised to protect them.

Not long after, around 11 p.m. on December 7, longtime associates found abandoned checkpoints and mostly empty buildings near his home in the upscale Malki neighborhood of Damascus; the lights were still flickering, coffee cups half drunk and military uniforms strewn across the street.

At midnight, the then president of Syria was already leaving with Hafez for the Hmeimim air base in Russia. Syriaon the northwest coast, according to a rebel military commander, former intelligence officers and people familiar with the Assad family’s escape.

While he was outside Damascus, he did Asad: Tell his army to fold, ordering the burning of offices and documents, according to a member of the rebel military council and a person familiar with the matter.Russia, one of Assad’s main foreign backers during the 13-year civil war, had promised safe passage to Hmeimim. An HTS commander denied the group had negotiated Assad’s departure.

Despite helping the Assads escape the capital, Moscow still made the father and son wait until 4 a.m. on December 8 when they were granted humanitarian asylum.They soon left for Russia, abruptly ending the family’s five-decade rule.

The Financial Times has compiled the final days and hours of Assad’s rule from more than a dozen interviews, including with people familiar with the regime and the family’s movements.The sources asked to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive matters in Moscow Efforts to reach members were unsuccessful.

Few saw the rebels onslaught, especially the president who believed he had won the civil war that began with his brutal crackdown on protesters in 2011. Following the Arab world’s lead, Assad felt he was finally on the way had begun to make suggestions.

But in the end, it took the rebels, led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, just 10 days to capture the capital after launching their blitzkrieg.

In Moscow, Assad was reunited with his wife, Asma, who, people familiar with the escape said, has been there for several weeks recovering from a second bout of cancer.Also in the Russian capital were his mother and father, Fawaz al-Akhras, who was sanctioned earlier this month. The Assads’ children, including daughter Zain, who studied at the Sorbonne in Abu Dhabi, have now joined them, according to the family. close people.

Assad left without a whisper to those who had pledged loyalty to him for decades, leaving many former believers stunned and stunned by the abandonment. He didn’t even bother to warn relatives, including cousins, nieces, nephews, and his to the wife’s family, who were left to fend for themselves as the rebels marched into Damascus.

Disillusioned loyalists saw it as the ultimate proof of Assad’s rampant narcissism, a trait that drove him to unleash brutality on his own people and plunder Syria’s resources for his own enrichment.

“He fled like a dog in the night,” said someone familiar with Assad’s exit from Damascus. “An hour before he fled, he was telling people around him that everything would be fine.”

Last week, then Prime Minister Mohammed Jalali said in an interview with Saudi Arabia TV that on December 7, at 10:30 p.m., he spoke to his then president on the phone, telling about the panic and terror in the streets, as well as the massive displacement from the central region of Syria. to the shore He replied: “See you tomorrow,” Jalali said. “Tomorrow, tomorrow” was the last thing he said to me.

The FT was unable to verify all passengers on Assad’s escape flight. But regime insiders believe he left with at least two financial figures who hold the keys to assets scattered abroad, Yashar Ibrahim and Mansour Azam.While unconfirmed, it underscores the belief, even among loyalists, that Assad prefers his wealth. was from his extended family.

In his first public comments since the HTS offensive began, Assad gave his version of events this week, saying he stayed in Damascus until early Sunday morning “carrying out my duties.” He insisted his departure was not deliberate.

Video taken by rebels and civilians who stormed Assad’s mansion after his flight suggests an emergency exit: family photo albums, stocked pantries and dozens of Hermès bags and boxes in the first lady’s closets.

That sudden departure came after days of failed diplomatic overtures with his longtime benefactors Moscow and Tehran. While Russia and Iran had backed the Assad regime for nearly a decade, they were now unwilling and unable to come to his aid, diverted by Ukraine and Iran, respectively. from their conflicts with Israel.

When the rebels launched their long-planned offensive in northern Aleppo province, Assad visited Moscow to ask for military intervention. visited Damascus.

Aragchi left Damascus for Ankara, where Turkish officials expected to receive a message from Assad. They got nothing in return. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been a major supporter of the Syrian rebels since 2011, has repeatedly tried to restore relations with Assad, most recently in July. The former president of Syria opposed those attempts every time.

Assad is becoming increasingly desperate. Three or four days before leaving Damascus, he signaled to Moscow that he was willing to meet the exiled political opposition in Geneva for talks, a move he had long refused to do, but the message did not appear to have been conveyed by the Russians, people familiar with the matter said.

Since the rebels overthrew the Assad regime, loyalists and profiteers have left Damascus; the vast majority of them cross the border with Lebanon to Beirut, where many have stayed in second homes or luxury hotels under tight security outside.

In the plush and sunny breakfast room of the Phenicia Hotel in Beirut, Syrians ate hard-boiled eggs and kiwifruit in Louis Vuitton bags and talked quietly about their country and their next steps. At one table, three women exchanged stories of their night’s escape and discussed whether their children enroll in Dubai schools.One spoke of someone he knew who had disappeared since the fall of Assad.

Among those fleeing to Beirut were several of Assad’s henchmen and top aides, people close to the regime who were important cogs in the machinery that kept the ruling family in power, including longtime Assad adviser Buteina Shaaban, witnesses said.

But soon they dispersed from Lebanon. those with foreign passports flew to European countries, others to the United Arab Emirates. Senior military officials left for Russia or Libya, according to people familiar with the matter.Shaaban was later spotted in Dubai, a longtime haven for exiles and supporters of the ousted regime.

In contrast, his younger brother Maher, the commander of the army’s notorious Fourth Division and a key hub of the regime’s centralized corruption schemes, warned his people to flee to Lebanon on Saturday afternoon, but he had to fight his way out by crossing the Iraqi border can confirm whether he stayed in Iraq or went to Russia.

Among those left behind by Assad were his cousin and intelligence major Iyad Makhlouf, Makhlouf’s twin brother Ihab, and their mother.

Iyad was treated at Chtoura Hospital in Lebanon, according to two district hospital officials, and then traveled to Dubai, according to a person familiar with the family’s situation.

His brother Rami Makhlouf was the regime’s most important businessman, at one point believed to control half of Syria’s economy. But while Rami fell out of favor with the regime in 2020 and was effectively under house arrest, Syrians with knowledge of the regime say Iyad and Ihab was close to Bashar and his wife Asma. Rami’s whereabouts are still unknown.

Also missing is Ali Mamluk, Assad’s feared senior adviser and former chief of intelligence. Several prominent Syrian loyalists are hiding in the Russian embassy in Damascus, but the FT has been unable to confirm their identities. The new government has urged the Russians not to facilitate the exit of Syrian citizens from the country.

Four hours before leaving Damascus, Assad’s 23-year-old son Hafez was seen hanging out in a park near the presidential palace, having recently returned from Russia, where he defended his doctoral thesis in physical and mathematical sciences, according to Moscow State University records.

He later went home for dinner with his father, according to the witness.There were rumors that Assad was about to make a public speech, keeping Syrians across the country and the world glued to their television screens. It was unclear whether Hafez knew he would be leaving Syria for good just hours later.

Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yakli in Ankara and Daria Mosolova in London