A palace in shock: Bashar al-Assad’s final moments in Syria
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Personal souvenirs of Syria's Mr Bashar al-Assad in one of the rooms at the Presidential Palace. Former officials said they were taken aback by his escape to Russia.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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DAMASCUS - Hours before rebel forces seized Damascus and toppled his government on Dec 8
The night before, Mr Assad had even asked his close adviser Bouthaina Shaaban to prepare a speech – which the ousted leader never gave – before flying from Damascus airport to Russia’s Hmeimim Air Base in Syria, and from there out of the country
Mr Assad left even “without telling... his close confidants in advance”, a former aide told AFP, requesting anonymity for security reasons.
“From the Russian base, a plane took him to Moscow.”
His brother Maher, who commanded the Syrian army’s feared Fourth Brigade, “heard about it by chance while he was with his soldiers defending Damascus. He decided to take a helicopter and leave, apparently to Baghdad”, added the former aide.
Other top officials in Mr Assad’s government and sources told AFP what happened in the final hours of the iron-fisted leader’s 24-year rule.
All spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
When Islamist-led rebel forces launched their offensive
Two days later, when their son Hafez was defending his doctoral thesis at a Moscow university, the whole family were there, but not Mr Assad, according to a presidential palace official.
On Nov 30, when he returned from Moscow, Syria’s second city of Aleppo was no longer under his government’s control. The following week, the rebels took Hama and Homs in quick succession, before eventually reaching the capital.
Another palace official said he did not see Mr Assad the day before Damascus fell on Dec 8.
“On Dec 7, Assad didn’t meet with us. We knew he was there but did not have a meeting with him,” said the top official.
“We were at the palace, there was no explanation, and it caused great confusion at the senior levels and on the ground,” he said. “Actually, we had not seen him since the fall of Aleppo, which was very strange.”
During that fateful week, Mr Assad called a meeting of the heads of Syria’s intelligence services to reassure them. But the long-time leader did not show up, and “Aleppo’s fall shocked us”, said the same top palace official.
Hama was next to fall into rebel hands.
“On Dec 5, I spoke at 11.30am with troops in Hama who assured me the city was under lockdown and not even a mouse could make it in,” an army colonel told AFP.
“Two hours later, they received the order not to fight and to redeploy in Homs to the south,” added the officer of the next strategic city sought by the rebels on their way to Damascus.
“The soldiers were helpless, changing clothes, throwing away their weapons and trying to head home. Who gave the order? We don’t know.”
The governor of Homs told a journalist that he had asked the army to resist. But no government forces defended the city.
On the morning of Dec 7, someone in the halls of power in Damascus brought up the idea of Mr Assad making a speech.
“We started to set up the equipment. Everything was ready,” said the first palace official. “Later on we were surprised to learn that the speech had been postponed, maybe to the next morning.”
According to him, top officials and aides were unaware that while this was happening, the Syrian army had already begun destroying its archives by setting them on fire.
Still on Dec 7, at around 9pm Syrian time, “the President calls his political adviser Bouthaina Shaaban to ask her to prepare a speech for him and to present it to the political committee, which is meant to meet on Dec 8”, said a senior official close to Mr Assad.
“At 10pm, she calls him back, but he no longer picks up the phone.”
That evening, Mr Assad’s media director Kamel Sakr told journalists: “The President is going to deliver a statement very soon.”
But then Mr Sakr, too, stopped answering his phone, as did Interior Minister Mohammed al-Rahmoun.
The palace official said he stayed in his office until 2.30am on Sunday. Within less than four hours, the rebels announced that Mr Assad was gone.
“We were ready to receive a statement or a message from Mr Assad at any moment,” said the top palace official. “We could have never imagined such a scenario. We didn’t even know whether the President was still at the palace.”
At around midnight, the palace official had been told that Mr Assad needed a cameraman for Dec 8.
“That reassured us that he was in fact still there,” he said.
But just before 2am, an intelligence officer called to say all government officials and forces had left their offices and positions.
“I was shocked. It was just the two of us in the office. The palace was almost empty, and we were totally confused,” said the official.
At 2.30am, he left the palace.
In the city centre, “arriving at Umayyad Square, there were plenty of soldiers fleeing, looking for transportation”, he said.
“There were thousands of them, coming from the security compound, the Defence Ministry and other security branches. We found out that their superiors had ordered them to flee.”
The official said it was a “frightening” scene.
“Tens of thousands of cars leaving Damascus, and even more people marching on the road on foot. It was that moment I realised everything was lost and that Damascus had fallen.” AFP
