Watch as Syria’s PM is frogmarched from his home by armed rebels to hand over power & fighters storm presidential palace
Watch the final moments of Assad's regime below
INCREDIBLE footage shows Syria’s prime minister being frogmarched from his home by armed rebels.
Video also emerged of fighters storming Assad’s presidential palace after the tyrant fled Damascus.
The butcher’s regime was toppled overnight after a lightning 10-day blitz by Syria’s opposition forces.
On Sunday, Syria’s Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali was seen being marched out of his home flanked by fighters with AK-47s.
Reports said al-Jalali was taken to the rebels’ HQ in Damascus to begin the transition of power to the victorious militants.
In an earlier video statement, the PM said: “The matter is up to any leadership chosen by the people and we are ready to cooperate and all the properties of the people and the institutions of the Syrian state must be preserved.
“I hope all Syrians think rationally about the interests of their country.”
Al-Jalali also said he wants Syria to hold free elections – but it is not yet clear what the rebels want.
Syrians also stormed the presidential palace, walked through the marble halls, and rummaged through draws and cupboards.
Assad’s home was turned upside down by curious locals – with one woman wearing pink slippers.
One man sat at a big wooden desk that was covered in military maps while others climbed over a marble fountain.
Fighters took selfies in the grand marble halls as a poster of the deposed dictator lay torn on the ground.
Rebels read their own statement on Syrian TV, declaring victory: “Long live Syria, free and proud for all Syrians of all sects.
“The city of Damascus has been liberated, the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown, and all unjustly detained prisoners have been released from the regime’s prisons.”
The tyrant fled the capital in a plane early Sunday as the butcher’s regime was overthrown by the militants in just 10 days.
Thousands have taken to the streets of Damascus in celebration, firing guns into the air, lighting flares, and waving the rebel flag.
It marks the end of 50 years of rule by the Assad family – with rebels shouting “freedom” while celebrating.
Syria’s army command has notified officers Assad’s rule is over – while rebels said Damascus is now “free of Assad”, Reuters reported.
Its the second of Assad’s palaces to have been stormed by rebels with militants seizing one after taking Aleppo last week.
The fighters, wearing balaclavas and holding AK-47s, walk through fancy bedrooms and an en-suite picking up items on the dresser and checking inside cupboards.
They do not trash the home and respectfully place items back where they found them.
Meanwhile, Assad’s whereabouts are not certain.
Walla reports he has flown to the Russian-operated Khmeimim Air Base in a part of Syria still loyal to the regime.
US officials believe he was intending to travel to Moscow, but there is no indication yet whether he has left the country.
There has been no official statement from Assad’s government.
A timeline of the Syrian civil war
The sudden collapse of Assad’s rule over Syria could mark the end of a nearly 14-year civil war in the country.
2011 – The first protests against Assad quickly spread across the country, and are met by security forces with a wave of arrests and shootings.
Some protesters take up guns and military units defect as the uprising becomes an armed revolt that will gain support from Western and Arab countries and Turkey.
2012 – A bombing in Damascus is the first by al Qaeda’s new Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, which gains in power and starts crushing groups with a nationalist ideology.
World powers meet in Geneva and agree on the need for a political transition, but their divisions on how to achieve it will foil years of U.N.-sponsored peace efforts.
Assad turns his air force on opposition strongholds, as rebels gain ground and the war escalates with massacres on both sides.
2013 – Lebanon’s Hezbollah helps Assad to victory at Qusayr, halting rebel momentum and showing the Iran-backed group’s growing role in the conflict.
Washington has declared chemical weapons use a red line, but a gas attack on rebel-held eastern Ghouta near Damascus kills scores of civilians without triggering a U.S. military response.
2014 – Islamic State group suddenly seizes Raqqa in the northeast and swathes more territory in Syria and Iraq.
Rebels in the Old City of Homs surrender, agreeing to move to an outer suburb – their first big defeat in a major urban area and a precursor to future “evacuation” deals.
Washington builds an anti-Islamic State coalition and starts air strikes, helping Kurdish forces turn the jihadist tide but creating friction with its ally Turkey.
2015 – With better cooperation and more arms from abroad, rebel groups gain more ground and seize northwestern Idlib, but Islamist militants are taking a bigger role.
Russia joins the war on Assad’s side with air strikes that turn the conflict against the rebels for years to come.
2016 – Alarmed by Kurdish advances on the border, Turkey launches an incursion with allied rebels, making a new zone of Turkish control.
The Syrian army and its allies defeat rebels in Aleppo, seen at the time as Assad’s biggest victory of the war.
The Nusra Front splits from al Qaeda and starts trying to present itself in a moderate light, adopting a series of new names and eventually settling on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
2017 – Israel acknowledges air strikes against Hezbollah in Syria, aiming to degrade the growing strength of Iran and its allies.
U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led forces defeat Islamic State in Raqqa. That offensive, and a rival one by the Syrian army, drive the jihadist group from nearly all its land.
2018 – The Syrian army recaptures eastern Ghouta, before quickly retaking the other insurgent enclaves in central Syria, and then the rebels’ southern bastion of Deraa.
2019 – Islamic State loses its last scrap of territory in Syria. The U.S. decides to keep some troops in the country to prevent attacks on its Kurdish allies.
2020 – Russia backs a government offensive that ends with a ceasefire with Turkey that freezes most front lines. Assad holds most territory and all main cities, appearing deeply entrenched. Rebels hold the northwest.
A Turkey-backed force holds a border strip. Kurdish-led forces control the northeast.
2023 – The Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 triggers fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, ultimately reducing the group’s presence in Syria and fatally undermining Assad.
2024 – Rebels launch a new assault on Aleppo. With Assad’s allies focused elsewhere his army quickly collapses. Eight days after the fall of Aleppo the rebels have taken most major cities and enter Damascus, driving Assad from power.
