Assad’s Ultimate Hours in Energy: Deception, Melancholy, and Flight

DAMASCUS – Bashar al-Assad instructed nearly nobody about his plans to escape Syria as his energy collapsed. However Assad’s ultimate hours in energy are in particular attention-grabbing on account of the intrigue surrounding them.

Assad’s Ultimate Hours in Energy: Deception, Melancholy, and Flight

1. Deceiving the Generals and Their Supporters

As an alternative, his aides, officers or even family had been deceived or stored at nighttime, and greater than a dozen other folks with wisdom of the incident instructed Reuters.

Hours prior to he fled to Moscow, Assad confident a gathering of about 30 military and safety chiefs on the Protection Ministry on Saturday that Russian army enhance used to be at the approach and recommended flooring troops to carry out, in line with a commander who used to be provide and asked anonymity to talk about the briefing.

The civil personnel used to be additionally blind to it.

In step with The New Arab, Assad instructed his presidential place of job supervisor that on Saturday, when he completed paintings, he would pass house however as a substitute headed to the airport, in line with an aide in his internal circle.

He also referred to as his media adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, and requested him to return house to jot down his speech, the aide stated. The aide arrived to search out nobody there.

2. No longer Doing the Ultimate Fit

“Assad did not even submit a final stand. He did not even deploy his personal troops,” stated Nadim Houri, government director of the regional assume tank Arab Reform Initiative. “He left his supporters to their very own destiny.”

Reuters used to be not able to touch Assad in Moscow, the place he has been granted political asylum. Interviews with 14 other folks accustomed to his ultimate days and hours in energy paint an image of a pacesetter who sought out of doors assist to increase his 24-year rule prior to in the long run depending on deception and stealth to devise his go out from Syria within the early hours of Sunday .

Many of the resources, together with aides within the former president’s internal circle, regional diplomats and safety resources, in addition to senior Iranian officers, asked anonymity so they might speak about delicate problems freely.

Assad didn’t even inform his more youthful brother, Maher, commander of the Military’s 4th Armored Department, about his go out plans, in line with 3 aides. Maher flew helicopters to Iraq after which to Russia, some of the other folks stated.

3. Permitting his circle of relatives to be massacred through rebels

Assad’s maternal cousins, Ehab and Eyad Makhlouf, had been additionally left in the back of when Damascus fell to rebels, in line with a Syrian aide and a Lebanese safety reputable.

The couple attempted to escape through automobile to Lebanon however had been ambushed halfway through rebels who shot Ehab lifeless and wounded Eyad, they stated. There used to be no reputable affirmation of the dying, and Reuters may just now not independently test the incident.

4. Make a selection to escape to Russia

Assad himself fled Damascus through airplane on Sunday December 8, flying underneath the radar with the airplane’s transponder grew to become off, two regional diplomats stated, escaping the clutches of rebels who stormed the capital. The dramatic resignation ended 24 years of rule and part a century of unbroken rule of his circle of relatives and taken an abrupt finish to a 13-year civil conflict.