The London International Post

The President of Syria Bashar al-Assad has fled the capital city of Syria Damascus, as his brutal dictatorship fell at the advancement of many rebel groups that took advantage of Assad's weakened military and importantly from his main supporters and backers Russia and Iran reduction in their global and regional power.

Tyrant Assad came to prominence when his older brother Bassel al-Assad died in a car accident, and he left his overseas home in London with his British wife Asma al-Assad and children working as an NHS eye surgeon to take over the reins of presidential power that his late-father Hafez al-Assad had founded and led after a military coup in 1971.

Bashar al-Assad seemed the softer and more introverted between his male siblings and there was hope that he could lead a better and more democratic Syria, which even courted world leaders including President Obama and even having a state visit in the United Kingdom hosted by the late Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace in London.

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But the Arab Spring started in Tunisia and spread across North Africa and ended in Syria where the people demanded freedom and the end of brutal oppressive and suppressive regimes and a new dawn in these countries finally beckoned, with Western leaders both delighted and surprised, but supportive of people hopefully getting their freedoms.

Unfortunately, the Arab Spring didn't create freedoms in any of the Muslim and Arab countries it affected, and this hopelessness was very quickly realised by the people of Syria when Bashar al-Assad sent in his soldiers and later on all sorts of highly dangerous criminals and thugs to quell the protests sweeping major Syrian cities.

Scores of peaceful protesting children, women and men were gunned down by Assad's military and hired killers who were only chanting for the same freedoms they could see across the world predominantly in Western nations.

It then sparked internationally condemnation from the President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and others across the free and democratic world of the sheer brutality of the clampdown on peaceful protesting and showed to the world what lengths the introverted Syrian president Assad was going to take to restore his authority and quell any notion of transiting Syria into a democracy.

With American led sanctions followed and by this time Bashar al-Assad lost his right to govern and lead his country after his authorised murderous rampage against his own people, became a sitting duck, as members from the Syrian Army refused and broke away to form the Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) to protect the remaining Syrian citizens in the centre and both Northeast and Southeast Syria.

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The Syrian Civil War was now spreading and even threatened the capital Damascus, when Assad sought international help from Putin and Ayatollah Khamenei to come to his rescue and provide not only troops but from the Russians much needed aerial support, which over time managed to push the SDF back eastwards through airstrikes including all of the other groups which had sprung up most notably the Kurds along the Syrian/Turkish border.

Four years of fighting led to the revival of Assad's brutal regime, and it managed to survive for ten more years, until two major mistakes by his supporters and backers - the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and more recently Iran's direct military assault on Israel in 2024.

With Putin pulling his troops and fighter planes out of Syria and Iran using most of its arsenal of rockets and missiles on Israel led to Assad being left exposed and with this vulnerabilities allowed the rebellious groups and the SDF to seize the golden opportunity to inflict damage on his brutal regime, which ended up much to their surprise taking over large swathes of Syrian territory including within a week at the gates of Damascus.

The images of rebels at the treasured Assad family palace and going around its sprawling complex exposing the wealth including his private collection of sports and luxury cars, while his people were mostly left in poverty and fearful in questioning however slight of his rule of being detained in his most notorious torture prisons across Syria.

Once the rebels were in Damascus the senior command of Syria announced and confirmed Assad had indeed stepped down as president of Syria and fled saving his own life, while his family had already left Syria some months before as his British born wife Asma al-Assad sorted out cancer treatment in a Moscow hospital.

Days went by and speculation that Assad's plane had crashed shortly after taking over his whereabouts was a mystery, until Putin allowed the Russian authorities to verify that Assad was now living in exile in Moscow, under Russian protection.

While the leader Ahmed al-Sharaa of the strongest and most victorious Hay 'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group of rebels leading the fight to Assad and his regime announced in a media interview that he wanted a peaceful transition from Assad regime to a democratic form of governance for Syria and her people, and just as important protecting the rights of all Syrians including the Alawites, Shias and Christians.

There is a scramble for a lot of countries and their leaders to contact the many rebel groups within Syria to help make a smooth transition to peace, freedom and democracy for all including minorities who are extremely fearful of more extreme and radical elements of these groups, including any remnants of Islamic State who still operate in the small enclave of Idlib.

There is still a small American military contingent along the southeastern Syrian border with Iraq, which has been successful in defeating Islamic State from gaining any more territory in Syria and supporting the SDF.

Even Israel under the direction and authority from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has moved beyond the Golan Heights and taken military positions that were abandoned by Assad's soldiers as they knew and threw in the towel at the collapse of Assad's regime, to protect The State of Israel; and the Israeli Air Force has been active targeting and eliminating chemical weapons manufacturing facilities and the storage of weapons of mass destruction making sure they do not fall into the hands of more extreme elements of the anti-Assad rebels.

While there is jubilation at the ousting of Assad from his brutal tyrannical regime there is much concern over what will eventually take its place.