Assad

Assad’s final hours in Syria: Deception, despair and flight

Bashar al-Assad confided in almost no one about his plans to flee Syria as his reign collapsed. Instead, aides, officials and even relatives were deceived or kept in the dark, more than a dozen people with knowledge of the events told reporters. Hours before he escaped for Moscow, Assad assured a meeting of about 30 army and security chiefs at the defence ministry on Saturday that Russian military support was on its way and urged ground forces to hold out, according to a commander who was prese...

December 12, 2024 8:43 PM

US sees Assad’s fall as chance to destroy Syria’s chemical arsenal ‘once and for all’

The United States sees the fall of Bashar al-Assad as an extraordinary chance to rid Syria "once and for all" of chemical weapons that killed or injured thousands of people in its civil war, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday. Washington will strongly back efforts by the global chemical weapons watchdog to eliminate Syria's chemical arsenal, Nicole Shampaine, U.S. ambassador to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, told Reuters in an interview ahead of a closed-door OPC...