Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, July 24, 2024 (Valeriy Sharifulin/Reuters)
Syria: US Easing Aid Restrictions, But Sanctions Remain
The Assad regime’s former head of communications, Kamal Saqr, has given details of Bashar al-Assad’s final days in power, including his doomed appeal to Russia to save his rule.
In a 90-minute interview, Kamal Saqr described Assad’s trip to Russia in late November, as rebels were advancing throughout northwest Syria.
Attending his son’s Ph.D. defense at a Moscow university, Assad sought a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin but had to wait two days as the appointment was changed three times. He was told that the Kremlin would not issue any official statement.
Upon his return to Damascus, Assad faced the “very shocking” fall of Aleppo city to the rebels. He met with his political council — the Foreign Minister and his deputy, the Vice President, and senior aide Buthaina Shaaban.
Asked about the Moscow trip, Assad assured the advisors that Putin had called the Russian army chief of staff and asked him to do everything to facilitate Iran’s air bridge into Syria.
But the Iranians then told Assad that they did not receive signals or assurances from Moscow that it was safe to fly via Iraq to Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in western Syria. Assad checked with the Kremlin, but got no response.
Iranian officials said a plane had moved from Tehran to Syria through Iraq, but the US warned that it would be shot down if it continued flights.
At Assad’s request, Iran reached out to Turkey — the main support of Syria’s rebels — but only half-heartedly. On December 6, Turkey told Iran that the time for mediation was over.
Meanwhile, Putin was refusing to take Assad’s calls. So Assad prepared a speech to be delivered on State TV on the night of December. The 400 words had a warning about dividing Syria, an attack on Turkey over its “dishonesty”, an appeal for support from Arab countries, and the urging of Syrians to fight for the regime.
But the plan was delayed until Friday and then Saturday. Finally, Assad told Saqr that he would not give the speech.
With the fall of Homs and most of the regime’s army abandoning its weapons, Assad told the media office on Saturday evening that there would be a military meeting at Russia’s Hmeimim airbase.
In fact, he was preparing to flee to Moscow without telling ministers or senior staff. At 2:15 a.m. on Sunday morning, Assad’s special secretary told Saqr that he was leaving, as Assad had alrady departed.
“My information suggests that he stayed at the base for several hours until the plane was secured, prepared, and its takeoff and flight to Moscow were ensured.”
[Editor’s Note: The claim that Turkey “paid off army generals” is favored by some pro-Assad activists. Others, such as Vanessa Beeley, reject it.
As for The Cradle, it is an outlet which supported the Assad regime throughout the Syrian uprising. Its “report” should be handled in that context.]
Nothing is mentioned about how Turkey paid off army generals who told Syrian army soldiers to lay down their weapons. And where are those generals now?
The incoming ‘Islamic State’ of Syria: https://thecradle.co/articles/the-incoming-islamic-state-of-syria
“After decades of secular authoritarianism, Syria now teeters on the edge of an even graver threat: a fundamentalist state led by the Islamist victors of the ‘revolution,’ threatening to replace one dictatorship with another and plunge the country into a new era of oppression and religious intolerance….Julani’s claims about protecting Syria’s minorities and establishing democracy appear to be an effort to deflect criticism from the international community while quietly erecting a fundamentalist religious dictatorship.”