this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024
524 points (99.4% liked)

News

23655 readers
3402 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian government appeared to have fallen early Sunday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a lightning rebel offensive.

The head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said President Bashar Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus after a remarkably swift advance across the country.

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said the government was ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition and hand over its functions to a transitional government.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 92 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Unconfirmed reports that Assad's plane has been shot down:

https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/syrian-president-bashar-al-assads-plane-shot-down-say-unconfirmed-reports

This is develping, so take it with a grain of salt.

[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 27 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Holy shit, this just gets crazier and crazier

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 2 weeks ago

Could be faking his own death so he isn't tracked down and killed.

[–] Stamau123@lemmy.world 71 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 25 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

To shreds you say?

[–] belastend@slrpnk.net 60 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Gotta say, its good Assad's gone, but HTS does not sound much better.

[–] guy@piefed.social 35 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

The statements their leader have made seems promising. Cooperation with the UN, peaceful overhanding of power etc. But they stem from Al-Qaeda so let's hope this doesn't age like milk..

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

The statements their leader have made seems promising.

He is making the right noises, but then again so did the Taliban when they took control of Afghanistan.

[–] morrowind@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 weeks ago

The taliban had no allies, resources or much established that was at stake, thus no real incentive to follow through. They were just testing the waters to see if the world actually cared that much about those things or it was just a lot of noise. Turns out they were right, no country reciprocated on their statements, and so they just went back to their old ways.

HTS does actually have incentive to follow through here I think

[–] guy@piefed.social 4 points 2 weeks ago

My point exactly

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, they're saying all the right things right now but their past associations with al Qaeda and ISIS doesn't bode well.

[–] teslasaur@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago (12 children)

Are they really saying the correct things?

I've seen plenty of interviews where where they say that "God is great" on repeat. Thats not what you want to hear from your potential governing body.

load more comments (12 replies)
[–] Stamau123@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago

Probably not, but at least for tonight we can celebrate

[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 weeks ago

The enemy of my enemy is not as bad an enemy as the other enemy.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 36 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Not sure if I would have preferred al-Assad having to live out the rest of his life in exile and constantly look over his own shoulder... Or seeing him imprisoned in Syria and/or publicly hanged for his crimes against humanity. But I guess with him having fled via plane, we'll all have to accept the former.

[–] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 34 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

...15ft/s drop at the mysterious end of his flight path in the mountains: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/yk-ata#3844aec1

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

That's a rumor that's going around. The flight path makes no sense for a VIP (for example, flying over the city center of occupied Homs), and while it was pretty clearly a crash of a military plane, that doesn't at all imply it was al-Assad's. We don't know the destination, just that he boarded a plane, but I'm guessing we'll see him turn up soon enough.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 35 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

Not that Assad isn't a massive cunt, but I do wonder what might happen next.

For reference here is a news article about a certain group taking Afghanistan in 1996, and the tone about today's news seems oddly familiar.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/27/newsid_2539000/2539973.stm

The PM may call for free elections all he wants, but a group that has spent the last decade shedding blood for this moment my not see things quite the same way.

Still, the Syrian government and Hezbollah were in cahoots, so I can think of at least one Syrian neighbour that will be celebrating this. It's one less route for weapons to end up in the West Bank.

[–] humble_pete_digger@lemm.ee 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Practical result - Israel is already hard at work annexing more Syrian territory: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-moves-capture-syrian-held-golan-heights-following-assad-overthrow ofc Netaniahu swears that it's "temporary", I guarantee you - this is a permanent.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not that Assad isn’t a massive cunt, but I do wonder what might happen next.

Given the track record of violent revolutions throughout history, nothing good. Still, seeing how low the "better than Assad" bar is it might be a slight improvement.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 32 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

My best wishes to a free Rojava and may all Syrians get to experience a life of peace and freedom

[–] Cpo@lemm.ee 4 points 2 weeks ago

I do hope so but HTS has some concerning links to IS.

[–] maplebar@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Assad was a fucker who committed crimes against humanity and deserved to die. Unfortunately I don't have high hopes for whatever group of islamist fascists ends up arresting control.

(Time to find out if this is one of those subs that removes any comment even slightly critical of islam as "islamophobia"...)

[–] Stamau123@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Yah know, you didn't have to add that last caveat, most people already agreed with you

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] bokherif@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago

2024 be like: I'm not done yet!!!

[–] TruthFinder@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

best wishes to the Syrian people + a MODERN INNOVATIVE (SOLAR POWERED?) RESTART of the country (but without the oil, that is in the north and under US (!) and Kurdish control) so they will rely on their willpower to rebuild this broken country and NOT descend into another Sharia radical Islamic state, thanks make it something that tourists want to visit :D MANY Syrians are still abroad, will they return now? we don’t know X-D (they definitely want to return from Lebanon)

[–] MilitantAtheist@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Good luck. It was jihadists that deposed Assad, I'm sure they'll just give up their newly acquired country. And I'm sure the CIA will stand idly by while that happens. Unfortunately Syria is fucked. Caliphate incoming.

[–] Burninator05@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Can someone ELI5 what happened? I knew about the civil war but it had been effectively at a stalemate for a couple of years. How did the rebels suddenly surge like they did?

[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

From what I know, this is the combination of three things

  1. Opposition rebel groups decided not to fight each other
  2. Assad had it's russian support cut out
  3. Blitz offensive lead by the opposition rebel groups, some of which had Turkish support lead to mayhem in Assad ranks
[–] carbonari_sandwich@lemm.ee 6 points 2 weeks ago

He relied primarily on Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah support.

$$$ Assad must have run out of treasure

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

That was damn fast, I didn't think they'd hit Damascus this week.

[–] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Too soon to know much for sure, but this could be fucking wild if it's really at face value.

[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Professor: Good news, everyone!

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›