Syrian President Bashar Assad is fleeing the country as his government collapses and insurgents enter Damascus

The Syrian government seems to have fallen behind opposition fighters they entered Damascus following a dramatic development, and the war monitor of the opposition groups in Syria reported that President Bashar Assad has left the country.

Syrian opposition forces said on Sunday local time they had entered Damascus and residents of the capital reported the sound of gunfire and explosions.

Rami Abdurrahman – who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the opposition – told the Associated Press that Assad took a flight from Damascus on Sunday. Two Syrian military officials also told Reuters that Assad had flown out of Damascus on Sunday to an unknown destination. The White House told CBS News it did not know where Assad was.

“President Biden and his team are closely monitoring the unusual events in Syria and are in constant contact with regional partners,” said White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett on social media.

Syria’s military has informed officials that Assad’s rule is over, Reuters reported.

Syria’s Prime Minister, Mohammed Ghazi Jalali, said on Sunday that the government was ready to “reach out” to the opposition and hand over its duties to the interim government.

“I am in my house and I have not left, and this is because I am from this country,” said Jalili in a video statement. He said he will go to his office to continue work in the morning and asked Syrians not to pollute public property.

He did not respond to reports that Assad had fled.

The pro-government radio station Sham FM reported that Damascus airport was evacuated and all flights were grounded.

The militants also announced that they had entered the notorious Saydnaya military prison north of the capital and “liberated our prisoners” there.

Damascus is expected to fall, three US officials told CBS News earlier, after Syrian rebels surrounded the capital in an offensive that began on November 27. Syrian rebels also claimed early Sunday that they captured the key city of Homs.

Iranian forces protecting Assad have “largely withdrawn” from Syria, US officials said early Saturday.

Syrian rebels They arrived in Damascus on Saturday as part of a fast-moving offensive that has seen them take other major cities in Syria, opposition activists and a rebel commander said on Saturday. It was the first time that opposition forces have reached Damascus since 2018, when the Syrian army recaptured areas on the outskirts of the capital following a years-long siege.

The development this past week was one of the biggest in recent years by the opposition, led by a group with its roots in al-Qaida and considered a terrorist organization by the US and the United Nations. In their efforts to topple Assad’s government, the rebels have faced little resistance from the Syrian army.

The militias are led by Syria’s most powerful group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, and an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Both are oriented to the northwest.

Abdurrahman had previously reported that rebels were operating in the Damascus suburbs of Maadamiyah, Jaramana and Daraya. He added that opposition fighters on Saturday were also marching from eastern Syria towards the Damascus area of ​​Harasta.

The rebel commander, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, posted on the Telegram messaging app that opposition forces had begun the “final phase” of their offensive around Damascus. He added that rebels from southern Syria are heading towards Damascus.

Ghani said on Sunday morning that the army had “fully liberated” Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, Reuters reported, as government forces reportedly abandoned the city. If they had indeed captured Homs, they would have severed communications between Damascus, Assad’s capital, and the northern coastal region where the president enjoys widespread support.

His main international backer, Russia, is preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah, which once sent thousands of fighters to bolster its forces, has been weakened by a yearlong conflict with Israel. Iran, on the other hand, has seen its proxies throughout the region destroyed by regular Israeli airstrikes. The Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday after armed people attacked the UN compound in the Hader area, its forces are currently helping the UN forces to end the attack.

On Saturday, President-elect Donald Trump commented on Truth Social’s situation, saying, “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD NOT HAVE YOUR LAW. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY. DON’T JOIN!”

Three US officials told CBS News that the rule of the al-Assad family that began in 1971 appears to be coming to an end.

“The United States will not…enter the middle of the Syrian civil war,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told an audience at the Reagan National Defense Forum, an annual gathering of national security officials, defense companies. and lawmakers at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. “What we’re going to do is focus on America’s national security priorities and interests.”

He said the US would continue to act as necessary to keep the Islamic State – a violent anti-Western group not known to be involved in the attack but whose people sleep in the Syrian desert – from exploiting the loopholes the war has revealed.

How did the conflict begin?

Thousands of people fled the area amid the dramatic escalation of the civil war, which raged without much progress on either side for years until the rebels are running wild about two weeks ago.

The capture of Homs was a major victory for the rebels, who had already captured the northern cities of Aleppo and Hama, as well as large parts of the south, in a powerful offensive. Analysts said rebel control of Homs would be a game-changer. Aleppo is the second largest city in Syria.

HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani told CNN in an exclusive interview Thursday from Syria that the goal of the attack is to topple the Assad government.

The Syrian army withdrew from southern Syria on Saturday, leaving other areas of the country, including two provincial capitals, under the control of opposition representatives, the army and an opposition war monitor said. The redeployment away from the southern provinces of Daraa and Sweida came as the Syrian army sent a large number of reinforcements to secure Homs.

The Syrian army said in a statement early Saturday that it had re-deployed and repositioned areas in Sweida and Daraa after attacks by “terrorists.” The army said it was imposing “a strong and consistent belt of defense and security in the area,” apparently to protect Damascus in the south.

Since the start of the conflict in Syria in March 2011, the Syrian government has been referring to the gunmen of the opposition groups as terrorists.

In the gas-rich country of Qatar, the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey were scheduled to meet to discuss the situation in Syria. Turkey is a major supporter of the rebels seeking to overthrow Assad.

The head of the Qatari embassy, ​​Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, criticized Assad for failing to take advantage of the truce in recent years to address the country’s current problems. “Assad did not seize this opportunity and started to get involved in restoring his relationship with his people,” he said.

Sheikh Mohammed said he was surprised by how quickly the rebels had moved and said there was a real threat to “maintaining the territorial integrity of Syria.” He said war “can damage and destroy what is left if there is no sense of urgency” to start a political process.

After the fall of the cities of Daraa and Sweida early Saturday, Syrian government forces remain in control of five provincial capitals – Damascus, Homs and Quneitra, as well as Latakia and Tartus on the Mediterranean coast.

Tartus is home to Russia’s only naval base outside the former Soviet Union and Latakia is home to Russia’s largest air base.

On Friday, the US-backed forces of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured large parts of the eastern province of Deir el-Zour on the border with Iraq and the provincial capital of the same name. The capture of Deir el-Zour is a blow to Iran’s influence in the region as the area is the gateway to the Mediterranean-Iran corridor, a supply line for fighters supported by Iran, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

With the capture of the main border crossing with Iraq by the SDF and after opposition forces took control of the Naseeb border crossing into Jordan in southern Syria, the Syrian government’s gateway to the outside world is the Masnaa border crossing into Lebanon.

Margaret Brennan contributed to this report.