Bashar’s Flight from Syria
The fall of Bashar al-Asad’s regime in 2024 came as a major surprise to nearly everyone—including Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, which by then had long since abandoned their efforts to overthrow him. As a result, they had reestablished diplomatic relations with Damascus, and in 2023, Syria had even been readmitted as a full member of the Arab League.
It was equally unexpected that, by the end of 2024, the regime offered virtually no resistance to the offensive launched by the Sunni Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its military allies, who subsequently took control of the country. A bloody showdown between HTS and the elite forces of the Ba‘th regime had seemed far more likely. Instead, on 8 December 2024, Bashar al-Asad secretly fled Syria for Moscow. His severely demoralized army offered almost no resistance, thereby sparing the country further needless bloodshed.
This, however, could not undo the catastrophic toll already inflicted under Bashar’s rule: hundreds of thousands of Syrians had been killed, over twelve million had been displaced from their homes (including more than seven million who fled abroad), and much of Syria lay in ruins. It will take generations before Syrian society can even begin to recover.