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.
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?
From what I know, this is the combination of three things
He relied primarily on Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah support.
$$$ Assad must have run out of treasure
Iran and Russia used to be helping them, but Iran is in a shadow war with Israel and Russia is in a war with Ukraine + western allies. Their funding and personnel dried up.
Plus, the Syrian rebels banded together. Without Russian air support and airstrikes around the capital, and without iranian arms, their regime collapsed and ran to Russia like a bitch.
Will Syria be better now? It’s anyone’s guess. I could see Russia and China potentially making moves on them during the rebuild process, but who knows for sure. The US will probably pull out soon once the next government is formed in January. It could be up to the Syrian rebels and Syrian people, but their country infrastructure is pretty blown apart, so they will need outside capital and expertise to rebuild.