Rebel commander Abu Mohammed al-Jolani said in a statement read on Syria’s state TV after his forces took over Damascus that there is no room for turning back and the group is determined to continue the path they started in 2011 during the Arab spring.
“The future is ours,” al-Jolani’s statement said.
Jolani operated from the shadows for years. Now, he is in the limelight, giving interviews to the international media and appearing on the ground in Syria’s second city Aleppo after wresting it from government control for the first time in the country’s civil war.
Since breaking ties with Al-Qaida in 2016, Jolani has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader. But he is yet to quell suspicions among analysts and western governments that still class HTS as a terrorist organisation (you can read more about Jolani in this explainer).
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist insurgent alliance that has captured swathes of Syria in a lightning offensive. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The GuardianShare
Updated at 09.35 EST
Key events
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Statues of Bashar al-Assad have been toppled around Syria as the government collapses, as this video report shows:
Assad statues toppled across Syria as government collapses – video
Share‘I feel as if I am in a dream,’ dazed Syrians react to rapid fall of Assad government
William Christou
The road to Damascus was lined with discarded army uniforms. In a panic, Syrian army soldiers stripped down in the streets in the early hours of Sunday morning, realising their leader, Bashar al-Assad, had abandoned them after 54 years of his family’s rule over Syria.
Syrian army tanks which were supposed to stop the lightning rebel offensive which started just 11 days earlier stood empty in front of checkpoints with posters of the late-leader Hafez al-Assad, his face half torn. Out of reflex, a driver stopped and rolled down the window, but there was no one at the checkpoint.
“No more checkpoints, no more bribes,” Mohammed remarked, smiling as he sped towards the Syrian capital city.
Damascus was still in a state of disbelief, smoke from battles the night before hung over the city like a fog. Windows shook from the occasional explosion, the target and the warring party unknown. Just hours before, it was announced that Bashar al-Assad had fled the capital and that his regime had fallen.
The head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Mohammed al-Julani, the most prominent of the rebel leaders in Syria, announced that the ex-Syrian prime minister Mohammed Gaza al-Jalali would lead a transitional government in the coming months.
The leader of Syria’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, addresses a crowd at the capital’s landmark Umayyad Mosque on 8 December, 2024. Photograph: Aref Tammawi/AFP/Getty Images
Residents of Syria still were dazed by the day’s events. “I feel as if I am in a dream, I haven’t slept and I can’t absorbed what’s happened,” Fatimeh, a Syrian originally from Idlib, said as she approached Damascus. “I am from Idlib,” she said once more, saying for years she wouldn’t dare say where she was from when she was in Damsacus, for fear that any affiliation with the province held by Islamist rebels would provoke retaliation.
Al-Julani, who dropped his nom de guerre in favor of his birth name – Ahmad al-Shaara – was also chasing after rebel forces. It was fighters from the southern province of Daraa, not HTS, who reached the gates of Damascus. HTS fighters were preoccupied with securing Homs, Bashar al-Assad’s last lifeline to his coastal strongholds of Tartus and Latakia.
The rebel leader arrived to the iconic Omayyad mosque in the old city of Damascus in his first public appearance after the fall of the Assad government. Seeing the rebel leader in the mosque, located in the former heartland of the government, would have been unthinkable just a few days earlier. To Syrians, the message was clear: Bashar al-Assad was gone, and rebels were in control.
“I’m so excited for them [HTS] to arrive, they will stop the stealing. For years we haven’t been able to afford bread, things will be better now,” Mohammed said.
Others expressed some reservations about the Islamist group, wary of any revolutionary groups – particularly Islamist ones – after 13 years of bitter civil war. But caution, was delayed for another day, today was for celebration.
“The feelings, they’re indescribable. I am angry, I am happy and I am sad. But now that the regime has fallen, I can rest,” Mohammed Ahmad, a resident of Kafr Halab, in northern Syria, said.
The UK-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, has confirmed reports that Israeli airstrikes have targeted government security buildings in Damascus today.
“Israeli strikes targeted a security complex in Damascus near the former regime’s buildings” including intelligence, customs and a military headquarters, the war monitor said. There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the airstrikes.
Updated at 10.54 EST
Israel carries out airstrikes on major security complex in Damascus – report
Israel conducted three airstrikes against a major security complex in the Kafr Sousa district of Damascus, along with a research centre where it had previously said Iranian scientists developed missiles, two regional security sources have told Reuters. We have not yet been able to independently verify this claim.
Spain’s foreign ministry has urged for there to be an “inclusive political transition” in Syria after the fall of the Assad government.
In a statement, the ministry said:
We call on all parties in Syria, in the region, and in the international community, to ensure that the historical events the country is experiencing lead to a peaceful and inclusive political transition, according to the terms of UN security council resolution 2254, which guarantees the country’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
We remain in permanent contact with the Spanish community in the country via the Spanish embassy in Damascus and are ready to respond to any eventuality.
Spain, along with UK, France and Germany, are among the western countries that have publicly welcomed the fall of the regime.
ShareSyrian rebel leader seen in Damascus making a speech to cheering crowd – report
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, leader of Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that led the anti-government rebel offensive, has visited Damascus’ landmark Umayyad Mosque, a correspondent from Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.
He has reportedly given a speech as the crowd chanted “Allahu akbar (God is greatest)”. Video footage circulating online shows al-Jolani entering the mosque, with crowds seen cheering him on.
ShareIsraeli military tells residents of five towns in southern Syria to stay home ‘until further notice’
The Israeli military has issued a warning to five towns in southern Syria, calling on residents to stay at home “until further notice” due to ongoing combat in the area. The towns are: Ofaniya, Quneitra, al-Hamidiyah, western Samadanism and Qahtaini.
In a post on X, the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Arabic spokesperson, said:
The fighting inside your area is forcing the IDF to act and we do not intend to harm you. For your safety, you must stay at home and not go out until further notice.
Updated at 10.42 EST
In an earlier post, we reported that the UK’s deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, had welcomed the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and called for a political resolution.
Now the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, has echoed her comments, saying he wants to help ensure peace is restored in Syria and hopes that a political solution “prevails” over violence. Starmer said:
The developments in Syria in recent hours and days are unprecedented, and we are speaking to our partners in the region and monitoring the situation closely.
The Syrian people have suffered under Assad’s barbaric regime for too long and we welcome his departure.
Our focus is now on ensuring a political solution prevails, and peace and stability is restored.
We call on all sides to protect civilians and minorities, and ensure essential aid can reach the most vulnerable in the coming hours and days.
ShareSyrian rebels seize the capital: How the night unfolded – video
Here is a video report featuring the main events over the last day, during which time rebel forces claim they captured Damascus and ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Syrian rebels seize the capital: How the night unfolded – video
Share‘The Arab spring is not yet over,’ Syrian civil society president says
Patrick Wintour
Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor
“Today and tonight we celebrate, but tomorrow we roll up our sleeves and start to form our new inclusive Syria because we have so much work to do,” Hind Kabawat, the president of the women led Syrian civil society and former member of the Syrian Negotiation Council, vowed. “Tomorrow is the first day of our lives living in freedom but it is so important we keep the civic space in the weeks ahead”.
Speaking to the Guardian after a night anxiously awaiting events in Damascus, she said: “Syrian civil society on the ground was in a completely different place from 20 years ago – much stronger, vibrant and creative. At root there are three messages – no punishment, no revenge and no sectarianism”.
A veteran of negotiations in Geneva in 2015 and President of Tastakel, a non profit group committed to inter faith dialogue and operating inside Syria, she added:
We learnt from Iraq where they destroyed all the institutions. We need those Syrian institutions. We cannot punish the small soldiers that have no blood on their hands. We are not going to have people taken into the square. Those involved in crimes will have a fair trial.
She said for her the revolution’s turning point had come when the Christians in Aleppo realised the Islamic militia would not endanger them.
She explained:
When the Christian people in Aleppo woke up to discover there was no regime they feared what was coming next. The Christians had been told for so long by President Assad that he was their protector. I too was fearful. There have been so many disappointments, and people said to me ‘we have seen this movie before’.
But civil society went to the Christians on the day of Santa Barbara festival (December 4th ) and reassured them and distributed bread, so Aleppo was fine. We had been so scared about sectarianism, but it went so smoothly. We had videos and phone calls to our organisation saying all is fine.
And then the revolutionaries went to the Christian church in Hama and Homs saying we are not going to enter. They went to Marmorita, and said ‘we want you to be safe. All we are asking is you take the revolutionary green flag and we take a video and we will leave you alone’. So now the christian community is safe.
She said: “The international community abandoned us saying ‘let’s normalise with Assad’ but the Syrian people did not give up and we said ‘this is a Syrian led fight for our country and we will fight for our freedom alone if necessary’. Today there are layers. Yes there is the military, but they are together with civil society. This is Syria for all.”
She continued: “Civil society, especially the young people, know what they want and they will watch the military groups to make sure there is more civil space. The Arab Spring is not yet over.”
She said she had gone to the same school as President Bashir al-Assad and accused him of having the “ego of a dictator. He never listens and never wanted to listen. We thought one day he would be better, but he ended with 40,000 people in prison”.
A demonstrator shouts during a protest against the Islamist Ennahda movement in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, in 2011 after the Arab Spring. Photograph: Zohra Bensemra/REUTERSShare
Updated at 10.13 EST