Assad has left Damascus, say senior army officers; Syria rebels say they are in capital

Fuck Assad, he could have simply chosen to not order shooting at peaceful protesters in 2011 and overseen a peaceful transition to democracy. Instead, he chose death and destruction for millions of people. He deserves everything that’s coming to him, and Syrians everywhere have every right to celebrate tonight.

The future is uncertain: this is what freedom looks like. My entire heart goes out to the Syrian people. Hopefully the maniacs leading the HTS and the SNA will not manage to smother them.

Why are the HTS maniacs again?
- The are a rebranding of Al-Nusra, a split of Al-Quaeda.
  
  This is their leader: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Mohammad_al-Julani
  
  They are putting on a "moderate" face, it remains to be seen if they mean it.
This is not "what freedom looks like" this is "what a violent rebellion looks like". There are good odds that the new regime will be as bad or even worse. People who overthrow a power with military force aren't often interested in sharing that power afterwards.
- The other option: overthrow the violent regime with magic.
- I mean very narrowly this moment right now. This moment of uncertainty where anything is possible. This is what freedom looks like: anything is possible, the best and the worst.
overseen a peaceful transition to democracy

Paving the way for outside actors to mess with those elections. Look at how much democracy Lebanon has with all its parties and yet it's a giant mess. Americans complain about Russian interference in US elections but somehow don't understand how that problem is far worse in a country with a tiny fraction of the resources that the US has. In fact, the US would be one of those outside actors trying to influence the elections, which they've done for many decades now in many different countries.

The future is uncertain: this is what freedom looks like. My entire heart goes out to the Syrian people. Hopefully the maniacs leading the HTS and the SNA will not manage to smother them.

This is what freedom for the most brutal looks like. The most brutal tend to be religious fanatics because they think they have God on their side and they're willing to die for their cause. You can guarantee that whoever comes out on top will be establishing an ultraconservative theocracy and things will be worse for the Syrian people (except for those who are into that shit, maybe).
- Respectfully, that's a load of nonsense:
  
  Paving the way for outside actors to mess with those elections.
  
  So? If potential future foreign interference is a legitimate reason to NOT have democracy at all, then ALL democracy becomes impossible. You're basically making the argument that democracy is impossible so Syrians should never ask for democratic reforms because ...if they do sometime in the future some external actor might try to influence their election?
  
  And it's actually worse than that. They asked for democracy and they got bullets, chemical warfare and over a decade of destruction and dispossession. Was the threat of some potential election meddling that horrible that all of that is preferable? Ask any Syrian refugee in Lebanon if they wouldn't trade the destruction of their country with Lebanon's broken sectarian system.
  
  Ultimately you're making an argument that either they should have 100% of a good thing or 0% of the thing AND brutality for asking for the thing in the first place. And that's utterly nonsensical.
  
  You can guarantee that whoever comes out on top will be establishing an ultraconservative theocracy and things will be worse for the Syrian people
  
  You actually cannot "guarantee" it. It is a possibility, but there are no guarantees. You can be pessimistic of course. But history never guarantees anything. I mentioned elsewhere in the thread that by "freedom", I was referring to this particular moment right here, where nothing is for sure and things could go to the better or the worse. RIGHT NOW, there is uncertainty. Even if tomorrow HTS tries to enforce a khalifate or whatever shit, right now, this is a moment of freedom for Syrians. Just look at what they are saying. You can't deny what you see. They are saying that after decades they are able to finally breathe. The future IS open, but not guaranteed.

This is for sure a byproduct of the war in Ukraine. This really shows Russia’s weakness.

This is a huge loss for Russia too. Any smaller country considering joining (or staying in) Russia's sphere of influence for security just saw one of their peers get exiled from their country by its populous.

I believe Syria also has Russia's only friendly port in the Mediterranean. If that base falls to rebels that would be a huge blow to Russia's ability to project power over the region.
- Ha ha and their only warm water port, except that in Kaliningrad, which, thanks to putin, is now incercled by the NATO alliance lol.

this is flight path of that plane, it crashed in the mountains

he's dead

The article mentions he did an abrupt U turn, before "disappearing off the map". No mention of crashes or problems. Couldn't they have just turned off the comms and transponder? These sites normally project the path the airplane will take until the next update from the plane.
- Turning in a circle while turning off the transponder would seem to be a sensible thing if you suddenly realise people could be viewing your projected route..
- altitude decreased at 15ft/s before disappearing at 1500ish ft, and few minutes later syrian army command informed officers about fall of regime
  
  i don't think they just faked it, there's also no airport there and emergency landing in terrain like this is, i think, quite extravagant option
Cite your source
- source for?
Sic semper tyrannis

The news from only a day ago is already out of date wow.

People thought this was gonna be some extended situation but they really did sweep in only a matter of days.

There are some reports he was shot down.

By the Russians lol.

"Sergei... Are we the bad guys?"

"I don't even know anymore, Ivan"
That would be the funniest shit if true.
- If it were true (currently I don't think so) we'd have a warm spot on FIRMS and civilian reports of a transport plane coming down, but nobody has reported one so far. (However, Syria is likely to have so many warm spots currently that a private researcher may be unable to count them and make sense.)
  
  However, assassinating someone with an air defense complex while retreating / evacuating yourself in face of an advancing opponent - that's unreliable. (Russians were last seen evacuating their air defense systems and flying away with what could be taken along, but rebels did get some really interesting items.)

Good riddance and hopefully Bashar al Assad is found and brought back for fair and prolonged trial (because his list of deeds is long, and he needs to testify).

I suspect he'd easily get the maximum punishment available, in any reasonably balanced justice system on the planet. A dictator on trial would also be a cautionary example for future dictators.

However, given that he's not entirely out of resources, I think he may temporarily slip away into a country that agrees to host him.

About things in Syria: I worry that civil war isn't over. Judging by the fighting in Manbij, one faction of the rebels (SNA) is now attemping to conquer territory from the SDF (Autonomous Administration of North-Eastern Syria). Unlike the government, the SDF however isn't demoralized - they aren't fighting for dictator Assad, but democracy and autonomy, and they can be expected to mount an effective resistance.

I hope that someone reminds the parties to the conflict that they need to stop and negotiate really soon now.

I'll confess, I'm embarrassingly uninformed on Assad and the broader situation in Syria. Anybody have any good resources to get a basic understanding?

I mean the wiki is never a bad place to start https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Syrian_civil_war_(January–October_2024)

He'll come back in several pieces probably.