New Delhi, Dec 9: Putin has granted asylum to exiled Syrian President Assad & his family members, after they flew to Moscow, switching off the flight’s transponder misleading the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels.
Ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family members safely landed in Moscow who were granted asylum by the Russian government, according to Russia state media reports, hours after Islamist-led rebels took control of his country.
With Assad’s flight out of radar, there was buzz on social media with flight trackers speculating the mysterious whereabouts of Assad on the whole Sunday.
According to data from the Flightradar website and the ATS, a Syrian Air plane took off from Damascus airport around the time the capital was taken by rebels.
The aircraft initially found flying towards the Syria's coastal region, a stronghold of Assad's Alawite sect, but then made an abrupt turn and flew in the opposite direction for a few minutes before disappearing off the map.
The aimless course of the flight and its disappearance from geo-sensing & tracking indicated that it had been shot down or crashed somewhere enroute.
Assad's departure comes less than two weeks after the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group challenged more than five decades of the Assad family rule with a lightning offensive.
"After 50 years of oppression under Baath rule, and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and displacement... we announce today the end of this dark period and the start of a new era for Syria," the rebel factions said on Telegram.
The Islamist leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, visited the capital Damascus's landmark Umayyad Mosque, as crowds greeted him with smiles and embraces. HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.
Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, the HTS has sought to soften its image in recent years.
Across Syria, people toppled statues of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad's father and the founder of the system of government that he inherited. For the past 50 years in Syria, even the slightest suspicion of dissent could land one in prison or get one killed.
As rebels entered the capital city of Syria, the HTS claimed that its fighters broke into a jail on the outskirts of Damascus, announcing an "end of the era of tyranny in the prison of Sednaya", which has become a by-word for the darkest abuses of Assad's era.
The rapid developments came just hours after the HTS said it had captured the strategic city of Homs, where prisoners were also released. Homs was the third major city seized by the rebels, who began their advance on November 27.
While the whole world expressed concern on the Syria issues and the whereabouts of Assad and his kith & Kin, the US President Joe Biden was worried about the ugly turn of events saying it extraordinary.
A statement issued from the White House said that US president-elect Donald Trump said that Assad had "fled his country" after losing Russia's backing, that created row across the globe.
