Syrian rebels seized the capital Damascus unopposed on Sunday after a lightning advance that sent President Bashar al-Assad fleeing to Russia after a 13-year civil war and six decades of his family’s autocratic rule.

Summary

Lightning rebel advance ends Assad family rule
Rebels say they entered capital with no sign of army
Russia gives asylum to Assad and his family
Assad’s fall deals major blow to allies Russia and Iran
Western states will have to deal with triumphant Islamists

Who is the leader of Syria’s rebels and what does he want?

Jolani is now the de facto leader of more than 23 million Syrians and the several million Syrian refugees who are outside of their country, many of whom will surely want to return home now that Assad is gone.

So, who is Jolani, and what does he want? As a Syrian “foreign fighter” in his early 20s, Jolani crossed into Iraq to fight the Americans when they invaded the country in the spring of 2003. That eventually landed him in the notorious US-run Iraqi prison, Camp Bucca, which became a key recruiting ground for terrorist groups, including what would become ISIS.

Freed from Camp Bucca, Jolani crossed back into Syria and started fighting against the Baathist Assad regime, doing so with the backing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would later become the founder of ISIS.

In Syria, Jolani founded a militant group known as Jabhat al-Nusra (“the Victory Front” in English), which pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, but in 2016, Jolani broke away from the terror group, according to the US Center for Naval Analyses.

Since then – unlike al Qaeda, which promoted a quixotic global holy war – Jolani’s group, now known by the initials HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), has undertaken the more prosaic job of trying to govern millions of people in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, providing basic services, according to the terrorism scholar Aaron Zalin who has written a book about HTS.

Reuters Cont.

In one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations, the fall of Assad’s government wiped out a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world. Moscow gave asylum to Assad and his family, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, said on his Telegram channel.

His sudden overthrow, at the hands of a revolt partly backed by Turkey and with roots in jihadist Sunni Islam, limits Iran’s ability to spread weapons to its allies and could cost Russia its Mediterranean naval base. It could allow millions of refugees scattered for more than a decade in camps across Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to finally return home.

For Syrians, it brought a sudden unexpected end to a war in deep freeze for years, with hundreds of thousands dead, cities pounded to dust and an economy hollowed by global sanctions.

As the sun set in Damascus without Assad for the first time, roads leading into the city were mostly empty, apart from motorcycles carrying armed men and rebel vehicles caked with mud as camouflage.
Some men could be seen looting a shopping centre on the road between the capital and the Lebanese border. The myriad checkpoints lining the road to Damascus were empty. Posters of Assad were torn at his eyes. A burning Syrian military truck was parked diagonally on the road out of the city.

A thick column of black smoke billowed from the Mazzeh neighbourhood, where Israeli strikes earlier had targeted Syrian state security branches, according to two security sources.
Intermittent gunfire rang out in apparent celebration.

Shops and restaurants closed early in line with a curfew imposed by the rebels. Just before it came into effect, people could be seen briskly walking home with stacks of bread.
Earlier, the rebels said they had entered the capital with no sign of army deployments. Thousands of people in cars and on foot congregated at a main square in Damascus waving and chanting “Freedom.”
People were seen walking inside the Al-Rawda Presidential Palace, with some leaving carrying furniture. A motorcycle was parked on the intricately-laid parquet floor of a gilded hall.

Who are the Syrian rebels that have toppled Assad and taken Damascus?

According to ABC news

The rebel military operations command for the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, claimed on Sunday the president was no longer in the capital, writing: “We declare the city of Damascus free of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad.” Russia said Sunday that Assad had left the country.

The insurgent group claimed credit for taking over four Syrian cities in 24 hours — Homs, Daraa, Queinetra and Sweida — in a series of rapid advances by opposition fighters that had largely been met with little resistance from government forces.

The collapse of Assad’s government ended a 24-year reign, the president having succeeded his father Hafez al-Assad in 2000. The Assad family had ruled Syria since 1971.

The rebel offensive over the past 10 days has been waged by HTS and a collection of Turkish-backed Syrian militias known as the Syrian National Army.

HTS, which has its roots in al-Qaeda, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.

Who is Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of HTS?

HTS is led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who in recent days has been trying to distance himself from his jihadist past.

Jolani was born in Saudi Arabia to Syrian parents from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and was raised in Damascus.

Are Syrian rebels ISIS?

Amid the outbreak of the country’s civil war in 2011, the chaos allowed ISIS to rise in the Iraq-Syria border region and seize swaths of territory in the Levant region. The conflict also became a proxy battleground, drawing in major world powers including the U.S., Russia, Iran, Israel and the Gulf states.

Assad retained nominal control of much of the country with Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah assistance. But last month’s surprise rebel offensive revealed the weakness of the regime, as fighters surged out of the rebel-held Idlib province in the northwest of the country and quickly seized multiple major cities on their way to Damascus.