Free Republic

Prime Minister and Defense Minister announce Israel has struck a target close to the presidential palace in Damascus: "We will not permit any threat to the Druze community." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced early Friday morning that Israel had struck a target close to the presidential palace in Damascus. "This is a clear message to the Syrian regime. We will not permit Syrian troops to move south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community," they said in a joint statement...

Since al-Qaeda-affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) conquered Damascus with the help of Turkey in December 2024, HTS fighters and Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) militants have committed massacres against religious minorities in the country. Social media posts show Alawite or Christian men, women, and children barbarically shot at close range. And the death toll is increasing. The Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East, John X, said during a sermon on March 9th: 'The bloody events taking place on the Syrian coast left many dead and wounded. … In many cities, towns, and villages, their...

Jewish Rabbi Yusuf Hamra, who was forcibly displaced from Syria in 1992, has returned to Damascus after 33 years. Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Jews, who were expelled from the country in 1992, have begun returning. Rabbi Yusuf Hamra, along with a group of Jews, visited the Frenc and Raki churches, the Ibn Maymun Jewish School, and the Cobar Synagogue, which was largely destroyed during the civil war, in Damascus’s historic districts. Speaking to Anadolu, Rabbi Yusuf Hamra, one of the former leaders of the Jewish community in Syria, said he had returned home to Damascus after 33...

The usual suspects – plus one holier-than-thou world power – are calling on the U.S. military to repent for its treatment of Muslim chaplain James Yee (aka "Yousef" or "Yousif" Yee). Refresher: Yee's the Army captain who ministered to al-Qaida and Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Seven months ago, Yee was arrested on suspicion of espionage. He spent 76 days in solitary confinement; the case didn't materialize; he was convicted on lesser charges of adultery and downloading pornography. Last week, the Army Southern Command chief who oversees military operations at Guantanamo dismissed those convictions. What more do Yee and his...

Gee, then who might be the "problem" most vexing the new regime in Syria? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Israel moved quickly to destroy Assad's military assets. They also seized the demilitarized zone along their Syrian border to prevent some of the Islamist rebel groups from starting a war. Those moves got condemnation from the UN and some Western countries that have nominal alliance with Israel.According to the new regime's governor in Damascus, however, it's water under the bridge. Maher Marwan spoke to NPR as a representative of the new national government...

Syria's former President Bashar al-Assad appears to say he never intended to flee to Russia - in what is purported to be his first statement since the fall of Damascus eight days ago. Assad's reported statement was put on the Telegram channel belonging to the Syrian presidency on Monday, although it is not clear who currently controls the channel. In it he says that, as the Syrian capital fell to rebels, he went to the Russian military base in his stronghold in the Latakia province "to oversee combat operations" only to see that Syrian troops had abandoned positions. The Hmeimim...

Israel wasted no time after Bashar al-Assad’s fall to bomb all the Syrian military assets it wanted to keep out of the rebels’ hands – striking nearly 500 targets, destroying the navy, and taking out, it claims, 90% of Syria’s known surface-to-air missiles. But it is Israel’s capture of Syria’s highest peak, the Mount Hermon summit, that may prove among the most lasting prizes – though officials have insisted that its occupation is temporary. “This is the highest place in the region, looking upon Lebanon, upon Syria, Israel,” said Efraim Inbar, director of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security...

The Lebanese Al-Mayadeen network, which is affiliated with Hezbollah, reported early Tuesday morning that Israeli tanks are now positioned approximately 20 kilometers from the Syrian capital of Damascus. Reports also indicated the IDF has taken control of nine villages in the southern outskirts of Damascus, near the border with Lebanon. At the same time, there were reports of extensive strikes in the Damascus area. Earlier, Syrian media outlets reported Israeli strikes on the Al-Shuairat military airport, east of Homs, and on Syrian army targets in the provinces of Raqqa and Al-Hasakah. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition organization...

To the victors go the spoilers. When Islamist rebel forces in Syria marched into Damascus and stormed the palace of Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, they found a massive fleet of high-end cars, including Mercedes, Porches, Audis and Ferraris. Videos shared on social media show gleeful looters touring a massive garage in the presidential palace, chock full of high-end roadsters from the deposed dictator’s private stash. ... One eagle-eyed commenter pointed to a coveted Mercedes-Benz with gullwing doors. SUVs, motorcycles, ATVs and what appears to be an armored truck also awaited the rebels, who traipsed through the sprawling mansion taking selfies,...

President-elect Trump reacted Sunday morning to the news that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad had fled Syria after rebels stormed the capital city of Damascus. "Assad is gone," Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. "He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer. There was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place. They lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started, and could...

while others loot bags of CASH from central bank as it's confirmed the despot has fled the country Gleeful Syrians ransacked Bashar al-Assad's presidential palace in Damascus today of Louis Vuitton items after rebel soldiers stormed the capital. Scores of people can be seen in one video within the palace's walls raiding cupboards of the president and his British-born glamorous wife Asma al-Assad's expensive possessions. Duvets and linen bed sheets are strewn on the floor while one person can be seen holding an orange Louis Vuitton box as they walk up a flight of stairs and pass another looter carrying...

The central bank of Syria in Damascus - was looted a few minutes ago. Armed jihadists entered and looted boxes of money.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination on Sunday, as rebels said they had infiltrated the capital with no sign of army deployments. Syrian army units abandoned their positions on the outskirts of Damascus on Saturday night, fleeing the advance of rebel forces. The military said it was “reinforcing” defensive lines around the capital, which appeared to have collapsed. Mohammed al-Rahmoun, the Syrian interior minister, earlier said there was a “very strong security cordon on the outskirts of Damascus and no one can break it”. But the Syrian opposition fighters early on Sunday disproved this,...

The nearly quarter-century rule of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad came to a stunning end, when he fled the country by plane for an unknown destination as rebel troops stormed into the capital city of Damascus with little resistance. Thousands of people rushed to the city’s main square waving and chanting “freedom” as rebel breached the city gates on Sunday, local time, and Assad’s army fled from the streets, witnesses said. Assad, who has ruled the country with an iron fist for 24 years, boarded a plane and left Damascus for parts unknown, two senior army officers told Reuters. Shortly after...

JUST IN: Syria's capital city Damascus has fallen to rebels, and Syrian President Assad has reportedly fled to an unknown destination, per CNN. “Militarily, Damascus has fallen,” CNN has said.

Syrian opposition fighters have reached the suburbs of the Damascus capital for the first time since the region was recaptured by government troops in 2018, as president Bashar al-Assad's regime nears collapse. One resident said the city was on edge, with security forces on the streets and many shops running out of staple foods. The Syrian army withdrew from much of the country's south on Saturday but later said it was fortifying positions in the Damascus suburbs and in the south. Syria's state news agency denied reports that Assad had already fled to Russia claiming he continued to govern from...

Rebels on a lightning advance through Syria said on Saturday they have begun to encircle Damascus as government forces denied they had withdrawn from areas near the capital. "Our forces have begun the final phase of encircling the capital, Damascus," said rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, with the Islamist-led alliance that launched the offensive. The defence ministry flatly denied the army had fled positions near the city. "There is no truth to news claiming our armed forces, present in all areas of the Damascus countryside, have withdrawn," it said. Earlier, a war monitor and Abdel Ghani said rebels were within...

Iran has reportedly started to withdraw troops from Syria as advancing rebel forces threaten to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to The New York Times. Syrian insurgents took control of the central city of Hama following the retreat of government forces on Thursday, just days after rebels captured most of Aleppo, Syria's second largest city. Evacuations were initiated on Friday for commanders and personnel from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, according to Iranian officials and regional commanders cited in the Times report. Diplomatic staff serving at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus were also...

• Syrian rebels are speeding toward the major city of Homs, where residents are fleeing ahead of potential clashes between the rebels and regime forces. • The rebels seized Hama to the north on Thursday, the second major city taken from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in just over a week of fighting. • A new uprising has also emerged in the southern Daraa province, with rebels there claiming to have taken a major military base and announcing that their “destination is Damascus.” • Russia’s embassy in Syria has urged its citizens to leave the country, citing “the difficult military and...

Syrian rebels captured the key city of Hama on Thursday, bringing the insurgents a major victory after a lightning advance across northern Syria and dealing a new blow to President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies. The Syrian army said it was redeploying outside the city "to preserve civilians lives and prevent urban combat" after what it called intense clashes. Rebels said they were preparing to keep marching south towards Homs, Syria's great crossroads city that links the capital Damascus to the north and coast. "Your time has come," said a rebel operations room in an online post,...