Ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assured his forces that the Russian army was coming to their aid against the rebels just hours before fleeing in secret to Moscow and abandoning his troops and even his brother, ex-officials said.
As the rebels’ lightning offensive swept through Syria Saturday night, Assad met with about 30 of his military chiefs at the defense ministry, urging them to hold the rebels at bay because Russian forces were supposedly on route, one commander at the meeting told Reuters.
Assad told his men that he would finish up work that night and head home, but instead, he fled Damascus with his wife and three children on a plane to Russia the following day.
“Assad didn’t even make a last stand,” said Nadim Houri, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative regional think-tank.
“He didn’t even rally his own troops. He let his supporters face their own fate,” Houri added.
Assad did not even alert his brother — Maher, an army commander — about the escape plan, forcing the younger Assad to flee to Iraq via helicopter, sources familiar with the family’s last moments in Syria told Reuters.
Assad’s cousins, Ehab and Eyad Makhlouf, were also left behind, with Syria’s rebel forces reporting that they were captured trying to flee for Lebanon.
Ehad was allegedly shot and killed, and Eyad wounded, but their condition has yet to be independently verified.
Assad left everyone to fend for themselves after it became clear that no one was coming to his aid, with the ousted president growing more and more secluded as the rebels closed in on Damascus, according to 14 people familiar with his final days in power.
The writing was on the wall during a Nov. 28 trip to Moscow, where Assad’s pleas to the Kremlin fell on deaf ears as Russia was too busy invading Ukraine, three regional diplomats said.
Rather than relay the news, Assad allegedly kept the information within his inner-circle.
“He told his commanders and associates after his Moscow trip that military support was coming,” said Hadi al-Bahra, the head of Syria’s main opposition abroad.
“He was lying to them. The message he received from Moscow was negative.”
When it was clear that no help was coming from Moscow, Assad began to accept that his 24-year rule was coming to an end, with the ousted president initially looking to the United Arab Emirates for help.
UAE officials, however, denied the request out of fear over potential international backlash for harboring a man accused of a slew of war crimes and human rights violations during the bloody Syrian civil war, members of Assad’s inner circle said.
Moscow, however, was not willing to completely abandon Assad, and helped facilitate a flight out of Syria.
With Post wires
