On the eve of the fall of the capital, Bashar al-Assad and his eldest son Hafez climbed into a Russian armored vehicle and drove away, leaving friends, relatives and loyalists behind in a frantic search for the man who had promised to protect them.
Soon after, at about 11 p.m. on December 7, his old colleagues drove by his home in Damascus’s upscale Malki neighborhood and found abandoned sentries and largely empty buildings: lights still flickering, coffee cups half-drunk , military uniforms were scattered on the street.
By midnight, the then-Syrian president was traveling with Hafez to the Russian town of Khmeimim on Syria’s northwest coast, according to a rebel military commander, a former intelligence official and people familiar with the Assad family’s escape. air force base.
It was only after Assad left Damascus that he brought his troops to heel and ordered offices and documents to be burned, according to a member of the rebel military council and a person familiar with the matter. Russia was one of Assad’s main foreign backers during the 13-year civil war and had promised to provide safe passage for Khmeimim. An HTS commander denied the group had negotiated Assad’s withdrawal.
Despite helping the Assad family escape the capital, Moscow made the father and son wait until 4 a.m. on December 8 before they were granted asylum on humanitarian grounds. They soon flew to Russia, ending the family’s brutal five-year reign.
The Financial Times used more than a dozen interviews, including with regime insiders and people familiar with the Assad family’s movements, to piece together Assad’s final days and hours in power. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters freely. Efforts to contact Assad and his family in Moscow were unsuccessful.
Few saw the rebel offensive coming, especially the president, who believes he won the civil war sparked by a brutal crackdown on protesters in 2011. Following the Arab world, some European countries have also begun to make gestures.
But in the end, the rebels, led by the Islamic organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, launched a lightning offensive and captured the capital in just 10 days.
Assad reunited with his wife Asma in Moscow, where Asma has been undergoing a second cancer treatment for several weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. Her parents, Fawaz Akhlas, who were also sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department earlier this month, are also in the Russian capital. The Assad children, including daughter Zein who studies at the Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi, have now joined them, according to people close to the family.
Assad left without a word to the people who had sworn allegiance to him for decades, leaving many former followers shocked and angry at being abandoned. He didn’t even warn relatives – including cousins, nieces and nephews, as well as his wife’s family – that they were left to fend for themselves as rebels advanced on Damascus.
Disillusioned loyalists see it as the ultimate proof of Assad’s overwhelming narcissism, a trait that has driven him to commit atrocities against his own people and plunder Syria’s resources for personal gain.
“He ran away like a dog in the night,” said a person familiar with Assad’s evacuation from Damascus. “An hour before he fled, he told people around him that everything was going to be okay.”
Then-Prime Minister Mohammed Jalali told Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya television last week that he spoke to the then-president on the phone at 10:30 pm on December 7 to tell him about the panic and fear in the streets, and Mass displacement in central Syria. “He replied: ‘Tomorrow, we’ll see,'” Jalali said. “‘Tomorrow, tomorrow,’ those were the last words he told me.” Assad never answered Jalali’s next call at dawn.
The Financial Times has not yet verified all passengers on Assad’s escape flight. But regime insiders are convinced that he left behind at least two financial aides who hold keys to overseas assets: Yasar Ibrahim and Mansoor Azzam. Although unconfirmed, it underscores the belief that Assad prioritizes his wealth over his extended family, even among loyalist circles.
Assad gave his own version of events in his first public comments since HTS launched its offensive, saying he remained in Damascus until early Sunday morning “to carry out my duties.” He insists his departure was not premeditated.
Footage shot of rebels and citizens swarming into Assad’s private residence after his escape shows Assad’s hasty exit: family photo albums, a well-stocked pantry, and dozens of Hermès purchases in the first lady’s wardrobe Bags and boxes.
His abrupt departure followed days of failed diplomatic overtures to his longtime benefactors, Moscow and Tehran. Although Russian and Iranian support had propped up Assad’s regime for nearly a decade, they are now no longer willing or able to save him, distracted by conflicts with Ukraine and Israel respectively.
When rebels began a long-planned attack on the northern province of Aleppo, Assad visited Moscow to request military intervention. Four days later, a second Syrian city fell, HTS-led rebels moved south, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Damascus.
Araghchi left Damascus for Ankara, where Turkish officials expected to receive a message from Assad. Instead, they received nothing. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a major supporter of the Syrian rebels since 2011, has repeatedly tried to restore relations with Assad, most recently in July. Syria’s former president rebuffed each of these attempts.
Assad is becoming increasingly desperate. Three or four days before leaving Damascus, he signaled to Moscow that he was willing to hold talks with exiled political opponents in Geneva – something he has long refused to do, people familiar with the matter said. But the Russians don’t seem to be getting that message across.
Since rebels toppled Assad’s regime, loyalists and profiteers have poured out of Damascus – the vast majority of them driving across the Lebanese border to Beirut, many holed up in their second homes or luxury hotels under heavy security outside .
In the plush, sun-soaked breakfast room of Beirut’s Phoenician hotel, Syrians carrying Louis Vuitton handbags, eating poached eggs and kiwis, chatted in hushed tones about their country and next steps. At one table, three women told stories of their nightly escapes and debated whether to enroll their children in Dubai schools. One of them spoke of a man she knew who disappeared after Assad’s fall.
Witnesses said those who fled to Beirut included several of Assad’s salesmen and top aides who are close to the regime and are important cogs in the machine that keeps the ruling family in power. One of them is Assad’s long-time adviser Buseena Shaaban.
But soon they dispersed out of Lebanon: those with foreign passports flew to European countries, others to the United Arab Emirates. Senior military officials traveled to Russia or Libya, people familiar with the matter said. Shaaban was later discovered in Dubai, which has long been a haven for exiles and followers of the overthrown regime.
Unlike Assad, his brother Maher – the notorious commander of the army’s fourth division and a key node in the regime’s centralized corruption scheme – warned his people on Saturday afternoon to flee to Lebanon. But he had to crawl out on his own, allegedly crossing the border to Iraq. The Financial Times could not confirm whether he remained in Iraq or traveled to Russia.
Among those Assad left behind were immediate family members: his cousin, intelligence major Iyad Makhlouf, Makhlouf’s twin brother Ihab, and their mother. Three sources said the trio were attacked on their way out of Syria into Lebanon, killing Ihab and injuring Iyad and his mother.
Iyad was being treated at Lebanon’s Chtoura Hospital, according to two hospital employees in the area. He then traveled to Dubai, a person familiar with the matter said.
His brother Rami Makhlouf was the regime’s most important businessman and was believed to have controlled more than half of Syria’s economy at one point. But while Rami fell out of favor with the Syrian regime in 2020 and has been effectively under house arrest, Syrians familiar with the regime say Iyad and Ihab remain close to Bashar and his wife Asma . Lamy’s whereabouts remain unknown.
Assad’s feared senior adviser and former intelligence chief Ali Mamluk also disappeared. Several prominent loyalist Syrian families are holed up inside the Russian embassy in Damascus, but the Financial Times was unable to confirm their identities. The new government has told Russia not to facilitate the exit of Syrian nationals.
Four hours before leaving Damascus, Assad’s 23-year-old son Hafez was spotted walking in a park near the presidential palace and hanging out with friends. Moscow State University records show that he recently returned from Russia, where he defended his doctoral thesis in physical and mathematical sciences.
According to witnesses, he later went home to have dinner with his father. Rumors circulated that Assad would deliver a public speech, keeping Syrians across the country and around the world glued to their television screens. It was unclear whether Hafez knew that, just hours later, he would leave Syria for good.
Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley in Ankara and Daria Mosolova in London
