Assad Regime Falls in Syria as Rebels Enter Damascus and Assad Flees
Syrian rebel forces entered the capital, Damascus, on December 8, and President Bashar Assad resigned his office and fled Syria, ending more than half a century of Assad family rule. Speaking that afternoon in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden called the fall of the regime "a fundamental act of justice" and a moment of historic opportunity for the Syrian people to build a better future, while also a moment of risk and uncertainty.
Biden said that after 13 years of civil war, the Assad regime had brutalized, tortured and killed literally hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians, and that over the past week the support of its three main backers - Iran, Hezbollah and Russia - had collapsed because all three were far weaker than when he took office. He said the United States would support Syria's neighbors, including Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Israel, should any threat arise during the transition, and would send senior officials to the region.
On countering extremists, Biden said the U.S. mission against ISIS in eastern Syria would be maintained, including the security of detention facilities holding ISIS fighters, and that the United States would not let ISIS take advantage of any vacuum to reestablish a safe haven; he disclosed that U.S. forces had that day conducted a dozen precision airstrikes targeting ISIS camps and operatives inside Syria.
Biden said the United States would engage with all Syrian groups, including within the process led by the United Nations, to establish a transition toward an independent, sovereign Syria with a new constitution and a new government serving all Syrians, a process to be determined by the Syrian people themselves, with U.S. support including humanitarian relief. He cautioned that some of the rebel groups that took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human rights abuses, and that the United States would assess not just their words but their actions.
Asked about Austin Tice, the American journalist taken captive in Syria more than 12 years earlier, Biden said the United States believes he is alive and thinks it can get him back, but has no direct evidence of that yet, adding that Assad should be held accountable.
Source: The White House
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：叙利亚首都大马士革天际线，画面中央为倭马亚广场一带。Samosyr 摄，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Damascus skyline in Syria, with the Umayyad Square area at center. Photo by Samosyr, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
