President Assad

foxie, I think there is something wrong with the link.

I have found details of why the 3 million was sent in October. a large chunk was for women and children fleeing the war in the Lebanon

this poor region, all the innocents.

www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-commits-additional-3-million-to-bolster-aid-to-syria#:~:text=The%20UK%20has%20announced%20an,war%20which%20began%20in%202011.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63dd2a9fe90e075da4268111/UK_Syria_Crisis_Response_Summary__Feb_2023.p

Above is the Conservative Govt report on how aid has been spent in Syria for humanitarian purposes. ie it is given to provide food, clean water, shelter etc to people in dire need because they live in a cruel police state with Assad at it's head. Just to clarify, money was not given to Assad to buy cars.

Hoping for a transition with compromises. Thank you for the article Casdon.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Looking forward to seeing Gay Pride in Aleppo next year under this "diverse" and "inclusive" jihadist terrorist government.

The situation is not funny, but FGT, you did make me laugh.

edition.cnn.com/2024/12/08/middleeast/civil-war-syria-rebels-assad-intl/index.html
From CNN. This is the most detailed assessment I’ve seen so far.

Looking forward to seeing Gay Pride in Aleppo next year under this "diverse" and "inclusive" jihadist terrorist government.

David49
I think there’s more chance of the Ayatollah turning to christanty than this latest group turning to Iran.

Due to demands of Ukraine Russia couldn’t support Assad
Turkey was supplying rebels with weapons and supplies
Israel has occupied Golan Heights buffer zone and is offering a peace deal

My guess is that Trump will offer the new government a lot of cash to rebuild Syria which will do a lot to stabilize the whole region, including Lebanon.

If the new government turns out to be pro Iran then the fighting goes on

FriedGreenTomatoes2

The asylum seekers here said they feared Assad.
Now he is gone, time to return and rebuild? 🤔

Would you return now to a country which is in turmoil with no clarity about what is going to happen next, possibly a worse situation than when you left? I wouldn’t.

Photos in the press ofAssad’s garage/hangar filled with millions worth of cars including Ferraris, Aston Martins, Rolls-Royces, BMWs.

How many millions of pounds worth of Overseas Aid did the UK government give to Syria? Syria was given c. £3 million in October. We must be fools.

The asylum seekers here said they feared Assad.
Now he is gone, time to return and rebuild? 🤔

"Syria's former president Bashar al-Assad arrives in Moscow after fleeing Damascus, Russian state media report

Russia was a key ally of Assad's regime - the former president and his family will now reportedly get asylum there"

(the Russians have said that they will be able to keep their bases - I hope not.)

(BBC)

According to the BBC, Assad is in Moscow. I would guess he didn't have too many options. Not sure how this is going to pan out for him.

Now he no longer wields any significant power, he must have limited use to Putin.

Assad’s overthrow is welcome news. But our enemy’s enemy is not our friend.
The Telegraph this evening.

Assad was certainly a cruel dictator, but whoever fills the gap left by him is equally frightening. The rebels/freedom fighters, call them what you will, appear to be a mixture of Islamic State, Al Quida (sorry, unsure of spelling) and a rag bag of others. Life does not look anymore rosy for the Syrians under any of this lot than it was under Assad.

We sure live in interesting times. Assad was always a Russian (read also Iranian) puppet.

For me it signals how much Putin is struggling to keep his masterplan going and so that can't be a bad thing, can it?

It doesn't surpise me that Assad has fled like the coward he is, and now Syria is left to piece together some kind of military/Islamic state until who knows, maybe they get the democracy they were wanting?

Syria is not Afghanistan or Iran- it has a very different culture and history.

Being an optimist in the mess we're in maybe some good will finally come of all this.

The Syrian people should be helped to get some stability and good government- the alternative could be unthinkable...

Grantanow

Surprising that the International Crminal Court never bothered to pursue Assad.

ICC can only prosecute cases that happen in member states, Syria is not a member state. However, although Israel is not a member state, Netanyahu etc are charged with offences committed in Gaza, Putin is being charged for offences committed in Ukraine.
"Palestine acceded to the Rome statute in 2015, and the ICC ruled in 2021 that it was a state, thereby extending the court’s jurisdiction to territories occupied by Israel since 1967 – Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem." Guardian
"Ukraine is not a State Party to the Rome Statute, but it has twice exercised its prerogatives to accept the Court's jurisdiction over alleged crimes under the Rome Statute occurring on its territory, pursuant to article 12(3) of the Statute."

I'm not a lawyer but this is what I found in support.

ronib

I am truly unsure that Assad was a cruel leader - will the next leader be kind? I doubt it. Didn’t Assad train to be a doctor before becoming president?
The news becomes worse daily.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed, many of them civilians, and mostly by the Syrian military. The U.S. and the United Nations blamed Assad for a chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds, and perhaps more than 1,000 people, in 2013. Millions of Syrians fled abroad and millions more have been displaced inside the country. Overall, roughly half the country's 23 million people have been driven from their homes in one of the worst humanitarian crises of this century

I think you can be assured he was a cruel leader

ronib

I am truly unsure that Assad was a cruel leader - will the next leader be kind? I doubt it. Didn’t Assad train to be a doctor before becoming president?
The news becomes worse daily.

You must be in a minority of one!
There is a list as long as your arm of atrocities inflicted on his own people, widespread imprisonment without trial and torture (even of children) - go Google.

Create a vacuum. Someone will fill it.
Just who?

Reuters has collated the initial reactions from leaders around the world, which makes interesting reading. Reading between the lines, it looks as though it was unexpected, and what will happen next is unknown - not that that helps us understand I know.
www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/world-reaction-end-assad-rule-syria-2024-12-08/

Surprising that the International Crminal Court never bothered to pursue Assad.

Israel is moving more troops up to the buffer zone border with Syria to ensure its interests are protected.

I won't add more as its being reported variously as "increasing troops" to "seizing the border" and there is enough drama in the situation already.

ronib

I am truly unsure that Assad was a cruel leader - will the next leader be kind? I doubt it. Didn’t Assad train to be a doctor before becoming president?
The news becomes worse daily.

ronib are you serious? I am truly unsure that Assad was a cruel leader

Follow this link www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Reports+on+turture+and+imprisonment+in+Syria+under+assad to page after page of reports from all kinds of reputable international bodies on the extent of torture, arbitary imprisonment and govrnment authroised murders.

I know very little about it, but given the scale of the exodus during the civil war and the wide coalition that has now fought to free the country I'd hope that more would return than leave. The country certainly needs its people back, most Syrians refugees longed to return & Turkey are probably counting on the huge number of Syrian refugees they have decreasing now.