DAMASCUS: Bashar al-Assad had not told anyone about his plans to flee Syria after the fall of his regime. Instead he deceived his colleagues, officials and even his relatives and kept them completely in the dark. This information has been given by Assad’s former associates. Hours before fleeing to Moscow, Assad assured a meeting of about 30 top military officials at the Syrian Defense Ministry on Saturday that Russian military aid was coming and urged ground forces to hold on. This information was given by a Syrian military commander attending that meeting on the condition of anonymity. Even the civilian staff working in Assad’s office did not know anything. Asad reached the airport after being told to go home. Reuters report said that according to his close aides, Assad told his presidential office manager on Saturday That he was going home after work, but instead he went to the airport. He also called his media advisor, Buthaina Shaban, and asked her to come to his house and write a speech for him. When she reached Asad’s palace, she found that there was no one there. “Assad didn’t even fight to the last battle. He didn’t even call out his troops. He abandoned his supporters to their own fate,” said Nadim Houri, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative regional think-tank. No statement has been given so far by Assad, who has taken refuge in Russia, on the subject of ‘being left in hell’. Interviews with 14 people familiar with his final days and hours in power suggest he was looking for outside help to extend his 24-year rule. Most of the sources, including close aides to the former president, regional diplomatic and security sources and senior Iranian officials, asked to remain anonymous in order to openly discuss sensitive matters. Assad did not even tell his brother, according to three aides Did not even tell his younger brother Maher about his exit plan. Maher is the commander of the Syrian army’s elite 4th Armored Division. One person later said Maher traveled by helicopter to Iraq and then to Russia. Assad’s maternal uncles, Ehab and Iyad Makhlouf, also remained behind after the rebels captured Damascus, according to a Syrian ally and a Lebanese security official. He said the two tried to flee to Lebanon by car, but were ambushed by rebels on the way. They shot Ehab and wounded Eyad. How Bashar al-Assad reached Russia from Syria Regional diplomats said Assad himself fled Damascus by plane on Sunday, December 8. During this time his plane’s transponder was switched off and he flew very low to escape the rebels’ radar. The dramatic exit ended his 24-year rule and his family’s half-century of unbroken power and brought a 13-year civil war to an abrupt end. They first flew to Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, and from there proceeded to Moscow. Assad’s family, including wife Asma and their three children, was already waiting for him in the Russian capital, Moscow, according to three former close aides and a senior regional official.
