A worker tears down the pictures of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, Lebanon’s late Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a gas station in Nubl, a Shi’ite village seized by rebels, in rural Aleppo, Syria, December 11, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the country has to live with the new “realities” of Syria after the ouster of Tehran-backed president Bashar al-Assad, state media reported on Thursday (December 12, 2024).

Regarding Syria, Iran “was really trying day and night to help in whatever way it could; we have to live with the realities of Syria; we look at them and act based on them,” Hossein Salami said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

“Strategies must change according to the circumstances; we cannot solve numerous global and regional issues with stagnation and employing the same tactics,” he added.

Iran has been a strong ally of the Assad family, whose decades-long rule of Syria ended on the weekend when a whirlwind rebel offensive took the capital Damascus.

Assad had long played a strategic role in Iran’s anti-Israel “axis of resistance”, particularly in facilitating the supply of weapons to Tehran’s ally Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.

The axis of resistance includes Hezbollah as well as Hamas in Gaza, Huthi rebels in Yemen and some smaller Shia militia groups in Iraq.

Also on Thursday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps strongly condemned “the abuse of the current instability in Syria by the US and the Zionist regime,” which is Iran’s term for Israel.

“The Resistance Front will not be passive in confronting any plan or scheme that seeks to disrupt the resistance and weaken the power and authority of the countries in the region,” the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.

Turkey has forces in northern Syria, while in the south the Israeli army has sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the countries’ shared border, east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

The United States also has troops based in Syria, where they have worked with Kurdish-led fighters battling the Islamic State group.

Ties between Tehran and Damascus peaked during the Syrian civil war that started in 2011, with the Revolutionary Guards sending what it called “military advisers” to help Assad.

Soldiers of the Israeli army’s infantry 6th brigade take part in an assault coordination exercise near Moshav Kidmat Tsvi in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights on December 7, 2023, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israel has ordered its forces to create a “sterile defence zone” in southern Syria that would be enforced without a permanent Israeli presence as it tightens its hold along the line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday (December 10, 2024).

He gave no details but said the zone, would “prevent the establishment and organization of terror in Syria”.

“We will not allow this, we will not allow threats to the state of Israel,” he said in a statement following a visit to a naval base in the northern Israeli port of Haifa.

Earlier, a military spokesperson said Israeli troops remained in the demilitarized buffer zone in Syrian territory created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war as well as “a few additional points” outside the separation area.

Syrian sources claims incursion by Israeli army

But he denied that forces had penetrated Syrian territory significantly beyond the zone, after Syrian sources said the incursion had extended to within 25 km (15 miles) of the capital Damascus.

“IDF forces are not advancing towards Damascus. This is not something we are doing or pursuing in any way,” Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, the military spokesperson, told a briefing with reporters.

“We are not involved in what’s happening in Syria internally, we are not a side in this conflict and we do not have any interest other than protecting our borders and the security of our citizens,” Shoshani said.

Israeli jets have struck a string of targets across Syria since the weekend, aiming to ensure Syrian military equipment, including combat aircraft, missiles and chemical weapons, does not fall into rebel hands.

As part of the wave of strikes, Katz said Israeli missile ships had destroyed the Syrian military fleet in an operation on Monday night.

Israeli media reported that the air force had carried out as many as 250 strikes. The military declined to confirm the number but did confirm it was seeking to stop Syrian military weapons from being seized and used by potential enemies.

“We’re acting to prevent lethal strategic weapons from falling into hostile hands. We’ve been doing this for years now in different ways and in different situations, and we’re doing it now,” Shoshani said.

Fall of Assad government

The flight of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday ended over five decades of his family’s rule.

Israeli troops then moved into the demilitarised zone inside Syria, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon that overlooks Damascus, where it took over an abandoned Syrian military post.

Israel, which has just agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon following weeks of fighting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement, calls the incursion a temporary measure to ensure border security.

But it remained unclear how far beyond the designated buffer zone its troops had stopped.

Three security sources said on Tuesday the Israelis had advanced beyond the demilitarised zone. One Syrian source said they had reached the town of Qatana, several kilometres (miles) to the east of the zone and just a short drive from Damascus airport.

Israel welcomed the fall of Assad, an ally of its main enemy Iran, but has reacted cautiously to the leading rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. HTS has roots in Islamist movements including al Qaeda and Islamic State though it has sought for years to moderate its image.

Israel has said it does not seek conflict with Syria. But as in southern Lebanon following the ceasefire with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement, Israeli leaders have said they will intervene whenever they feel Israel’s security is threatened.

“We will not allow an extremist Islamic terrorist entity to act against Israel across its border,” Katz said.

People walks through the halls of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s presidential palace in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Roaming the opulent Damascus home of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Abu Omar felt a sense of giddy defiance being in the residence of the man he said had long oppressed him.

“I am taking pictures, because I am so happy to be here in the middle of his house,” said the 44-year-old, showing photographs he took on his mobile phone.

He was among the dozens an AFP correspondent saw entering Assad’s home after Assad fled the country — to Moscow according to Russian news agencies — as rebels took control of the capital in an 11-day lightning offensive.

The swift campaign by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies ended more than five decades of brutal rule by the Assad family.

“I came for revenge. They oppressed us in incredible ways,” Abu Omar added from the compound of three six-storey buildings in the upscale al-Maliki neighbourhood.

Jubilant men, women, and children wandered the home and its sprawling garden in a daze, the rooms stripped bare except for some furniture and a portrait of Assad discarded on the floor.

Residents in the Syrian capital were seen cheering in the streets, as the rebel factions heralded the departure of “tyrant” Assad.

The government fell more than 13 years after Assad’s crackdown on anti-government protests ignited Syria’s civil war, which has drawn in foreign powers, jihadists and claimed more than half a million lives.

Luxurious palace while Syria reels under power outages

On Sunday, video circulating online showed crowds peeking into the bedrooms in the Assad residence, which was previously off limits to ordinary citizens.

They could be seen snatching clothes, plates and whatever belongings they could find including a Louis Vuitton cardboard shopping bag.

In one video, a man could be heard yelling that everything was on “Sale! Sale!”.

Umm Nader, 35, came with her husband from a nearby district to tour the residence that once inspired fear and awe, and which one visitor now described as a “museum”.

“I came to see this place that we were banned from, because they wanted us to live in poverty and deprivation,” she told AFP.

Nader said the former inhabitants of the residence had left without cutting off the heating and electricity, “meanwhile our children are getting sick from the cold.”

Daily power outages that last for hours have been a fact of life in Syria, reeling from successive economic crises after more than a decade of war and Western sanctions.

Most of the population has been pushed into poverty, according to the United Nations.

An AFP correspondent also saw a charred reception hall at the Damascus presidential palace a couple kilometres away.

As he moved from room to room, Abu Omar said he felt overjoyed.

“I no longer feel afraid. My only concern is that we unite (as Syrians) and build this country together,” he said, full of emotion

Members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) a flag in Deir al-Zor, after U.S.-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters captured Deir el-Zor, the government’s main foothold in the vast desert, according to Syrian sources, in Syria December 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

At least 26 combattants were killed on Sunday (December 8, 2024) as Turkish-backed Syrian fighters launched an offensive on the northern Manbij area, days after seizing a Kurdish-held enclave.

The pro-Turkey fighters had already retaken the Kurdish-held Tal Rifaat enclave last week, days after Islamist-led rebels swooped into government-held areas, snatching key cities before reaching Damascus on Sunday.

Follow More: Syria war LIVE updates: Russia grants asylum to Assad and his family ‘on humanitarian grounds’

“Pro-Turkish factions… seized large districts of Manbij city in the eastern Aleppo countryside, after violent clashes with the Manbij Military Council,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

The Council is affiliated with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that act as a de facto army for the Kurdish administration that controls swathes of Syria’s northeast.

“The clashes killed nine pro-Turkish fighters and at least 17 Manbij Military Council” combattants, said the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

The US-backed SDF also reported “fierce clashes”, saying the military councils in Manbij and in Al-Bab were “dealing qualitative blows” to Turkish-backed fighters.

The Ankara-backed factions said they had “taken control of the city of Manbij in the eastern countryside of Aleppo after fierce battles”, in a statement on their Telegram channel.

The groups posted videos of the fighters declaring control over Manbij, said to be from inside the area.

AFP could not independently verify the videos.

Earlier Sunday, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi hailed “historic” moments with the fall of the “authoritarian regime” of President Bashar al-Assad.