and his family have arrived in Russia and have been granted asylum by the Russian authorities, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing a Kremlin source.: “President Assad of Syria has arrived in Moscow.Syria | Bashar al-Assad flees country
Loyalists spoke with a sense of resignation about the implosion of his 24-year rule and with it, the end of decades of rule by minority Alawites – an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam – in majority Sunni Syria. Reuters spoke to four people in the Alawite heartland between the coastal city of Tartous and Latakia hours after Assad was toppled. One, Mohsen, said he was bewildered by how the Syrian army had given up without even calling up extra reserves from Assad’s core support base.