Moment Syrians ransack Assad’s palaces & explore luxury car collection after 24-year regime crumbled overnight
WATCH the incredible moment Syrians plundered ousted Bashar Al-Assad’s palace discovering his luxury car collection and taking selfies in the abandoned mansion.
The dictator fled his country, leaving behind his homes and luxuries after his 24-year regime took just days to crumble.
Syrians were filmed entering Assad’s presidential palace in Damascus as they ransacked the home.
Videos posted on social media showed families and friends gleefully roaming the former dictator’s palace.
People were seen smiling for pictures of themselves in the home’s grand rooms.
Two men even brought a selfie stick to capture the historic moment.
One man held up peace signs as he posed for pictures inside the Damascus palace.
A grand hall inside the property was left in disarray as tables, chairs, and papers were scattered and dashed across the room.
More footage also showed the huge mountain of wealth the tyrant sat on as he waged war and suffering on Syrians.
People also entered a building near the palace which housed a compound filled with dozens of cars.
People were seen driving through Assad’s garage as they captured the sports cars and huge 4x4s on camera.
These included uber-luxurious vehicles like Lamborghinis and Ferraris.
One of the people inside the compound was shocked by Assad’s hoard of wealth and said “We are not living in Dubai.”
REBEL RAID
The ruthless dictator’s Damascus palace was not the only mansion stormed this week.
Incredible footage showed Syrian rebels breaking into Assad’s Aleppo home as they wielded AK-47s.
Insurgents explored the stately home and rummaged through his bedroom drawers.
Rebels uncovered and released embarrassing photos of a scantily-clad Assad wearing just a pair of Speedos as a young man.
The image showed the warmonger posing with three other people dressed in swimwear.
These balaclava-wearing rebels however did not trash his Aleppo home and respectfully place items back where they found them.
DICTATOR GONE
Assad’s 24-year rule came to a stunning end on Sunday when rebels, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group the US labelled a terrorist organisation, managed to overthrow the government in just 10 days.
The group launched an offensive on November 27 in the northwest of the country.
Rebels quickly captured Aleppo and headed south to gain control of the vital city of Homs.
Southern rebels launched their offensive on November 28 as they moved north toward Damascus.
Insurgent groups captured Damascus on December 8 as Assad’s regime quickly fell apart.
Russian state media outlets have reported that the dictator and his family fled to Putin’s country to claim asylum.
The tyrant was thought to have left the Syrian capital on Sunday morning via a private jet which landed in Moscow.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed earlier today that humiliated Assad stepped down as president, fled the country, and begged for a “peaceful transfer” of power.
A timeline of the Syrian civil war
The sudden collapse of Assad’s rule over Syria could mark the end of a nearly 14-year civil war in the country.
2011 – The first protests against Assad quickly spread across the country, and are met by security forces with a wave of arrests and shootings.
Some protesters take up guns and military units defect as the uprising becomes an armed revolt that will gain support from Western and Arab countries and Turkey.
2012 – A bombing in Damascus is the first by al Qaeda’s new Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, which gains in power and starts crushing groups with a nationalist ideology.
World powers meet in Geneva and agree on the need for a political transition, but their divisions on how to achieve it will foil years of U.N.-sponsored peace efforts.
Assad turns his air force on opposition strongholds, as rebels gain ground and the war escalates with massacres on both sides.
2013 – Lebanon’s Hezbollah helps Assad to victory at Qusayr, halting rebel momentum and showing the Iran-backed group’s growing role in the conflict.
Washington has declared chemical weapons use a red line, but a gas attack on rebel-held eastern Ghouta near Damascus kills scores of civilians without triggering a U.S. military response.
2014 – Islamic State group suddenly seizes Raqqa in the northeast and swathes more territory in Syria and Iraq.
Rebels in the Old City of Homs surrender, agreeing to move to an outer suburb – their first big defeat in a major urban area and a precursor to future “evacuation” deals.
Washington builds an anti-Islamic State coalition and starts air strikes, helping Kurdish forces turn the jihadist tide but creating friction with its ally Turkey.
2015 – With better cooperation and more arms from abroad, rebel groups gain more ground and seize northwestern Idlib, but Islamist militants are taking a bigger role.
Russia joins the war on Assad’s side with air strikes that turn the conflict against the rebels for years to come.
2016 – Alarmed by Kurdish advances on the border, Turkey launches an incursion with allied rebels, making a new zone of Turkish control.
The Syrian army and its allies defeat rebels in Aleppo, seen at the time as Assad’s biggest victory of the war.
The Nusra Front splits from al Qaeda and starts trying to present itself in a moderate light, adopting a series of new names and eventually settling on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
2017 – Israel acknowledges air strikes against Hezbollah in Syria, aiming to degrade the growing strength of Iran and its allies.
U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led forces defeat Islamic State in Raqqa. That offensive, and a rival one by the Syrian army, drive the jihadist group from nearly all its land.
2018 – The Syrian army recaptures eastern Ghouta, before quickly retaking the other insurgent enclaves in central Syria, and then the rebels’ southern bastion of Deraa.
2019 – Islamic State loses its last scrap of territory in Syria. The U.S. decides to keep some troops in the country to prevent attacks on its Kurdish allies.
2020 – Russia backs a government offensive that ends with a ceasefire with Turkey that freezes most front lines. Assad holds most territory and all main cities, appearing deeply entrenched. Rebels hold the northwest.
A Turkey-backed force holds a border strip. Kurdish-led forces control the northeast.
2023 – The Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 triggers fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, ultimately reducing the group’s presence in Syria and fatally undermining Assad.
2024 – Rebels launch a new assault on Aleppo. With Assad’s allies focused elsewhere his army quickly collapses. Eight days after the fall of Aleppo the rebels have taken most major cities and enter Damascus, driving Assad from power.