Bashar al-Assad's first statement after fleeing Syria denies planned departure

 He was in Damascus before the opposition forces took control of Damascus, and after the capture, he left for Moscow with Russian allies. Statement by the former president

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Moscow (Point News Today- 17 December 2024) Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has denied his planned departure from Syria in an alleged statement. According to a foreign broadcaster, the first statement of ousted President Bashar al-Assad after his escape from Syria has come to light. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that he was in Damascus before the opposition forces took control of Damascus. After the capture, he left for Moscow via Latakia with Russian allies.

Bashar al-Assad said that Syria is in the hands of terrorists. I have never taken office for personal gain. I firmly believe in the protection and defense of the state by the will of the people. Bashar al-Assad said that I hope that Syria will once again be free and independent. On the other hand, after Bashar al-Assad’s escape from Syria, terrible facts are coming to light. A mass grave has been discovered in the country in which about one hundred thousand people have been buried.

The head of a US-based Syrian advocacy group has said that a mass grave outside Damascus contains the bodies of at least 100,000 people killed by the government of ousted President Bashar al-Assad. Speaking by telephone from Damascus, Moaz Mustafa said the site of Qatifa, 25 miles north of the Syrian capital, Damascus, was one of five mass graves he had identified over the years. Mustafa, the head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, said the most conservative estimate of the number of bodies buried at the site was 100,000. Mustafa said he believed there were more mass graves than those five sites and that the dead included Syrians as well as American and British citizens and other foreigners. The organization did not confirm Mouaz Mustafa's allegations. It is estimated that millions of Syrian civilians have been killed since 2011, when Assad's crackdown on protests against his government escalated into a full-scale civil war. Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, are accused by Syrian human rights groups and other governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country's notorious prison system.