MOSCOW: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad 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.
The Interfax news agency quoted the unnamed source as saying: “President Assad of Syria has arrived in Moscow. Russia has granted them (him and his family) asylum on humanitarian grounds.”
Earlier, two senior Syrian army officers said Assad had boarded a plane early on Sunday in Damascus for an unknown destination.
The plane departed Damascus soon after rebels had taken the central city of Homs, cutting the capital off from the coast where Assad’s Russian ally has air and naval bases.
The only trackable flight departing Syria visible after midnight on Flightradar24, a flight tracking site, left Homs for the UAE, hours after rebels had captured the city.
As the rebel advance gathered steam over the past week, there was speculation that Assad might seek refuge in Moscow or with his other main ally Iran. Syrian state media had said on Saturday he was still in Damascus.
He had visited Moscow just before the rebel offensive. Iranian news agencies published a photograph of him on Saturday that they said showed him meeting a top Iranian official in Damascus.