“To the displaced all over the world, a free Syria awaits you,” the statement added.
Syrian state television aired a video statement by a group of men saying that Assad has been overthrown and all detainees in jails have been set free, the Associated Press reported. The man who read the statement said the Operations Room to Conquer Damascus, an opposition group, called on all opposition fighters and citizens to preserve state institutions of “the free Syrian state,” according to the report.
The head of a Syrian opposition war monitor had said earlier that Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus following the remarkably swift advance across the country, according to media reports.
Syrian rebels encircled Damascus on Saturday after a lightning offensive that saw the opposition forces take control of key cities in the country.
On Friday, the Syrian army confirmed it had lost control of the strategic city of Hama to the rebels, an al Qaeda breakaway called Tahrir al-Sham. The rebels seized Syria’s largest city of Aleppo late last month in an effective offensive, forcing government forces to withdraw.
Statues of Assad’s father and brother were toppled in now rebel-held cities, as well as in Damascus suburbs.
