European Union foreign ministers have adopted a 15th package of sanctions against Russia targeting tankers transporting Russian oil as the bloc looks to curb the circumvention of previous measures aimed at hindering Moscow's ability to wage war against Ukraine.

"This package of sanctions is part of our response to weaken Russia’s war machine and those who are enabling this war, also including Chinese companies," Kaja Kallas, the EU's top diplomat, said in a statement on December 16.

"It shows the unity of EU member states in our continued support to Ukraine. Our immediate priority is to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position. We will stand by the Ukrainian people on all fronts: humanitarian, economic, political, diplomatic and military. There can be no doubt that Ukraine will win," she added.

The European Council said it agreed on a significant package of measures against 54 individuals and 30 entities "responsible for actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence of Ukraine."

It sanctioned the military unit responsible for the striking of the Okhmadyt children's hospital in Kyiv, senior managers in leading companies in Russia's energy sector, individuals responsible for the deportation of Ukrainian children, and two "senior" North Korean officials.

Moscow's so-called shadow fleet of tankers is a group of old, uninsured oil vessels used to bypass Western sanctions and maintain a source of revenue. The poor condition of these ships has raised concerns about environmental disasters.

Separately, 12 Western nations announced measures on December 16 designed "to disrupt and deter Russia’s shadow fleet vessels."

“Russia uses its shadow fleet to circumvent sanctions and mitigate their impact on Russia. The 12 countries agreed to disrupt and deter Russia’s shadow fleet to prevent illegal operations and increase Russia’s costs of its war against Ukraine,” a statement said.

Five of the nations – Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Finland, and Estonia -- have ordered their maritime authorities to request relevant proof of insurance from suspected “shadow” vessels as they pass through bodies of water under their jurisdiction, the statement added.

The statement was issued by the government of Estonia, where leaders of the 10-nation Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) were scheduled to meet on December 17.

A draft of a statement of conclusions being prepared for an EU summit later this week and seen by RFE/RL said that efforts "to further limit Russia's ability to wage war must continue."

The draft, which is still subject to revision, adds that the European Council "strongly condemns" Iran and North Korea for helping to sustain Russia's "war of aggression against Ukraine."

The bloc said growing military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran and the deployment of North Koreans to the battlefront have "serious consequences for international peace and security" and called on both countries to stop helping Russia.

The EU will continue aiding Ukraine financially to stave off the Russian invasion, with plans to disburse a total of 18.1 billion euros ($19 billion) to Kyiv in 2025 starting in January.

On developments in Syria, the bloc welcomed the fall of the "criminal regime" of Bashar al-Assad and called for an "inclusive and Syrian-led political process" to install a government that protects the rights of minorities.

It added that the bloc's foreign policy chief would be asked to "prepare options for measures to support Syria."

On the Gaza War, it called for "an immediate cease-fire" and the unconditional release of hostages held by Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the EU and the United States.

It also reiterated its stance on a two-state solution to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and establish "just and lasting peace."

The EU summit will take place in Brussels on December 19.

A Russian cargo plane took off early on December 14 from the Hmeimim air base in western Syria and was reportedly destined for Libya as Moscow continued its departure from its key regional ally.

Citing a Syrian official who monitors the base, Reuters reported that several more Russian transport planes were expected to depart from the base in the coming days as part of an evacuation following the fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Satellite images taken on December 13 by the space technology company Maxar appeared to show Russia preparing for the withdrawal of military equipment from the Hmeimim air base.

The images showed what appear to be at least two Antonov An-124 cargo planes on the tarmac with their nose cones open.

The source cited by Reuters did not specify the make or model of the aircraft that departed on December 14.

Reuters further reported that on the morning of December 14 an Il-76 cargo plane was seen at the base, while helicopters were flying within the perimeter of facility that was essential to Russia’s strategy of providing air support for Assad’s forces and allies in the Syrian civil war.

Russia's intervention in the war in 2015 had helped keep Assad in power, but the strongman leader fled Syria last week as the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies -- some of whom are linked with Turkey -- overran government forces in a blitz offensive.

Russia helped Assad leave the country as the rebel forces approached Damascus and granted him asylum.

RFE/RL determined earlier this week based on satellite images that a Russian Il-76 had landed in Libya at the Al-Jufra air base on December 10. There is no information regarding where the plane came from or where it subsequently went. It is unknown if the Il-76 was the same plane reported by Reuters as being at the Hmeimim air base.

Previous analysis of satellite imagery by RFE/RL revealed that Russia's largest cargo aircraft, the An-124, had been spotted at the base, along with Il-76s, an An-32, and an An-72.

Russian military personnel are stationed at the Al-Jufra air base in Libya.

A number of Western media outlets have reported that Russia has been withdrawing military forces and assets from Syria in the face of Assad's fall, which experts say was a "slap in the face" to Russia.

Moscow leveraged its image as a key supporter of Assad capable of keeping him in power to expand its influence throughout the Middle East and beyond as a counterweight to the West.

Now, Assad's fall and the Russian departure threatens Moscow's influence not only in Syria but across the region.

Earlier reports suggested that Russia was negotiating with the new authorities in charge in Damascus to maintain its bases in Syria.

Aside from Hmeimim, Russia operates a naval base in Tartus, its only warm-water naval base outside the former Soviet Union.

The foreign ministers of the Arab League and Turkey met in Jordan on December 14 to discuss how to assist Syria's transition after the fall of Assad's government.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a news conference after the meeting that the United States had made "direct contact" with the HTS and other parties.

He declined to discuss details of the contacts but said it was important for the United States to convey messages to the group about its conduct and how it intends to govern in a transition period.

Blinken said a joint communique had been agreed at the meeting that sets out the principles that other countries want to see in Syria's political transition, including inclusivity and respect for minorities.

With reporting by AFP, Reuters, and AP

When he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently believed Russian forces would topple the government within weeks and restore Moscow's dominance over the country after 30 years of independence.

Putin was mistaken, and the war he started rages on nearly three years later. It's hard to imagine Putin didn't mull over his miscalculation when militant-led opposition forces seized Damascus and swept Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power less than two weeks after launching an offensive.

The Kremlin's focus on the war against Ukraine is one of the factors that fed into the speed and success of the Syrian rebel offensive. Russian warplanes stepped up attacks on rebel-held territory as the offensive took hold, but with its military capabilities in Syria limited and its eyes on Ukraine, Moscow made no massive effort to stop it.

Now that Assad has fallen, what effect will Russia's big Middle East setback have on its war against Ukraine?

On the battlefield, not a huge one, analysts say, though it will depend in part on the fate of Russia's forces and bases in Syria: the airfield at Hmeimim and the naval facility at Tartus.

"A partial or full withdrawal would free up some reconnaissance, air force, special forces, and intelligence assets.... But Russia's presence in Syria is probably only a few thousand troops," Dara Massicot, a military analyst and senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told RFE/RL in e-mailed comments.

Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said in a Telegram post that as of this past summer "there were about 6,000-7,000 Russian military personnel in Syria," including members of private military companies tied to the Russian state.

"Even if all these soldiers were transferred to the Russian Federation and then sent to the war against Ukraine, this would not significantly affect the situation on the front, given the rather high daily losses of the Russian Army in assault operations," Kovalenko wrote.

The Russian military has suffered massive casualties as it seeks to augment its gains in recent months, particularly in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, ahead of what is widely expected to be an effort by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to push for peace when he takes office in January.

Analysts pointed out that if Russian ships based at Tartus leave the Mediterranean, they cannot enter the Black Sea because Turkey has restricted passage through the Bosporus.

The departure of warplanes from Syria would be more meaningful because "it could strengthen the aviation group fighting against Ukraine," Kyiv-based military analyst Mykhaylo Samus told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service. "It is the aviation component that could play a negative role" for Ukraine.

Ivan Kyrychevskiy, an analyst at the consulting firm Defense Express in Kyiv, was more dismissive, saying, "Russia's manipulation of its resources in Syria will in no way affect Ukraine" and that, at this point, "We can't say that the Russians are leaving [Syria,] and that's the end of it."

"Russia would be willing to offer a lot to the new coalition in Syria to retain some presence there as a first priority," Massicot told RFE/RL. "Russia will try to solidify agreements in Libya and Sudan as a partial offset."

Some experts say the reputational blow Russia has suffered in Syria may further sharpen Putin's hunger for control over Ukraine.

"Assad's collapse has...shaken Putin, making him less inclined to demonstrate flexibility with Ukraine," Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote on X. "The war in Ukraine has, to some extent, cost him Syria, which reinforces his unwillingness to compromise."

Ruth Deyermond, a senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, says the events in Syria seem unlikely to affect Russia's determination to prevail in Ukraine.

"Given how tightly Putin's presidency is tied to the war in Ukraine, how far he's been willing to reshape Russian economy and society, how many lives he's been willing to sacrifice for it, and how dependent he's made Russia on other states (China, Iran, North Korea), it's hard to imagine that the loss in Syria will make much difference because it's hard to see how the Kremlin could take victory in Ukraine more seriously than they already do," she wrote in e-mailed comments to RFE/RL.

Massicot suggests it will depend on how much of a presence in Syria and the surrounding region Russia manages to salvage.

"If Russia is pushed out entirely from Syria and they are unable to offset with basing elsewhere in the region, such a serious blow to Russian power would probably make Putin more rigid and determined to show control and 'success' in Ukraine," she wrote.

At the same time, Ukrainian commentators say the collapse of a regime that had stood as a symbol of newfound Russian clout abroad could prompt the rest of the world to view Moscow as weaker and more vulnerable than when Assad's grip on power seemed firm for almost a decade after Russia's military intervention in Syria in 2015.

The "myth that Russia is great, invincible, and so forth -- it's all just propaganda. And I think this was seen clearly once again in many capitals, and it will influence all subsequent events," Volodymyr Ohryzko, Ukraine's foreign minister in 2007-09 and now the head of a center for the study of Russia, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.

"For us, I think this is a positive moment in our work with Western partners. And we must take advantage of this moment," Ohryzko said.

"We can use this in Ukraine, showing that nuclear powers can lose. The Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan, the United States essentially lost in Vietnam," Ukrainian political analyst Oleksandr Khara told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, adding it could help persuade Kyiv's supporters "that we can win in Ukraine if they help us with the necessary weapons and other things."

"We've seen in the past that the West has been willing to extend further support to Ukraine when they've had military successes against Russia. The Kremlin's inability to take any serious steps to prevent this geopolitical humiliation [in Syria] shows how overstretched they are in Ukraine," Deyermond wrote.

"That and the failure of Putin's recent nuclear threats should encourage NATO members in their support for Ukraine."

The Islamic State (IS) has been considered a largely spent force for years, with its remnants present in the vast desert that straddles the border between Syria and Iraq.

But the extremist group could attempt to exploit the power vacuum in Syria, where militants toppled longtime President Bashar al-Assad, to make a resurgence, experts warn.

IS militants stunned the world when they seized large swaths of Syria and Iraq and declared a self-styled caliphate in 2014. But they had been largely defeated by a U.S.-led coalition by 2018.

“IS is the kind of movement and group that reformulates and recreates itself,” said Fatima Ayub, a Washington-based political analyst and researcher on the Middle East and South Asia.

Experts say the group will look to exploit the sectarian and ethnic fault lines in Syria to reestablish a foothold in the country.

Underscoring the threat posed by the group, the United States has carried out scores of air strikes against suspected IS hideouts in Syria in recent days.

Sleeper Cells

The U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which control northeastern Syria, have warned that IS sleeper cells could attempt to exploit the fluid situation in the country.

Syria has been gripped by uncertainty since militants led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a U.S. and EU-designated terrorist organization, seized power and toppled Assad on December 8.

In Damascus, HTS has formed a transitional administration. But it is unclear if it will be able to disarm or coopt disparate armed groups that control different parts of Syria. If HTS cannot, there remains the possibility of a renewed civil war or prolonged instability, experts say.

“The modus operandi of IS is chaos, it's harm, it's targeting civilians,” said Ayub.

Thousands of IS fighters and their family members are held in dozens of prison camps controlled by the SDF in northern and eastern Syria.

Anne Speckhard, director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism in Washington, said there are still IS supporters in Syria who “routinely engage in terror attacks.”

She said imprisoned IS members hope that these armed supporters “assault the prisons [they’re held in] and free them to reconstitute IS’s territorial caliphate.”

'Keep The Problem At Bay'

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on December 9 that “IS will try to use this period to reestablish its capabilities, to create safe havens.”

Since December 8, U.S. forces have conducted “precision air strikes” against 75 targets, including “known IS camps and operatives” in central Syria, according to the Pentagon.

Since 2014, Washington has led a global coalition to defeat IS. In October 2019, the United States killed IS founding leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi. Since then, it has killed three of his successors.

“If the U.S. keeps up the pressure on IS with these air strikes, it can help keep the problem at bay,” said Aymenn Al-Tamimi, an independent Spain-based analyst tracking the extremist group. “It's not necessarily the case that IS manages to regroup and make big gains.”

The key, Tamimi said, is the vast central and eastern desert region in Syria where remnants of IS are still active.

The area is largely controlled by the SDF. But in a sign of an impending power struggle, HTS seized control of the oil-rich eastern city of Deir ez-Zor from the SDF on December 11.

“There's been no resolution yet of the relationship between SDF areas and whatever the central authority in Damascus will be,” he said.

Meanwhile, there have been deadly clashes between the SDF and the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), which is loosely allied with HTS.

Tamimi said it is unlikely that IS will swiftly overrun large swaths of Syria as it did back in 2014. But infighting among the various militant and rebel groups in the country could offer it an opening.

“They could take advantage of fighting between the Turkish-backed groups and SDF,” he said.

Some shuffled out of the Syrian prison’s gray concrete corridors like zombies rising from a graveyard. Some sobbed as they reunited with long-unseen relatives. Some exulted, crying at newfound freedom from an institution whose brutality earned it the moniker “the human slaughterhouse.”

The fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad opened a Pandora’s Box of revelations about the cruelty of the country’s hated internal security services. Exhibit A is the Saydnaya prison, the military-run complex north of Damascus where tens of thousands of prisoners have been held, tortured, and executed over many years.

Between 2011 and 2018, more 30,000 detainees were executed or died of starvation, medical neglect, or from torture, according to estimates by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based war monitor.

Saydnaya – whose name is sometimes spelled as Sednaya -- was decidedly a Syrian creation, said Philip Luther, head of research for Amnesty International, to jail and punish alleged Islamic extremists initially, and later, political prisoners or anyone perceived to be a threat to the regime.

Since Assad’s flight over the weekend, activists have flocked to the facility throwing its doors open, releasing people, some of whom reportedly have been held for decades, hammering down walls, and unearthing the horrifying details of the facility’s operations.

“In short, I’m not aware that the design or operation of Saydnaya prison was guided or inspired by outside entities such as Iran or Russia,” Luther told RFE/RL. “The operation of the prison seems to have responded to the particular security objectives of the Syrian authorities.”

In the hours after the prison’s gates were breached, thousands of people flocked to the facility, many looking for news of relatives.

Other videos verified by RFE/RL showed people, some appearing to be rebels or insurgents, scouring through paper administrative files, while scores of men thronged corridors of the complex celebrating their release.

Other men appeared confused and befuddled inside the complex's first floor, apparently not understanding they had been freed.

"Don't be scared! The regime has fallen! Don't be scared! You are free!" says the narrator of another video verified by RFE/RL. "Leave, old man! Thank God you are safe! You are free!"

"I haven't had a biscuit in 9 years," another man said joyfully, as he also fed another inmate.

Rumors that the complex contained vast, subterranean cell blocks drew people with engineering and demolition equipment, to sledgehammer concrete walls. The White Helmets, a well-known humanitarian organization, brought in jackhammers to drill into floors.

The group issued a statement on December 9 saying that it had not discovered any “unopened or hidden areas in the facility.”

In 2017, the U.S. State Department publicly accused the Syrian government of building a crematorium at Saydnaya, and prison officials killing as many as 50 people day, mainly by hanging, the bodies being dumped in a mass grave. U.S. officials accused Syria of apparently conducting the killings with “unconditional support of Russia and Iran", though officials later qualified that there was no evidence that Russia or Iran were involved with the crematorium.

"This is from Saydnaya prison. This is the food that they're serving. "Those are the cells," one man narrates in another unverified video as he films the interior of the prison. "They feed them cabbage."

Prisoner survivors, relatives, and activists have reported that some inmates had been held in Saydnaya for years -- if not decades. One video that circulated widely but RFE/RL could not independently verify purported to show one man who was incapable of speaking and who had been held in the facility for 13 years.

The jubilation at Saydnaya was echoed elsewhere around Damascus and other cities, in scenes of other prisoners being released and exulting at their freedom.

“Ten years in prison! Ten years!” one newly freed prisoner yelled on December 8, as a crowd of men ran past the Ministry of Energy in Damascus.”

In one video that circulated widely on social media, an unnamed woman who purportedly spent years in various Syrian prisons is shown sobbing as she is reunited with her two young children.

Riyad Avlar, who spent 12 years inside the prison and is now the co-founder of the Turkey-based Association of Detainees and The Missing in Sednaya Prison, likened the facility to what he’s read about North Korea prisons.

“What people should understand is the Assad regime was like Hitler, like the Nazis. Absolutely as bad,” Avlar told RFE/RL.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in his first public comments since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was ousted, accused the United States and Israel of orchestrating the rebel uprising that toppled the regime over the weekend.

Khamenei on December 11 also implicitly blamed Turkey for the lightning push of Syrian rebels who reached Damascus from their strongholds in the northwest with little resistance.

"It should not be doubted that what happened in Syria was the product of a joint American and Zionist plot," he said.

"Yes, a neighboring government of Syria plays, played, and is playing a clear role…but the main conspirator, mastermind, and command center are in America and the Zionist regime," Khamenei added.

The U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies -- some of whom are linked with Turkey -- ousted Assad on December 8, less than two weeks after launching their offensive.

Syria under Assad served as a crucial part of a land corridor connecting Iran to the Levant, which was considered the logistical backbone of the so-called axis of resistance -- Iran's loose network of regional proxies and allies.

Iran spent billions of dollars and sent military advisers to Syria to ensure Assad remained in power when civil war broke out in 2011.

Russia -- where the ousted Syrian leader has been granted political asylum -- also backed Assad, while Turkey has supported rebel groups who aimed to topple the regime.

A Khamenei adviser once described Syria as the "golden ring" in the chain connecting Iran to its Lebanese partner, Hezbollah. With the ring broken and Hezbollah's capabilities degraded after a devastating war with Israel, experts say the axis has become severely weak.

Khamenei said only "ignorant and uninformed analysts" would assess that the axis has become weak and vowed that its reach "will expand across the region more than before."

Reza Alijani, an Iranian political analyst based in France, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that Khamenei's comments were more "trash talk" than anything else.

"The axis may not have been defeated, but it has suffered a serious blow and the Islamic republics arms in the region have been deal major hits," he said.

Alijani argued that factions within the Islamic republic's core support base may be starting to question Khamenei's policies and vision after the recent setbacks, which he said is a cause for concern among the clerical establishment's top brass.

With reporting by Hooman Askary of RFE/RL’s Radio Farda

Syria's interim prime minister took power with the support of the rebels who ousted President Bashar al-Assad as outside powers -- including Russia, Turkey, the United States, and Israel -- maneuvered to protect their geopolitical interests in the war-torn Middle East nation.

In an address on recently captured state TV, Muhammad al-Bashir said he would lead Syria's interim authority through March 1 as the new rulers, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants, looked to solidify control after deposing Assad over the weekend.

Little-known Bashir, born in Idlib Province in 1982 and an engineering graduate, had once worked for Syria's state gas entity and has served as head of the rebel's so-called Salvation Government for the past year.

HTS has been designated a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union. In recent years, the group severed ties with Al-Qaeda and sought to remake itself as a pragmatic alternative to the Syrian government, although Western powers and rights groups remain cautious.

Meanwhile, Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, on December 10 told NBC News that Moscow is providing sanctuary to Assad after transporting him there "in the most secure way possible." He didn't provide further details.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on December 9 that President Vladimir Putin made the decision personally to grant asylum to Assad and his family.

Earlier on December 10, loud explosions were heard amid reports Israel has been systematically striking Syrian military installations following the ouster of Assad’s brutal regime.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed that the military had struck several Syrian sites and had hit its naval vessels in overnight strikes.

"The [military] has been operating in Syria in recent days to strike and destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel. The navy operated last night to destroy the Syrian fleet with great success," Katz said.

Katz said Israel’s military has been ordered to create a weapons-free zone in southern Syria "to prevent the establishment and organization of terrorism] in the country.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said Israel had "destroyed the most important military sites in Syria," including “airports and their warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, and many weapons and ammunition depots in various locations in most Syrian governorates."

The reports came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is "transforming the face of the Middle East" and defeating its enemies "step by step" in what he called an "existential war that has been imposed upon us."

Netanyahu said Assad's regime had been a "central element of Iran's axis of evil," accusing it of facilitating a "weapons pipeline" between Iran and the Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, which has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States. Israel has launched a monthslong air campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah.

Washington has also conducted some 75 air strikes on Islamic State (IS) militants, who still have a presence in Syria, in recent days to prevent the group from taking advantage of the turmoil that followed Assad's fall.

"You can expect that kind of activity will continue. We don't want to give [IS] an opportunity to exploit what is going on," White House national-security spokesman John Kirby said on December 10.

The United States has about 900 troops in Syria as part of its decade-long fight against IS.

"[IS] will try to use this period to reestablish its capabilities, to create safe havens," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on December 9. "As our precision strikes over the weekend demonstrate, we are determined not to let that happen."

Washington said it is seeking ways to engage with Syrian rebel groups and is reaching out to partners in the region, including Turkey, to initiate informal contacts.

"We have the ability to communicate with the opposition groups, and we'll continue to do that," Kirby said in his briefing.

The Syrian Observatory also said IS militants killed at least 54 government soldiers who were fleeing advancing rebels "during the collapse of the regime" in the Sukhna area of Homs Province. The report could not immediately be verified.

Meanwhile, satellite imagery by Planet Labs showed Russian naval ships have left their Syrian base at Tartus, with some dropping anchor offshore.

Imagery showed at least three vessels -- including two guided missile frigates -- some 13 kilometers off the coast.

Russia has an estimated 7,500 troops and multiple military sites in Syria, including an air base at Hmeimim along with the strategic naval facilities at Tartus, which are also used to support the Kremlin's actions in North and sub-Saharan Africa.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government has ties to many of the rebel groups involved in the takeover, said Ankara will act against anyone seeking to compromise its Syrian territory.

"From now on, we cannot allow Syria to be divided again.... Any attack on the freedom of the Syrian people, the stability of the new administration, and the integrity of its lands will find us standing against it," he said.

Turkey has claimed U.S.-backed Syrian-Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria to be "terrorists" linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been designated as a terrorist group by Ankara, as well as by Washington.

Tehran, which was also a long-standing backer of Assad, on December 10 said some 4,000 Iranian citizens have left Syria over the past three days. Iranian proxies are thought to have multiple military sites inside Syria, some of which have been hit by Israeli air attacks, but the government has so far been relatively muted in its response to Assad's fall.

On December 9, the UN Security Council held a closed-door meeting on the situation in Syria called by Russia, which together with Iran, has been a main backer of Assad's regime.

"The Council, I think, was more or less united on the need to preserve the territorial integrity and unity of Syria, to ensure the protection of civilians, to ensure that humanitarian aid is coming to the population in need," said Russia's UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, in a statement released after the meeting.

The HTS-led rebels announced on December 9 that they were granting amnesty to all military personnel conscripted during Assad's rule, which began in 2000 following the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had seized power in 1970.

Ahmad al-Sharaa, 42, previously known by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, has become the public face of HTS, which itself was formerly known as the Al Nusra Front, among other names.

Several European states on December 9 announced they were suspending the granting of asylum requests from Syrians as they awaited developments.

The flood of Syrian refugees during the country's 14-year civil war has often been used by far-right politicians in Europe to inflame passions and bolster their support among voters.

The EU has urged a peaceful political transition in Syria, saying that "it is imperative that all stakeholders engage in an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned dialogue on all key issues."

But EU spokesman Anouar El Anouni said the bloc was "not currently engaging with HTS or its leaders, full stop."

The Syrian civil war began after Assad's regime unleashed a brutal crackdown in March 2011 against peaceful demonstrators inspired by the wave of protests known as the Arab Spring that were sweeping the Middle East at the time.

Beginning in 2015, Russia intervened in the civil war on Assad's side, unleashing a massive bombing campaign against the rebel groups, including Islamist militants, causing numerous civilian casualties and prompting tens of thousands to flee.

The fall of the Assad regime marks a major geopolitical setback for the Kremlin, which, along with Iran, has propped up his government, experts say.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and dpa

With the dust still swirling after the dramatic collapse of the Syrian government, some Western governments have hinted that they may be open to working with emerging new rulers that they currently consider to be part of a terrorist organization.

Three key European capitals have all indicated that they could change their stance on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the blacklisted Islamist militant group that swept into Damascus on December 8.

This came after comments by U.S. President Joe Biden, reflecting on how the group’s rhetoric had changed as it sought to distance itself from its previous affiliation with Al-Qaeda: "As they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words, but their actions.”

President-elect Donald Trump's immediate response revealed little about how Syria policy might evolve on his watch, beyond stating simply that it is "not our fight." But his administration will also have to decide how to deal with Syria.

"I suspect there's going to be a lot of conversation about what kind of government HTS is going to form," said Fatima Ayub, a Washington-based political analyst and researcher on the Middle East and South Asia.

"Maybe we will see some dynamics like we saw with Sudan, with sanctions relief in return for normalization with Israel. So, there are a lot of big questions on the horizon, and I'm not even sure HTS necessarily has the answers [at this stage]."

It is clear the group's position as a leading player in Syria following the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad presents Western governments with a dilemma. Previously a relatively minor armed group, controlling Syria's northwestern Idlib Province, it was easy to proscribe and largely ignore.

But HTS now appears too important for that, so Western governments seem to be carefully rowing back.

France’s acting foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, told France Info radio on December 8 that HTS was "an Islamist movement” that must “demonstrate its sincere desire to rid the transition of extremism, Islamism, and jihadism." He added that an envoy would leave for Damascus this week.

Germany took a similarly equivocal line. Foreign Ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer said moves by HTS to distance itself from its past would be judged by its treatment of civilians and ethnic and religious minorities.

In Britain, Cabinet Minister Pat McFadden said a "swift decision" would need to be made about whether to remove HTS from the government's list of designated terrorist organizations.

It is not yet clear what role HTS will play in a post-Assad Syria. But if, as seems likely, it emerges as a key player, Western governments appear keen to keep their options open.

"I think the West should deal with the new reality on the ground," said Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group.

"They should put forward clear benchmarks for HTS, and if they meet them, they should reconsider their sanctions/designations that will only be an impediment to peace and security to post-Assad Syria."

This approach would differ to that taken toward Taliban-run Afghanistan. There, Western governments have kept their distance from an extremist group whose widespread human rights abuses and severe restrictions on women they have repeatedly condemned.

"I don't see HTS doing things like banning girls from going to school. I think they are more moderate than the Taliban," said U.S.-based analyst Ayub.

"HTS has a lot of questions to ask themselves, because fighting a war is very different than governing a country. And we saw, you know, the Taliban struggle to make this shift in Afghanistan. I still think there are a lot of open questions."

And even as Western governments appeared to shift cautiously on HTS, they have also made it clear that they take nothing on trust. Biden stressed that the group had its own "grim record of terrorism and human rights abuses."

They are also readying for a scenario in which a stable new government fails to emerge, and the threat of a resurgence by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. On December 8, U.S. officials said warplanes carried out strikes on what they called 75 IS targets in Syria.

Another concern is stocks of chemical weapons held by the Assad government, and whose hands they might now fall into. Israel said it had struck facilities in connection with this.

The situation in Syria also has a potential impact on domestic politics in a number of countries. Millions of Syrians fled the country's devastating civil war that erupted in 2011, and questions are being asked about how many of them will wish -- or be able -- to return home.

Hundreds of them have formed lines on Syria's borders with Lebanon and Turkey. The presence of large Syrian refugee populations has been a source of tension in both countries, as it has been in Europe.

In Germany, it was announced that asylum decisions for Syrians would be frozen until the situation became clearer. A senior opposition figure called for financial incentives for Syrian refugees to return. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said it was "too soon" for such talk.

Iran spent decades building the so-called axis of resistance, its network of regional armed proxies, Tehran-backed militant groups, and allied state actors.

The network was the lynchpin of Tehran's efforts to deter Israel and the United States and exert its influence across the Middle East.

But the fall of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Tehran, has done irreparable damage to the network, analysts say.

For Iran, Syria provided a crucial land corridor to the Levant that was considered the logistical backbone of the axis. The corridor, also known as the Shi'ite Crescent, connected Tehran to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, a key ally and an integral part of the axis.

"There is no axis without access," said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "The resistance is not done, but losing the ability to logistically support Hezbollah means the loss of Iran's strategic depth."

Broken Corridor

Underscoring Syria's importance, Iran spent billions of dollars to keep Assad in power.

Tehran intervened militarily in Syria's civil war in 2013 and played a key role in shoring up Assad's forces. It deployed hundreds of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officers to recruit and train tens of thousands of local and foreign Shi'ite fighters.

After the loss of the land corridor connecting axis members from Iran to Lebanon, "we are likely to see a much-diminished resistance in the coming months and years," said Farzan Sabet, senior research associate at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

The axis, he said, will have "a considerably lower capacity to rebuild or conduct military operations in the future."

At its height, the axis was active in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and was meant to give Iran the ability to hit its enemies outside its own borders while allowing it to maintain a position of plausible deniability.

But the axis has suffered a series of debilitating setbacks in recent months.

Syria is now effectively ruled by the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies -- some of whom are linked with Turkey, Iran's rival. The HTS seized power in Damascus on December 8.

Hezbollah has been severely weakened after a bruising, yearlong war with Israel, which killed the group's longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Meanwhile, Israel's devastating war in the Gaza Strip has diminished the capabilities of U.S.-designated Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, another axis member.

Events in Syria "will certainly place significantly more restraints on Iran’s ability to maintain its regional influence," said Raz Zimmt, senior researcher at the Israeli-based Institute for National Security Studies.

Iran's 'Very Bad' Options

Weakened regionally, Iran now has tough decisions to make, including reconsidering its deterrence strategy and possibly developing a nuclear bomb, experts say.

Zimmt says Iran has two "very bad options" -- to do nothing and recognize that its deterrence against Israel has been compromised, or weaponize its nuclear program and expose itself to the possibility of an Israeli attack.

Things look equally grim for Iran’s axis of resistance, according to Sabet, who says Tehran will be under pressure to pull back its regional activities.

Sabet says Iran will seek to exploit any potential chaos in the region, including in post-Assad Syria, to reassert its influence.

"If the civil war in Syria is not quickly settled and a new order created, it might become precisely the type of environment where the Islamic republic has historically thrived," Sabet said.

Nine years ago, a caravan of hulking military cargo planes and aging naval ships began shuttling back and forth from Russian bases depositing a massive expeditionary military force to western Syria, cementing Russia's muscular presence in the Middle East and ultimately saving the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Assad is now gone, the fate of those bases are now jeopardy, and the question of Russia's entire Middle East strategy is now very much up in the air.

The fall of the Assad regime this past weekend was a tectonic event, reverberating across the entire Middle East and further. The Kremlin's 2015 Syria intervention, which scrambled the regional calculus, is now being scrambled yet again as Moscow tries to figure out what to do next.

As of December 9, there were no confirmed signs of any Russian pullout from Syria. An unnamed Kremlin official told the TASS state news agency that Russia had reached an agreement to ensure the safety of its military assets in Syria. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment to reporters.

"It's still premature to discuss this," he told reporters. "However, this will be a topic for discussion with whomever will be in charge in Syria in the future."

Here's what you need to know about Russia's presence in Syria, and what might come next.

What, Where, And Who

Russia's presence with Syria dates back to Soviet relations with Assad's father, and resulted in a critical asset for Moscow in 1971: naval access to the deep-water Mediterranean port at Tartus. Moscow's attention waned until 2011, when a popular uprising morphed into outright civil war threatening Assad's government.

In September 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's largest expeditionary force in decades, if ever, to deploy to Syria to bolster Assad's sputtering efforts to battle rebels and extremist groups. Syria granted Russia a 49-year lease access to Tartus and the air base at Hmeimim.

"The situation was very difficult, both in terms of morale and exhaustion," General Valery Gerasimov, the chairman of Russia's General Staff, said in an interview published in 2017. "A lack of ammunition, necessary types of support, command. Our operation began, and after some time we saw the first successes…. Today the Syrian Army is capable of performing tasks to protect its territory."

The following year, after months of relentless air strikes that obliterated cities -- a campaign so ruthless that the commander who ordered it was given the nickname "General Armageddon" -- Syria's military had the upper hand. Emboldened Russian forces, whose numbers also included private Wagner Group mercenaries, clashed with U.S.-backed forces in eastern Syria in 2018.

At the peak of Russia's intervention in Syria, around 2017, as many as 6,000 combat and auxiliary troops were deployed, including mercenary forces, according to estimates by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Most of those ground forces were employed to advise Syria's military, but commanders also deployed Russian artillery and armored units, as well as special forces, to support Syrian infantry, particularly in 2016 during the offensive to retake Aleppo, Syria's largest city.

It's unclear how big the current Russian contingent on the ground is. The Telegram channel YeZh estimated 7,000 troops remained in the country.

Whither The Warm-Water Port

Tartus was a springboard for Russia to project power, not only in Syria throughout the Middle East but into Africa and elsewhere. After 2015, Russia used its Baltic and Black Sea ships extensively to supply the port and transport heavy weaponry and construction equipment. A construction company linked to a Kremlin-allied businessman was awarded a contract in 2019 to manage and expand the port.

The port's mooring capacity is as many as 11 vessels, including nuclear-powered ships. Several diesel-electric submarines cycled in and out of the facility and were used to fire Kalibr cruise missiles at Syrian targets.

The port's water depth also accommodated larger ships, including the Russian Navy's oft-mocked flagship, the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, which was deployed to the eastern Mediterranean between October 2016 and January 2017.

In days prior to the capture of Damascus by Syrian rebel groups, several ships, most of which that had been berthed at Tartus, were spotted heading out to sea, stoking speculation that an evacuation was under way. Тhe Defense Ministry, however, on December 3 released footage of the flotilla firing missiles, saying the maneuvers were a training exercise.

"What Tartus meant for Russia was the ability to project maritime power and political influence relatively uncontested in the Middle East and allowed to punch above its weight," Fredrik Van Lokeren, a retired Belgian naval officer, wrote in a December 8 blog post.

The Russian ships at Tartus might have been utilized to help Russia's operations in the Black Sea, which have also been severely curtailed by innovative Ukrainian tactics. But the warships are barred from transiting Turkey's Bosporus by international treaty.

Forced Air

Located some 60 kilometers up the coast from Tartus, Russia's air forces have utilized the Hmeimim air base. In addition to hosting fighter jets and helicopters, it's also served as the destination for the massive cargo planes that have shuttled men and materiel in and out of Syria.

Russian engineers enlarged the base in 2016-17, lengthening runways and expanding parking capacity. Putin paid an unannounced visit to the base in December 2017, where he declared victory of Syria's rebel forces, whom he called "terrorists."

"If the terrorists again raise their heads, we will deal such blows to them as they have never seen," he said at the time.

Russia's air fleet in Syria included more than two dozen Su-24 and Su-25 frontline bombers and ground-attack aircraft, according to a semi-official report published in 2016, along with at least eight advanced Su-30 fighter bombers and 12 Mi-24 and Ka-52 attack helicopters, among others.

From September 2015 to January 2018, CSIS estimates, Russian forces flew more than 34,000 combat sorties, with Su-24s and Su-34s serving as the primary strike aircraft.

Russian forces also deployed short-range Iskander-M ballistic missiles systems, as well as the sophisticated long-range S-400 air-defense system and short-range defenses like Pantsir and Tor systems. All would have to be shipped out by air or sea.

In recent days, commercial satellite imagery has shown the presence of several Ilyushin Il-76 jets -- heavy-lift workhorse cargo planes -- parked on the runways at Hmeimim, suggesting the possibility of the beginning of an evacuation.

However, given the amount of weaponry and equipment deployed to Syria and Moscow's reluctance to leave it for Syrian rebels, it would require dozens of flights or sea shipment to remove it all. It will be difficult to hide that, said Dara Massicot, an expert on the Russian military at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

From Latakia To Donbas

The best explanation for the dizzying collapse of Assad and his military is the absence of support from Damascus's two strongest allies: Iran and Russia. Where Russia is concerned, the explanation leads to its unrelenting invasion of Ukraine, now in its 34th month with no end in sight.

Russia's casualties there have climbed past 600,000, according to Western estimates, and its economy is running at torrid pace, as defense factories rush to keep pace with Ukraine's destruction of weaponry and equipment.

That means little spare capacity -- men and material -- to bolster Syria's efforts.

The Kremlin may still end up reaching an agreement with the rebel leadership and preserve access to one or both facilities in Syria. If not, however, Russia's ability to project military or economic power will be severely curtailed.

The two facilities were a key conduit for covert and overt military supplies in north and central Africa, as well as a conduit for revenues generated in several countries, often under dubious circumstances.

That includes places like Libya, where Russian mercenaries and irregular forces fought alongside a renegade Libyan general, Khalifa Haftar, in a 2019 offensive to seize the port of Tripoli.

Russia operations have also spread to other troubled African regions like the Central African Republic and Niger. Last July, in Mali, a Russian mercenary force suffered major losses in a battle with Tuareg rebels.

Experts say Russia could shift some aviation operations to Libya, about 1,500 kilometers to the southwest across the Mediterranean. But it would be more difficult to fly cargo jets all the way from Russia to Libya loaded down with heavy weaponry -- even assuming Russia could secure overflight rights from Turkey.

Russian war bloggers have voiced alarmed about the potential loss of Russian bases in Syria.

"Russia's military presence in the Middle East region hangs by a thread," Rybar, a blogger with links to Defense Ministry, said in a post on Telegram.

"It is almost impossible to evacuate the bases. In the best case, it is possible to evacuate most of the personnel, documentation and serviceable aircraft," one prominent blogger, named FighterBomber, said in a Telegram post prior to Assad's fall. "Some equipment that's still running can be packed into dry cargo ships and landing ships, but of course not all. All the rest of the property will remain at the bases."

With reporting by Mark Krutov and Todd Prince

With ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad somewhere in Russia, the new de facto rulers in Damascus have begun efforts to stabilize the situation as a wary global community awaited developments with caution.

The rebels, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist militant group, announced on December 9 that they were granting amnesty to all military personnel conscripted during Assad's rule, which began in 2000 following the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had seized power in 1970.

Syrian Prime Minister Muhammad Ghazi al-Jalali -- who has remained at his post and vowed to cooperate with the new rulers -- said most cabinet ministers were still in their offices. Jalali met earlier with the new leaders, according to a rebel statement.

"We are working so that the transitional period is quick and smooth," he said in comments to Sky News Arabia TV.

Reports out of the rebel camp said veteran politician Muhammad al-Bashir has been chosen to lead the transitional government. He has been serving as head of HTS's so-called Syrian Salvation Government for the past year.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is set to convene for an emergency session on the situation in Syria on December 9 following the ouster of Assad, who fled to Russia with his family as rebel troops bore down on Damascus.

The emergency session -- called by long-standing Assad-backer Russia -- will be held behind closed doors as world and regional powers call for stability in the civil war-wracked Middle Eastern country.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on December 9 that while President Vladimir Putin made the decision personally to grant asylum to Assad and his family, there was no obligation to give any further details

"I have nothing to tell you about the whereabouts of Assad," Peskov added.

The TASS news agency quoted an official at the Syrian Embassy in Moscow as saying Assad was in the Russian capital. The report has not been confirmed.

Air strikes could be heard in Damascus early on December 9, according to media reports, although it was not immediately clear who conducted the strikes.

Earlier, Reuters reported that Israel had conducted three air strikes on the Syrian capital on December 8.

In Damascus and other Syrian cities, people took to the streets to celebrate Assad's ouster, pulling down statues, and ransacking government buildings and Assad's residence.

Social-media footage showed crowds of men entering the presidential place in Damascus, with reports of looting.

The HTS-led rebels said in a statement aired on state TV that Damascus was "now free of Assad," whose family had ruled the country with an iron fist since 1971.

HTS has been designated a terrorist group by the United States and European Union. In recent years, the group severed ties with Al-Qaeda and sought to remake itself as a pragmatic alternative to the Syrian government.

But some rights groups and Western governments say questions remain over its alleged rights abuses and ties to terrorist groups.

HTS leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani has sought to reassure Shi'ite Alawites and other Syrian minorities, including Christians, that he will not discriminate against minorities.

Hagop Khatcharian, an Armenian living in Damascus, told RFE/RL that the "situation is calm now."

"I am always in touch with local Armenians; they are safe, and there is no issue. There hasn't been any significant trouble yet, but there is uncertainty about what the future holds," he said, adding that he remained wary of promises by the new leaders that no harm will come to minorities.

In Washington, President Joe Biden said the United States "will engage with all Syrian groups" as the country transitions to a post-Assad government.

"Assad should be held accountable," Biden said, but cautioned that some of the rebel groups that helped overthrow Assad "have their own grim record" of human rights abuses even though they have been "saying the right things" in recent days.

He said the United States will be closely watching the activities of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, which could seek to use the power vacuum to again establish rule in Syria.

EU spokesman Anouar El Anouni said the bloc was "not currently engaging with HTS or its leaders, full stop."

He said that, despite some hopeful words from the rebel groups, the EU would reserve judgment for now. "As HTS takes on greater responsibilities, we will need to assess not just their words but also their actions," he said.

The EU earlier urged a peaceful political transition in Syria, saying that "it is imperative that all stakeholders engage in an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned dialogue on all key issues."

In a joint statement, France and Germany said they were conditionally ready to work with the new leaders.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron "agreed that they were ready to cooperate with the new leadership on the basis of fundamental human rights and the protection of ethnic and religious minorities," Berlin said in a statement.

NATO chief Mark Rutte was also cautious as he called for a peaceful transition and an inclusive political process in Syria.

"This is a moment of joy but also uncertainty for the people of Syria and the region. We hope for a peaceful transition of power and an inclusive Syrian-led political process," said Rutte, who blamed Assad's main backers -- Russia and Iran -- for the long crisis and civil war in the country.

Several European states on December 9 announced they were suspending the granting of asylum requests from Syrians as they awaited developments.

The flood of Syrian refugees during the country's 14-year civil war has been blasted by far-right politicians in Europe and used by many to bolster their support among voters.

Among the countries announcing suspensions were Germany, Britain, France, Austria, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

The German Interior Ministry said 974,136 people with Syrian nationality were living in the country, with 5,090 having been recognized as eligible for asylum, 321,444 granted refugee status, and 329,242 granted temporary protection.

The Syrian civil war began after Assad's regime unleashed a brutal crackdown in March 2011 against peaceful demonstrators inspired by the wave of protests known as the Arab Spring that were sweeping the Middle East at the time.

Beginning in 2015, Russia intervened in the civil war on Assad's side, unleashing a massive bombing campaign against the rebel groups, including Islamist militants, causing numerous civilian casualties and prompting tens of thousands to flee.

The fall of the Assad regime marks a major geopolitical setback for the Kremlin, which, along with Iran, has propped up his government, experts say.

Biden said Russia had been weakened by the nearly three-year war in Ukraine while Iran's proxies in the region have been crushed by Israel.

Besides Russia, Assad has relied on Iran and its Hezbollah proxies to remain in power since the conflict erupted in 2011. Iran's Foreign Ministry said it expects "friendly" relations with Syria to continue and it would take "appropriate approaches" toward Damascus.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Assad's fall "a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah."

He hailed Assad's overthrow as the fall of a "central link in Iran's axis of evil."

Israel has launched a monthslong air campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Russia has an estimated 7,500 troops and multiple military sites in Syria, including an air base at Hmeimim and strategic naval facilities at Tartus, which are also used to support the Kremlin's actions in North and sub-Saharan Africa.

Ruslan Suleymanov, a Russian expert on the Middle East, told RFE/RL that Moscow would "cooperate with the rebels" if they take power in Damascus and that HTS too had "claimed previously that it was ready to negotiate" with the Kremlin.

"Putin wants to save his military presence in the region. In any case, to do that, he has to make concessions -- both to jihadists and to [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, who supports [the rebels]," Suleymanov said.

The United States said it will maintain its presence in eastern Syria and will take measures necessary to prevent a resurgence of IS in the region. The United States has about 900 soldiers in Syria.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN humanitarian aid agency, warned about the plight of the millions of Syrians displaced by nearly 14 years of civil war. Now many more are in danger, Fletcher said.

"We will respond wherever, whenever, however we can, to support people in need, including reception centers -- food, water, fuel, tents, blankets," he said.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), meanwhile, cautioned that the armed groups that ousted Assad should ensure humane treatment for all Syrians.

"The fall of Bashar al-Assad's government offers Syrians an unprecedented opportunity to chart a new future built on justice, accountability, and respect for human rights," HRW said in a statement.

Amnesty International also called the end of the Assad regime "a historic opportunity to end and redress decades of grave human rights violations" in Syria.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and dpa

Abu Muhammad al-Jolani was for years a relatively obscure militant leader in Syria. But the 42-year-old has shot to prominence after leading a stunning military offensive that toppled longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In a sign of his rapid rise, Jolani used his real name -- Ahmed al-Sharaa -- rather than his nom de guerre as he triumphantly announced "the capture of Damascus" in a televised address on December 8.

Jolani, head of the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has long tried to change his public image. He has publicly renounced his ties to Al-Qaeda and tried to portray himself as a pragmatist and tolerant leader.

The extent of that transformation will be put to the test as Jolani, who has a $10 million bounty on his head, and the HTS prepare to play a major role in post-Assad Syria.

The HTS is a militant Islamist group that seeks to establish a state in Syria governed by Islamic law. HTS is allied with several smaller militant Islamist groups, some of which are made up of foreign fighters from Europe and Central Asia.

Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, described HTS members as "political jihadists."

"Jolani and HTS are more pragmatic on politics -- they are sort of in between your traditional political Islamists and what we've described as global jihadists" like members of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, he added.

The 'Wily' Jolani

Jolani was born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia to Syrian parents who came from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The early years of his militant activities are murky. He is believed to have joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) after the U.S. invasion in 2003.

In 2012, Jolani founded Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.

Based in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, it later changed its name several times and distanced itself from Al-Qaeda. In 2017, it merged with other opposition groups to form HTS.

Jolani once sported a turban and long beard and donned military fatigues. But he ditched the hallmarks of a militant leader, opting to wear blazers, trim his facial hair, and give interviews to Western media.

The HTS leader is "wily and driven to achieve and consolidate power for himself and his organization," said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Iranian proxies and Shi'ite militias.

Despite his image makeover and attempts to remake himself into a pragmatist and moderate, concerns remain over Jolani and his group over their alleged rights abuses and ties to terrorist groups.

In a 2013 statement announcing Jolani's designation as a terrorist, the U.S. State Department referenced suicide bombings carried out by Jolani's Nusra Front and said his group's "violent, sectarian vision" is at odds with the aspirations of the Syrian public.

"Extremism and terrorist ideology have no place in a post-Assad Syria," the statement said.

In 2017, the U.S. Embassy in Syria wrote on social media that Washington remains "committed to bringing" senior figures of Al-Qaeda's Syrian network "to justice," including Jolani.

HTS's primary goal was to overthrow the Assad government, but its secondary target was to "build institutions that would be beneficial and helpful to Syrians," Zelin said.

"They have obviously had a track record of trying to do this in Idlib," he added.

But even if Jolani and the HTS keep their promises of tolerance and inclusivity, shedding their terrorism designations could take years, Zelin said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family have arrived in Moscow, a Russian diplomat said, as rebels took control of the capital, Damascus, bringing to an end the brutal, half-century rule of the Assad family.

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's ambassador in Vienna, said in a social media post late on December 8 that "Assad and his family are in Moscow" after going through what he characterized as a "difficult situation."

According to Russian media reports, Assad and his family have been granted asylum by Moscow. The Biden administration could not confirm the information but said it had no reason to doubt it.

Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Assad "decided to resign" after "negotiations" with a "number of participants in the armed conflict" and left office "giving instructions for a peaceful transfer of power."

"Russia did not participate in these negotiations," the ministry added.

Russia has been a longstanding ally of Syria, providing significant military and political support to Assad's regime, especially during the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011.

The Russian Foreign Ministry's statement came as the rebels said in a statement aired on state TV that Damascus is "now free of Assad," whose family ruled the country with an iron fist since 1971.

Syrians across the country took to the streets to celebrate Assad's ouster, pulling down statues and ransacking government buildings. Social media footage showed crowds of men entering the presidential place in Damascus, with reports of looting.

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said in a video that the government is "ready to cooperate with any leadership chosen by the people."

"We believe that Syria is for all Syrians and that it is the country of all its sons and that this country can be a normal state that builds good relations with its neighbors and the world without entering into any regional alliances and blocs," Jalali said.

He was later seen leaving his home on December 8, escorted by armed men, reportedly to meet the leadership of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Sunni rebel group that led the current offensive against the Assad regime.

HTS is a U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist organization. In recent years, the Islamist militant group severed ties with Al-Qaeda and sought to remake itself as a pragmatic alternative to the Syrian government. But concerns remain over its alleged rights abuses and ties to terrorist groups.

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of the HTS, has sought to reassure Shi'ite Alawites and other Syrian minorities, including Christians, that he will not discriminate against minorities.

U.S. Strikes Against IS

In Washington, President Joe Biden said the United States "will engage with all Syrian groups" as the country transitions to a post-Assad government.

He cautioned that some of the rebel groups that helped overthrow Assad "have their own grim record" of human rights abuses even though they have been "saying the right things" in recent days.

"As they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words but their actions," Biden said in a televised address from the White House on December 8.

He said the United States will be closely watching the activities of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, which could seek to use the power vacuum to again establish rule in Syria.

Biden said the United States conducted precision strikes on IS positions in Syria earlier in the day.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the Assad regime’s refusal since 2011 to engage "in a credible political process and its reliance on the brutal support of Russia and Iran led inevitably to its own collapse."

"After 14 years of conflict, the Syrian people finally have reason for hope," he added.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters on background it was a "significant" strike on 75 IS targets in eastern Syria using B-52s and F-15s.

"These guys want to reconstitute...and we are going to make sure that if they think they can seize advantage in this situation, that they can't," the senior official said.

Setback For Russia

Experts have said the fall of the Assad regime represents a major geopolitical setback for the Kremlin, which, along with Tehran, has supported the Syrian government through many years of civil war.

The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that Russia and Iran did not appear to bolster the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), which was rapidly collapsing, by rushing in additional forces.

Biden said Russia has been weakened by the nearly three-year war in Ukraine while Iran's proxies in the region have been crushed by Israel.

Russia has an estimated 7,500 troops and multiple military sites in Syria, including an air base at Hmeimim and strategic naval facilities at Tartus, which are also used to support the Kremlin's actions in North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the Russian RIA Novosti news agency, the leaders of the armed Syrian opposition "have guaranteed security to the Russian military bases and diplomatic establishments in Syria." RFE/RL can not confirm those reports.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declined to comment on the fate of the Russian bases, saying he "wasn't in the business of guessing."

The senior Biden administration official expressed some doubt about Russia's ability to maintain the bases.

"The Russians have now announced that they have taken Assad to Moscow. So we'll see what the Syrians who have worked for decades to overthrow the yoke of the Assad regime think about that when it comes to the Russian facilities," he said.

Konstantin Kosachyov, deputy chairman of Russia's upper house of parliament, said on December 8 that Syrians will have to cope with a full-scale war alone, but he suggested Moscow was ready to support the Syrian people in certain circumstances.

The ISW said Moscow had not yet begun to evacuate the naval base, "but it remains unclear whether Russia will keep its vessels at the port as Syrian rebels continue to advance swiftly across regime-held territory."

Ruslan Suleymanov, a Russian expert on the Middle East, told RFE/RL that Moscow would "cooperate with the rebels" if they take power in Damascus and that HTS too has "claimed previously that it was ready to negotiate" with the Kremlin.

"Putin wants to save his military presence in the region. In any case, to do that, he has to make concessions -- both to jihadists and to [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan who supports [the rebels]," Suleymanov said.

The surprise offensive began on November 27 during which a coalition of rebel groups led by HTS captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria's second largest.

Since then, they moved on to take other major cities with Assad's forces providing little resistance.

Besides HTS, the fighters include forces of an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Turkey has denied backing the offensive, though experts say insurgents would not have launched it without the country's consent.

The United Nations said on December 6 that almost 300,000 people in Syria had already been displaced since late November by the fighting, and that up to 1.5 million could be forced to flee as the rebels advance and inflict losses on Assad, as well as his Russian and Iranian allies.

Assad has relied on Iran and Russia to remain in power since the conflict erupted in 2011.

Neighbors, World Powers React

The developments in Damascus prompted Syria's neighbors to take urgent measures, with Lebanon announcing it was closing all its land border crossings with Syria except for one that links Beirut with Damascus.

Jordan closed a border crossing with Syria, too.

Israel said on December 8 it has deployed forces in a demilitarized buffer zone along its northern border with Syria and sent troops "other places necessary for its defense."

The Israeli military said the deployment was meant to provide security for residents of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

The United States said it will maintain its presence in eastern Syria and will take measures necessary to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State (IS) in the region. The United States has about 900 soldiers in Syria.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Daniel Shapiro said Washington is "aware that the chaotic and dynamic circumstances on the ground in Syria could give [IS] space to find the ability to become active, to plan external operations."

Speaking at a security conference in Bahrain on December 8, Shapiro said the United States is determined to work with its partners to "continue to degrade [IS] capabilities."

"[We're determined] to ensure [IS's] enduring defeat, to ensure the secure detention of IS fighters and the repatriation of displaced persons," Shapiro added.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen described the latest developments as a "watershed moment in Syria's history" and urged all armed actors in the country to maintain law and order and preserve pubic institutions.

Speaking in Doha on December 8, Pedersen also said he has no information on Assad's whereabouts.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN humanitarian aid agency, warned about the plight of the millions of Syrians displaced by nearly 14 years of the country’s civil war. Now many more are in danger, Fletcher said.

“We will respond wherever, whenever, however we can, to support people in need, including reception centers -- food, water, fuel, tents, blankets,” he said.

British Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner called for a "political solution" while the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was time in Syria for unity, a peaceful political transition, and for fighting to end.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and dpa

The collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime sparked nationwide celebrations, as scenes of jubilation and chaos unfolded across the country.

In the early hours of December 8, videos emerged on social media showing groups of people gathering on Umayyad Square in Damascus, a key landmark in the capital. Thousands more joined them throughout the day, with some participants climbing atop a tank.

Social media footage verified by RFE/RL showed people exiting the central bank building in Damascus carrying bags and boxes.

Looting was reported in the capital and in other cities across the country, according to multiple eyewitness accounts.

At the gates of the presidential palace in Damascus, video footage captured jubilant men cheering and firing weapons into the air.

People were seen entering the palace freely throughout the day after Assad fled the country. Russian state media reported later on December 8 that he and his family had arrived in Moscow and been granted asylum.

Video footage from inside the palace showed crowds milling around, as well as people carrying out furniture and valuables, leaving trashed rooms behind them.

Verified video footage obtained by RFE/RL also showed the building of the Syrian Interior Ministry's immigration and passport department ablaze in Damascus.

Statues of Assad's late father, Hafez al-Assad, who created the authoritarian system his son inherited, were dismantled nationwide after a lightning-fast rebel offensive.

On Arwad Island, off the coast of Tartus and around 10 kilometers from a Russian naval base, jubilant crowds toppled a statue of the elder Assad, who died in 2000, and climbed onto the monument in celebration.

In Latakia, a coastal town that was a stronghold of the Assad family, another statue of Hafez al-Assad was torn down and dragged through the streets behind a truck as revelers rode atop it.

Images also showed the aftermath of the storming of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, which appeared to have been abandoned earlier on December 8. Iranian media reported that diplomats had already evacuated the premises.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family have arrived in Moscow, Russian state media reported, as rebels have taken control of the Syrian capital, Damascus, bringing to an end the brutal, half-century rule of the Assad family.

According to Russian media reports, Assad and his family have been granted asylum by Moscow. The Biden administration could not confirm the information but said it had no reason to doubt it.

Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Assad "decided to resign" after "negotiations" with a "number of participants in the armed conflict" and left office "giving instructions for a peaceful transfer of power."

"Russia did not participate in these negotiations," the ministry added.

Russia has been a longstanding ally of Syria, providing significant military and political support to Assad's regime, especially during the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011.

The Russian Foreign Ministry's statement came as the rebels said in a statement aired on state TV that Damascus is "now free of Assad," whose family ruled the country with an iron fist since 1971.

Syrians across the country took to the streets to celebrate Assad's ouster, pulling down statues and ransacking government buildings. Social media footage showed crowds of men entering the presidential place in Damascus, with reports of looting.

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said in a video that the government is "ready to cooperate with any leadership chosen by the people."

"We believe that Syria is for all Syrians and that it is the country of all its sons and that this country can be a normal state that builds good relations with its neighbors and the world without entering into any regional alliances and blocs," Jalali said.

He was later seen leaving his home on December 8, escorted by armed men, reportedly to meet the leadership of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Sunni rebel group that led the current offensive against the Assad regime.

HTS is a U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist organization. In recent years, the Islamist militant group severed ties with Al-Qaeda and sought to remake itself as a pragmatic alternative to the Syrian government. But concerns remain over its alleged rights abuses and ties to terrorist groups.

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of the HTS, has sought to reassure Shi'ite Alawites and other Syrian minorities, including Christians, that he will not discriminate against minorities.

U.S. Strikes Against IS

In Washington, President Joe Biden said the United States "will engage with all Syrian groups" as the country transitions to a post-Assad government.

He cautioned that some of the rebel groups that helped overthrow Assad "have their own grim record" of human rights abuses even though they have been "saying the right things" in recent days.

"As they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words but their actions," Biden said in a televised address from the White House on December 8.

He said the United States will be closely watching the activities of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, which could seek to use the power vacuum to again establish rule in Syria.

Biden said the United States conducted precision strikes on IS positions in Syria earlier in the day.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters on background it was a "significant" strike on 75 IS targets in eastern Syria using B-52s and F-15s.

"These guys want to reconstitute...and we are going to make sure that if they think they can seize advantage in this situation, that they can't," the senior official said.

Setback For Russia

Experts have said the fall of the Assad regime represents a major geopolitical setback for the Kremlin, which, along with Tehran, has supported the Syrian government through many years of civil war.

The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that Russia and Iran did not appear to bolster the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), which was rapidly collapsing, by rushing in additional forces.

Biden said Russia has been weakened by the nearly three-year war in Ukraine while Iran's proxies in the region have been crushed by Israel.

Russia has an estimated 7,500 troops and multiple military sites in Syria, including an air base at Hmeimim and strategic naval facilities at Tartus, which are also used to support the Kremlin's actions in North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the Russian RIA Novosti news agency, the leaders of the armed Syrian opposition "have guaranteed security to the Russian military bases and diplomatic establishments in Syria." RFE/RL can not confirm those reports.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declined to comment on the fate of the Russian bases, saying he "wasn't in the business of guessing."

The senior Biden administration official expressed some doubt about Russia's ability to maintain the bases.

"The Russians have now announced that they have taken Assad to Moscow. So we'll see what the Syrians who have worked for decades to overthrow the yoke of the Assad regime think about that when it comes to the Russian facilities," he said.

Konstantin Kosachyov, deputy chairman of Russia's upper house of parliament, said on December 8 that Syrians will have to cope with a full-scale war alone, but he suggested Moscow was ready to support the Syrian people in certain circumstances.

The ISW said Moscow had not yet begun to evacuate the naval base, "but it remains unclear whether Russia will keep its vessels at the port as Syrian rebels continue to advance swiftly across regime-held territory."

Ruslan Suleymanov, a Russian expert on the Middle East, told RFE/RL that Moscow would "cooperate with the rebels" if they take power in Damascus and that HTS too has "claimed previously that it was ready to negotiate" with the Kremlin.

"Putin wants to save his military presence in the region. In any case, to do that, he has to make concessions -- both to jihadists and to [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan who supports [the rebels]," Suleymanov said.

The surprise offensive began on November 27 during which a coalition of rebel groups led by HTS captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria's second largest.

Since then, they moved on to take other major cities with Assad's forces providing little resistance.

Besides HTS, the fighters include forces of an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Turkey has denied backing the offensive, though experts say insurgents would not have launched it without the country's consent.

The United Nations said on December 6 that almost 300,000 people in Syria had already been displaced since late November by the fighting, and that up to 1.5 million could be forced to flee as the rebels advance and inflict losses on Assad, as well as his Russian and Iranian allies.

Assad has relied on Iran and Russia to remain in power since the conflict erupted in 2011.

Neighbors, World Powers React

The developments in Damascus prompted Syria's neighbors to take urgent measures, with Lebanon announcing it was closing all its land border crossings with Syria except for one that links Beirut with Damascus.

Jordan closed a border crossing with Syria, too.

Israel said on December 8 it has deployed forces in a demilitarized buffer zone along its northern border with Syria and sent troops "other places necessary for its defense."

The Israeli military said the deployment was meant to provide security for residents of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

The United States said it will maintain its presence in eastern Syria and will take measures necessary to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State (IS) in the region. The United States has about 900 soldiers in Syria.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Daniel Shapiro said Washington is "aware that the chaotic and dynamic circumstances on the ground in Syria could give [IS] space to find the ability to become active, to plan external operations."

Speaking at a security conference in Bahrain on December 8, Shapiro said the United States is determined to work with its partners to "continue to degrade [IS] capabilities."

"[We're determined] to ensure [IS's] enduring defeat, to ensure the secure detention of IS fighters and the repatriation of displaced persons," Shapiro added.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen described the latest developments as a "watershed moment in Syria's history" and urged all armed actors in the country to maintain law and order and preserve pubic institutions.

Speaking in Doha on December 8, Pedersen also said he has no information on Assad's whereabouts.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN humanitarian aid agency, warned about the plight of the millions of Syrians displaced by nearly 14 years of the country’s civil war. Now many more are in danger, Fletcher said.

“We will respond wherever, whenever, however we can, to support people in need, including reception centers -- food, water, fuel, tents, blankets,” he said.

British Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner called for a "political solution" while the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was time in Syria for unity, a peaceful political transition, and for fighting to end.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and dpa

President-elect Donald Trump said Russia and Iran are in a "weakened state" and called on Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin to end the nearly three-year war in Ukraine.

Trump made the comments in a post on Truth Social on December 8 as Syrian rebels captured Damascus, ending the half-century rule of the Russia- and Iran-backed Assad family.

The incoming U.S. president said Russia and Iran couldn't come to the support of Syrian dictator Assad because they were in a "weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success."

Russia has lost about 600,000 soldiers since invading Ukraine in February 2022, Trump said, adding that Ukraine has lost about 400,000 defending its territory.

"There should be an immediate cease-fire and negotiations should begin," Trump said. "I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The world is waiting!"

The Kremlin did not immediately respond to Trump's comment.

Paris Meeting

Trump said in the post that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy "would like to make a deal."

Trump held talks with Zelenskiy and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on December 7 to discuss the war. Zelenskiy called the trilateral talks "good and productive" and said the leaders discussed the potential for "a just peace."

Trump and Zelenskiy were among world leaders who gathered in Paris on December 7 to mark the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral.

"We talked about our people, the situation on the battlefield, and a just peace for Ukraine. We all want to end this war as quickly and fairly as possible," Zelenskiy said in a December 7 post on Telegram.

"President Trump, as always, is determined. We are thankful for that," he added.

Macron said, "Let us continue joint efforts for peace, security."

Trump, who will take office on January 20, has criticized the tens of billions of dollars the United States has poured into Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion.

He has claimed he could end the war within 24 hours of retaking the White House, a statement that has been interpreted as meaning that Ukraine would have to surrender territory that Russia now occupies.

Experts say it will be difficult to hammer out a peace deal quickly because there are so many aspects, including security guarantees for Ukraine and sanctions relief for Russia.

In the meantime, the outgoing Biden administration has been accelerating weapons shipments to Ukraine ahead of the transfer of power to Trump to bolster its defenses.

Washington said on December 7 that it is preparing a $988 million package of arms and equipment to Ukraine, funds taken from the remaining $2.21 billion available in the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

The funds will be used to buy precision missiles for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), and for drones, the Pentagon said.

European countries are also stepping up aid in case the Trump administration ends U.S. support for Kyiv.

Zelenskiy announced on December 7 that Ukraine had received a second shipment of sophisticated F-16 fighter jets from Denmark. Copenhagen announced last year it would deliver a total of 19 aircraft to Ukraine.

"The second batch of F-16s for Ukraine from Denmark is already in Ukraine. This is the leadership in protecting life that distinguishes Denmark," he wrote on Telegram.

When Vladimir Putin took the reins of power in a post-Soviet Russia in shambles a quarter-century ago, he immediately set about restoring Moscow's status as a global power.

It took 15 years, but Russia heralded its military intervention in the Syrian civil war as proof of its return as a force to be reckoned with on the international stage.

Moscow leveraged that image to expand its influence throughout the Middle East and beyond as a counterweight to the West.

Now, the fall of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, a key ally of Moscow, has dealt a serious blow to Russia's great-power ambitions.

"Putin's military adventure in Syria was designed to demonstrate that Russia is a great power and can project its influence abroad," said Phillip Smyth, a Middle East expert. "Losing Syria is a huge slap in the face for Putin."

Assad's ouster represents not only a reputational hit to Russia but likely a major strategic setback.

Syria is home to two major Russian military installations: an air base in Hmeimim and a naval base in Tartus. The latter is Russia's only warm-water naval base outside the former Soviet Union and provides Moscow access to the Mediterranean Sea.

"Russia has used its bases in Syria to project its power both into the eastern Mediterranean and into the broader Middle East," said Smyth.

High-Maintenance Asset

Russia's military intervention in Syria in 2015 changed the tide of the war. Moscow's devastating aerial campaigns against rebel positions helped the Syrian Army regain swaths of territory and keep Assad in power.

Moscow's Syria campaign came a year after its invasion of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula as well as its support for separatist forces in Ukraine's east.

Moscow capitalized on its involvement in both Syria and Ukraine to sell itself as a power capable of challenging the United States, NATO, and the West in general while expanding its global reach from the Mediterranean to Africa and Latin America.

Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Syria became more of an asset for Moscow, analysts say, while also presenting the challenge of maintaining military campaigns on two fronts.

With the anticipated fall of Russian military assets in Syria following the collapse of Assad's government, the task has become even more daunting.

Russia is already heavily invested in a major counteroffensive to regain captured territory in its southwestern Kursk region that it lost to Ukraine, to the point that it is relying on help from North Korean troops. At the same time, it is trying to take as much territory as it can in Ukraine's east before possible peace talks.

Russian military facilities along the Mediterranean coast in western Syria could be overrun by militants led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, and its allies.

Aaron Zelin, senior fellow at the Washington Institute, says Russia simply does not have the same firepower at its disposal to protect its assets in Syria.

"It is important to remember that Russia has to deal with its larger war in Ukraine now compared to when they first went in Syria in 2015," Zelin said.

"Russia also has its assets fighting in sub-Saharan Africa, too. And unlike a decade ago, when Russia had the Wagner Group led by [the deceased Yevgeny] Prigozhin...Russia doesn't have the same level of capacity or capability to deal with this now in the same way."

Zelin said losing the Tartus naval base, in particular, would be an "extremely huge loss for Russia."

"It's Russia's only warm-water port that it can use for its naval activities and power projection," he said. "Losing it would essentially cut Russia out of the core of the Middle East."

Moscow did not send ground troops to help Damascus, which fell to the HTS and its allies on December 8. Russia has conducted dozens of air strikes since the militants launched their offensive against Assad's forces in late November, but Moscow's limited intervention did little to stop the rebel advance.

Russia will pay a huge price for its failure in Syria, analysts say.

The fall of Assad is a "major blow to Russia's claim of still being a global power in terms of sustaining military and political influence abroad," said Hamidreza Azizi, a fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

From there, actors in other regions such as Latin America and Africa might "start rethinking their ties and their reliance on Russia as well," he said.

Syrian rebels led by Islamist militants have entered the central city of Homs as they close in on Damascus while the country’s main allies -- Russia and Iran -- scrambled to protect the regime of authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad and their own assets in the country.

Abu Mohammad al-Golani, a leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group, said late on December 7 that the insurgent fighters were "in the final moments of liberating" Homs, a city of 775,000 people.

HTS is considered a terrorist group by the United States, Britain, Canada, and the European Union.

Experts said the future of the Assad regime was hanging in the balance -- and that, if it fell, it would also represent a major geopolitical setback for the Kremlin which, along with Tehran, has supported the Syrian government through many years of civil war.

Media reports said many residents of Damascus were stocking up on supplies as thousands were attempting to leave the country through the border with Lebanon -- itself a war-torn nation in the increasingly chaotic Middle East.

As fighting on the ground and rebel gains intensified, the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran, and Turkey held emergency talks in Doha, Qatar, on December 7 calling for an end to hostilities in the most serious challenge to Assad’s rule in years.

The U.S. State Department told RFE/RL that Washington was closely monitoring the situation on the ground in Syria.

A spokesperson said the United States and its partners and allies urged that civilians, including members of minority groups, be protected.

The spokesperson said it was time to negotiate an end to the Syrian conflict consistent with principals established in UN Security Council Resolution 2254. The spokesperson added that the refusal of the Assad regime to engage in the process has directly led to the current situation.

The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that “Assad regime forces have collapsed and Assad’s backers do not appear willing to bolster the Syrian Arab Army by rapidly deploying additional forces.”

Russia has multiple military sites in Syria, including an air base at Hmeimim and strategic naval facilities at Tartus, which are also used to support the Kremlin’s actions in Africa.

The ISW said that Moscow had not yet begun to evacuate the base, “but it remains unclear whether Russia will keep its vessels at the port as Syrian rebels continue to advance swiftly across regime-held territory.”

The American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats blog said the Assad regime “faces an existential threat given the widespread collapse of regime forces and lack of sufficient external backing to bolster these forces.”

It added that “Russia will face logistic challenges that will undermine its Africa operations if it loses its footprint in Syria.”

Mark Katz, a professor emeritus at George Mason University who focuses on Russia and the Middle East, told RFE/RL that the Kremlin risks losing its air assets in Syria if it can’t agree with Turkey on the use of its airspace.

“In one sense, the Turkish government might be happy to grant permission as the more the Russian Air Force is out of Syria, the happier Ankara will be,” he said.

"Russia would also face difficulties relocating its warships because they would need Turkey's permission to get into the Black Sea. They would have to go through NATO waters," he added.

Meanwhile, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said the United States “should have nothing to do” with the war in Syria, where a small contingent of U.S. forces remain deployed in some areas.

"Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT,” he wrote on the Truth Social platform.

“THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”

Fast-moving developments on the ground were difficult to confirm, but media outlets quoted witnesses as well as rebel and Syrian army sources as saying militant fighters were continuing to make large gains on December 7 in their effort to topple Assad.

Some reported signs of panic in Damascus, with shortages of critical supplies, although the government said Assad was at work as usual in the capital.

Government forces and their Russian allies appear to have failed in their attempt to halt the rebel push toward Homs, which stands at an important intersection between the capital, Damascus, and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus. Homs is 140 kilometers from the capital.

Witnesses and army sources told Reuters and other news agencies that rebels had entered Homs amid reports that government forces had pulled out. Celebrations were reported in some areas of the city.

Homs Province is Syria’s largest in size and borders Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan. The city is also home to one of Syria’s two state-run oil refineries.

The AFP news agency quoted security sources as saying hundreds of Syrian government troops, some injured, had fled across the border into Iraq.

The surprising offensive was launched last week by a coalition of rebel groups led by the Islamist HTS faction.

Besides HTS, the fighters include forces of an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Turkey has denied backing the offensive, though experts say insurgents would not have launched it without the country's consent.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said civilians were fleeing from Homs toward the Mediterranean coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, strongholds of the government and the site of the Russian air and naval bases.

Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declined to comment on the fate of the Russian bases, saying he “wasn’t in the business of guessing.”

The United Nations said on December 6 that almost 300,000 people in Syria had already been displaced since late November by the fighting, and that up to 1.5 million could be forced to flee as the rebels advance and inflict losses on Assad, as well as his Russian and Iranian allies.

Assad has relied on Iran and Russia to remain in power since the conflict erupted in 2011.

Following the foreign ministers' meeting in Doha, Lavrov said -- referring to HTS rebels -- that it was "inadmissible to allow terrorist groups" to take control of Syrian territory and that Russia would oppose them with all means possible.

Since the rebels seized control of Aleppo a week ago, they have moved on to capture other major cities with Assad’s forces providing little resistance.

Besides capturing Aleppo in the north, Hama in the center, and Deir al-Zor in the east, rebels rose up in southern Suweida and Deraa, saying on December 6 they had taken control of the two cities and posting videos showing insurgent celebrations there.

Taking Deraa and Suweida in the south could allow a concerted assault on the capital, Damascus, the seat of Assad's power, military sources said.

Video posted online showed protesters in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana chanting and tearing down a statue of Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000, when his son took power.

Golani, the HTS leader, told CNN in an exclusive interview on December 5 from Syria that Assad’s government was bound to fall, propped up only by Russia and Iran.

“The seeds of the regime’s defeat have always been within it,” he said. “But the truth remains, this regime is dead.”

With reporting by AFP and Reuters