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Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.

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Speaker 2: Oh, now it makes sense.

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Speaker 3: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS.

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Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, the tenth of December.

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Speaker 2: I'm Lucy, I'm Zara.

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Speaker 3: Rebel forces have taken control of Syria, ending the Asad

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Speaker 3: families fifty four year regime. Bashah Alasad has reportedly fled

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Speaker 3: to Russia, and international governments have said they'll work to

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Speaker 3: stabilize the country as it enters a new era. In

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Speaker 3: today's deep dive, we'll explain how rebel forces took over

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Speaker 3: Syria in just two weeks time and what could be

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Speaker 3: next for.

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Speaker 1: The Middle Eastern nation.

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Speaker 4: Lucy, there's a common saying that there are decades where

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Speaker 4: nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. And

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Speaker 4: I think it is fair to say that the last

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Speaker 4: week that just passed in Syria is the latter. It

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Speaker 4: feels like more history has happened there, you know, than

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Speaker 4: the years that preceded it. We have had the government

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Speaker 4: toppled in the country of Syria. Take me through how

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Speaker 4: we actually got there.

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Speaker 3: Well, in kind of the broadest outline possible. For the

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Speaker 3: last twenty four years, Syria has been ruled by Bashah

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Speaker 3: al Assad, and before that it was led by his father,

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Speaker 3: Hafez al Assad, who led the air force in the

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Speaker 3: country and who came to power in the nineteen seventies

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Speaker 3: by overthrowing the previous president, who he then jailed indefinitely

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Speaker 3: with no charge and no trial.

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Speaker 4: So the Assads as a family have had control of

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Speaker 4: Syria for over five decades.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, for fifty four years, exactly.

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Speaker 3: Bashah, who I'm going to refer to as Assad going forward,

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Speaker 3: that's the main Assad that we're talking about. He was

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Speaker 3: Hafes's second son. He was actually training to be an

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Speaker 3: optometrist in the nineteen nineties when his old brother died,

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Speaker 3: which effectively made him the heir to Syria's presidency, and

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Speaker 3: then when his father died in two thousand, Assad took

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Speaker 3: over as president. His main allies were Iran and Russia,

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Speaker 3: and he received military support from both of those countries.

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Speaker 3: Following peaceful protests against Assad's government in twenty eleven, which

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Speaker 3: was part of the broader regional era known as the

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Speaker 3: Arab Spring, Assad's government crackdown on protesters and other civilians.

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Speaker 3: This crackdown then spread into the Syrian Civil War, which

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Speaker 3: was between the Syrian military and anti government forces. As

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Speaker 3: many as six hundred thousand civilians are believed to have

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Speaker 3: been killed during the thirteen years of this war, and

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Speaker 3: twelve million people were displaced. Fighting in Syria had stalled

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Speaker 3: in recent years, but all of that changed late last month.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so let me just do a bit of

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Speaker 2: a recap.

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Speaker 4: So Bashah Alasad comes to power in two thousand and

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Speaker 4: for a number of years he is ruling this country

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Speaker 4: in what can be described as a dictatorship. He then

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Speaker 4: faces opposition in twenty eleven as part of a broader

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Speaker 4: democratic push across the broader region. At that point, he

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Speaker 4: starts to crack down on protesters. Those crackdowns become violent.

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Speaker 4: Protesters are killed, as are other civilians, and that really

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Speaker 4: kickstarts as civil war that has raged for many, many,

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Speaker 4: many years, and it had always existed, but perhaps hadn't

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Speaker 4: been in the headlines as much as it has in

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Speaker 4: as you said, recent weeks. It then reached the headlines

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Speaker 4: because we saw a group of rebel forces and we

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Speaker 4: just need to distinguish. So we've got the government, which

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Speaker 4: is Sad and his people and his military, and then

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Speaker 4: we've got the rebel forces, and the rebel forces started

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Speaker 4: making moves to take over the.

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Speaker 2: Power in the country.

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Speaker 4: Can you tell me a bit about these forces before

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Speaker 4: we then go into what actually happened.

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Speaker 3: So the main thing that we know about these rebel

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Speaker 3: forces is that they're kind of a coalition that are

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Speaker 3: led by one main group. That group is an Islamist

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Speaker 3: militant group called Hayataria al Sham. This group was set

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Speaker 3: up in twenty eleven under a different names about Alnozra

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Speaker 3: and was originally connected to the group al Qaeda. Former

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Speaker 3: Islamic State leader Abu Baka al Baghdadi was also involved

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Speaker 3: in creating the group. It sitdance cut ties with al Qaeda,

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Speaker 3: and it's led by a man named Abu Muhammad al Jelani.

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Speaker 3: And late last month, this group, leading this coalition of

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Speaker 3: rebel forces, captured and took over the northwestern city of Aleppo.

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Speaker 3: And following that, al Jalani gave an interview to The

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Speaker 3: New York Times where he said that his aim was

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Speaker 3: to quote liberate Siria from this oppressive regime, speaking there

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Speaker 3: about Assad.

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Speaker 4: And important to note here Australia, alongside a number of

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Speaker 4: other Western nations, do consider this group to be a

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Speaker 4: terrorist organization, but you said that they were key to

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Speaker 4: capturing Aleppo. They were leading this group of rebels who

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Speaker 4: captured Aleppo, and then on the weekend they moved into Damascus.

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Speaker 4: Can you tell me a bit about what actually took

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Speaker 4: place over the weekend.

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Speaker 3: So they moved from late November from Aleppo to Damascus

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Speaker 3: over the weekend.

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Speaker 1: The speed at which they moved has been.

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Speaker 3: Attributed to a lack of resistance from sirious military and

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Speaker 3: one reason that has been given by international analysts for

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Speaker 3: this is that serious military, as I said before, is

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Speaker 3: supported by Iran and Russia. These two countries are currently

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Speaker 3: involved in other conflicts, they have other things going on,

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Speaker 3: and international analysts say they haven't been providing as much support.

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Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons that's been given. And what

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Speaker 3: that has looked like is that the rebel forces have

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Speaker 3: been able to move through to the capitol and were

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Speaker 3: able to take the capital more quickly than they otherwise

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Speaker 3: might have been.

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Speaker 4: And so that happened on Sunday, and it was this

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Speaker 4: very dramatic you know, seeing the headlines kind of filter through.

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Speaker 4: It was firstly that they had captured the city, but

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Speaker 4: then in mid minutes, it looked like the government had

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Speaker 4: been overthrown and that Assad was out. We did see

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Speaker 4: a video statement posted by the group who said, you

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Speaker 4: know this is over, this is now ours. You started

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Speaker 4: this by telling us how much power and how long

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Speaker 4: the Asad family had been in power for. What's happened

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Speaker 4: to Bashar al Asad?

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Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 3: We haven't heard anything publicly from Assad. It's been reported

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Speaker 3: by Russian state media that he has he and his

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Speaker 3: family have sought asylum in Russia. That means kind of

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Speaker 3: legal protection, and as we know, Russia is an ally

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Speaker 3: of Assad. But yes, so far, the only people we've

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Speaker 3: heard from have been the rebel forces.

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Speaker 1: We've also heard.

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Speaker 3: From Prime Minister so Asad's second in command. Yep, he's

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Speaker 3: a man named Mohammad Ghazi al Jalali who's publicly said

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Speaker 3: that he's ready to assist with a transfer.

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Speaker 5: Of power, which is quite remarkable, quite remarded, like he

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Speaker 5: is part of Asad's government and he came out with

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Speaker 5: this really clear statement saying he'll do whatever needs to

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Speaker 5: be done.

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Speaker 3: He effectively said I'm sitting at home waiting to be

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Speaker 3: told where to go in order to make a transfer

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Speaker 3: of power.

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Speaker 1: Happen.

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Speaker 4: It has been really remarkable to watch, and I think

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Speaker 4: one of the dominant scenes that seems to be sticking

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Speaker 4: with me is these videos of prisoners who have been

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Speaker 4: freed from prison and are walking around on the streets, celebrating, screaming,

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Speaker 4: holding up fingers to symbolize the length of time they

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Speaker 4: had served in prison. Can you just give me a

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Speaker 4: bit of color on that. Why that seems to be

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Speaker 4: such a big thing in this whole story.

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Speaker 3: So under both Asad and his father's regimes, people were

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Speaker 3: routinely and it was certainly widespread, imprisoned for speaking out

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Speaker 3: against the government, for helping someone who spoke.

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Speaker 1: Out against the government.

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Speaker 3: The prisons that people were held in had what are

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Speaker 3: described as horrific conditions. Human rights groups have said that

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Speaker 3: executions were routine, torture was systematic, neglect, disease, starvation. The

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Speaker 3: conditions were, according to human rights groups, very very extreme.

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Speaker 3: The United Nations, in a twenty twenty one report, described

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Speaker 3: Syrian prisoners as quote forcibly disappeared. They said that they

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Speaker 3: included men, women, and children. One of the prisons that

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Speaker 3: the rebels opened is called sed Nay, a military prison.

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Speaker 3: It's near Damascus, and in twenty seventeen, Amnesty International called

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Speaker 3: that prison a quote human slaughter house. We'll be seeing

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Speaker 3: more from these prisons being opened in the coming days,

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Speaker 3: I think.

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Speaker 4: And so that's just a really clear, I guess, demonstration

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Speaker 4: of how much and how quickly things have changed. You

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Speaker 4: know that there was opposition to the Assad government and

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Speaker 4: the way that was dealt with was through a prison,

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Speaker 4: and now these have quite literally been opened.

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Speaker 1: The locks have been shot off the gate.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's remarkable.

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Speaker 4: Can you just tell me a bit about what we're

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Speaker 4: hearing domestically about how people are taking to this news,

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Speaker 4: because you know, it's one thing to be sitting in

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Speaker 4: Australia reporting on this another, of course to be living

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Speaker 4: through it.

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Speaker 2: What have we heard from Syrians?

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Speaker 3: So we know that there has been a lot of

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Speaker 3: celebration to see prisoners released. These are obviously political prisoners.

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Speaker 3: We have seen quite a lot of vision of refugees

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Speaker 3: who had been living in Lebanon, neighboring Syria coming back

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Speaker 3: through the border into their home country, including literally walking

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Speaker 3: with their suitcases across the border into Syria, effectively saying

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Speaker 3: we can return home now it's safe.

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Speaker 4: And of course there have been millions and millions of

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Speaker 4: displaced Syrians as a result of this civil war, which,

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Speaker 4: as you mentioned, has raged for so long.

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Speaker 3: We've seen a lot of celebration from the Syrian diaspora

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Speaker 3: in other countries. One thing I've just seen is that

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Speaker 3: the Syrian national football team has actually changed their logo

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Speaker 3: as a way of supporting the possible new governments, kind

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Speaker 3: of suggesting what the new flag of the country might

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Speaker 3: look like. So it's really quite widespread. I would say

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Speaker 3: cautious optimism is the best way to describe it. UN

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Speaker 3: Special Envoy to Syria, gear O Peterson said, quote today

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Speaker 3: we look forward with cautious hope to peace, reconciliation, dignity

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Speaker 3: and inclusion for all Syrians.

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Speaker 4: Obviously, so much remains unknown. What do we know about

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Speaker 4: what this sort of transition of power could look like.

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Speaker 3: So the UN and the US are expected to lead

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Speaker 3: a process to set up a new government. US President

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Speaker 3: Joe Biden said the US will assist with that process.

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Speaker 3: And I should note that the US has had troops

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Speaker 3: in Syria since twenty fourteen, and it's reported that US

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Speaker 3: troops assisted at least one of the groups involved in

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Speaker 3: the rebel coalition and Like I said, the Prime Minister

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Speaker 3: has said he's ready, willing and able to transfer power

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Speaker 3: to a new organization, a new government.

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Speaker 4: It will be so interesting to see if and when

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Speaker 4: Assad comes out and says something publicly, you know, will

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Speaker 4: we perhaps never hear from him again if he remains

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Speaker 4: in Russia protected again by that alliance. It's a very

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Speaker 4: interesting story, a very complex one with decades of history

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Speaker 4: behind it. So thank you for explaining that, Lucy, and

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Speaker 4: thank you for joining us for another episode of The

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Speaker 4: Daily oz. If you learned something from today's episode, why

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Speaker 4: will be back again later this afternoon and with the headlines,

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Speaker 4: but until then, have a wonderful Tuesday.

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