(7 Dec 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Damascus, Syria – 7 December 2024
++NIGHT SHOTS++
1. Traffic and pedestrians in Jaramana neighbourhood, near where statue of late Syrian President Hafez Assad was reportedly toppled
2. Various of traffic in Jaramana
STORYLINE:
Video from the Damascus suburb of Jaramana late Saturday showed traffic moving freely amid reports of opposition forces toppling a statue of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, the father of the current president Bashar Assad.
Videos circulating online appeared to show rebels toppling the monument in the area.
The neighbourhood is mainly inhabited by Druze minorities who were historically on the sidelines of the country’s conflicts.
Insurgents’ stunning march across Syria gained speed on Saturday with news that they had reached the suburbs of the capital and with the government forced to deny rumours that President Bashar Assad had fled the country.
The rebels’ moves around Damascus, reported by an opposition war monitor and a rebel commander, came after the Syrian army withdrew from much of southern part of the country, leaving more areas, including two provincial capitals, under the control of opposition fighters.
The advances in the past week were among the largest in recent years by opposition factions, led by a group that has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organisation by the U.S. and the United Nations. As they have advanced, the insurgents, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, have met little resistance from the Syrian army.
The U.N.’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, on Saturday called for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition.” Speaking to reporters at the annual Doha Forum in Qatar, he said the situation in Syria was changing by the minute.
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