The fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government in the early hours of Sunday morning brought to a dramatic end his nearly 14-year struggle to hold onto power as his country was torn apart by a devastating civil war that became a proxy battleground for regional and international forces.
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00:00The fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government in the early hours of Sunday morning
00:07brought his 24 years in power to a dramatic end. In a lightning offensive, rebel groups
00:12spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took city after city as they made their way south from
00:18Aleppo towards the capital Damascus. World leaders and international figures have responded
00:24with a mixture of relief but also caution. In a television address, German Chancellor
00:29Olaf Scholz said Assad has tens of thousands of lives on his conscience and blamed him
00:34for creating the mass exodus of refugees from Syria.
00:59EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaya Kallas said the fall of the Assad regime was a positive and
01:08long-awaited development. It also shows the weakness of Assad's backers, Russia and Iran.
01:15Our priority is to ensure security in the region. I will work with all the constructive
01:20partners in Syria and in the region, she said in a statement posted on X. And speaking at
01:26the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden said at long last the Assad regime has fallen,
01:31calling its downfall a fundamental act of justice. The upshot for all this is for the
01:37first time ever, either Russia nor Iran nor Hezbollah could defend this abhorrent regime
01:43in Syria. And this is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine, Israel have delivered
01:50upon their own self-defense with unflagging support of the United States. In a written
01:55statement, the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the end of Syria's dictatorial
02:00regime and urged the country to rebuild. After 14 years of brutal war and the fall of the
02:06dictatorial regime, today the people of Syria can seize a historic opportunity to build
02:12a stable and peaceful future, he said. The international messages of relief for the promise
02:17of a new future for Syria have been tempered by caution that the country could descend
02:22into further chaos. With Syria at a crossroads, what happens next is almost impossible to
02:27predict.