(Illustration by Céline Bejjani with AI/L'Orient-Le Jour)
Night falls over the presidential palace in Damascus on Dec. 7, 2024. Abu Mohammad al-Jolani's fighters, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, having launched an offensive 10 days earlier to take the country, are not far from the capital. Bashar al-Assad gathers about thirty of his generals at the Ministry of Defense. The regime his father built is only hours away from collapse.On the sidelines of the Doha Forum, the Astana countries (Turkey, Iran and Russia) hold an emergency meeting, and at 5 p.m., an envoy to Syria, also in Doha, urges Assad to issue a statement announcing the transition."He replies, 'No problem, I’ll do it tomorrow.' But tomorrow never comes," an analyst close to the former regime, who requested anonymity, tells L'Orient-Le Jour. Bashar appears to have been abandoned, but he refuses to accept it....
Night falls over the presidential palace in Damascus on Dec. 7, 2024. Abu Mohammad al-Jolani's fighters, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, having launched an offensive 10 days earlier to take the country, are not far from the capital. Bashar al-Assad gathers about thirty of his generals at the Ministry of Defense. The regime his father built is only hours away from collapse.On the sidelines of the Doha Forum, the Astana countries (Turkey, Iran and Russia) hold an emergency meeting, and at 5 p.m., an envoy to Syria, also in Doha, urges Assad to issue a statement announcing the transition."He replies, 'No problem, I’ll do it tomorrow.' But tomorrow never comes," an analyst close to the former regime, who requested anonymity, tells L'Orient-Le Jour. Bashar appears to have been abandoned, but he refuses to accept it....