The Times of Israel is liveblogging Tuesday’s events as they unfold.
Report: Senior Syrian officials fled to Lebanon with help of Hezbollah after fall of Assad
Citing Lebanese media outlets, the Kan public broadcaster reports that senior officials of the toppled Syrian regime have fled across the border into Lebanon with the help of the Hezbollah terror group.
Among those said to have fled to Lebanon in the days leading up to the dramatic fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime are his family members, intelligence officials, and close business associates, Kan reports.
The former director of Syria’s national security bureau Ali Mamlouk is also said to be among them.
Mamlouk has been wanted by the Lebanese government since 2012 for allegedly planning the assassination of Lebanese political and religious leaders, and by the French government since 2018 for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
According to the report, the Syrian officials were provided with Lebanese license plates and smuggled into Beirut with the help of Hezbollah operatives. It adds that they are believed to be located in Dahiyeh, the Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Syrian rebel leader says he will announce list of former officials wanted for torture
Syria’s Islamist rebel leader says that the incoming authorities will announce a list of former senior officials “involved in torturing the Syrian people.”
“We will offer rewards to anyone who provides information about senior army and security officers involved in war crimes,” rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, says in a statement on Telegram.
The rebel leader began discussions yesterday with the ousted government on transferring power, a day after his opposition alliance dramatically unseated president Bashar al-Assad following decades of brutal rule.
“We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people,” Sharaa says in the statement, adding they “will pursue war criminals and ask for their hand over from the countries to which they fled.”
“We have affirmed our commitment to tolerance for those whose hands are not stained with the blood of the Syrian people, and we have granted amnesty to those who were in compulsory service,” he says.
Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group had been administering swathes of Idlib province and parts of neighboring areas until November 27, when along with allied factions it launched a lightning offensive, seizing government-held territory and capturing Damascus on Sunday.
Assad fled Syria as the Islamist-led rebels swept into the capital, bringing a spectacular end to five decades of brutal rule by his family.
Hezbollah media claims Israeli tanks crossed Syria buffer zone boundary, reached outskirts of Damascus
The Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen news outlet reports that Israeli tanks have advanced beyond the boundaries of the Golan Heights buffer zone in Syria that it moved troops into earlier this week.
According to the unverified report from the Lebanese outlet, the tanks progressed past the abandoned buffer zone town of Qunaitra before stopping near Qatana, a southern Syria city just over 21 kilometers away from the capital city of Damascus.
The report further that Israeli troops also entered several villages on the outskirts of Damascus.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF on the report.
US charges two former Assad-regime officials with war crimes
A US indictment unsealed Monday charges two high-ranking Syrian officials under ousted President Bashar al-Assad with war crimes, the US Justice Department says in a statement.
The indictment, which was unsealed in the Northern District of Illinois, charges the former Syrian intelligence officials with engaging in a conspiracy to commit cruel and inhuman treatment of civilian detainees, including US citizens, during the course of the Syrian civil war.