Assad family’s 50-year rule ends in Syria after a lightning rebel offensive

New Delhi: Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said early Sunday that the government is ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition and hand over its functions to a transitional government.

“I am in my house and I have not left, and this is because of my belonging to this country,” Jalili said in a video statement. He said he would go to his office to continue work in the morning and called on Syrian citizens not to deface public property.

He did not address reports that President Bashar Assad had left the country.

The head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said early Sunday that President Bashar Assad left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus after a stunning advance across the country.

The events suggested that the end of Assad’s regime could be imminent after his bloody 14-year struggle to hold onto control as his country fragmented.

Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told The Associated Press that Assad took a flight Sunday from Damascus.

State television in Iran, Assad’s main backer in the years of war in Syria, reported that Assad had left the capital. It cited Qatar’s Al Jazeera news network for the information and did not elaborate.

There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government.

An Associated Press journalist in Damascus reported seeing groups of armed residents along the road in the outskirts of the capital and hearing sounds of gunshots. The city’s main police headquarters appeared to be abandoned, its door left ajar with no officers outside. Another AP journalist shot footage of an abandoned army checkpoint where uniforms were discarded on the ground under a poster of Assad’s face.

Residents of the capital reported hearing gunfire and explosions. Footage broadcast on opposition-linked media showed a tank in one of the capital’s central squares while a small group of people gathered in celebration. Calls of “God is great” rang out from mosques.(AP)