Bashar al-Assad and his family have arrived in Moscow and been granted asylum “out of humanitarian considerations”, Russian news agencies are quoting a Kremlin source as saying.
Russian state TV also reported the news, which put an end to speculation about the whereabouts of Syria’s former president after rebel forces seized control of Damascus.
The Interfax news agency quoted the unnamed source as saying: “President Assad of Syria has arrived in Moscow. Russia has granted them (him and his family) asylum on humanitarian grounds.”
Earlier, two Syrian sources said the disappearance of the Assad’s plane from tracking could indicate it had been shot down, or that it had switched off its transponder.
The flight took off from Damascus airport around the time the capital was reported to have been taken by rebels, according to data from the Flightradar website.
The aircraft initially flew towards Syria’s coastal region, a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect, but then made an abrupt U-turn and flew in the opposite direction for a few minutes before disappearing off the map, suggested foreign media reports.
Assad had not spoken in public since the sudden rebel advance a week ago, when insurgents seized northern Aleppo in a surprise attack before marching into a succession of cities as frontlines crumbled.
Syria rebel fighters raced into Damascus unopposed on Sunday, overthrowing President Assad and ending nearly six decades of his family’s iron-fisted rule after a lightning advance that reversed the course of a 13-year civil war.
