MOSCOW -Reuters :Following his ouster on Sunday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family have arrived in Russia and have been granted asylum by the Russian authorities, Russian news agencies reported citing a Kremlin source.
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 there was a very high probability that Assad may have been killed in a plane crash as it was a mystery why the plane took a surprise U-turn and disappeared off the map according to data from the Flightradar website.
Flight path of the Syrian aircraft reportedly carrying ousted President Bashar al-Assad. — Screengrab from FlightRadar24
Israel has pushed tanks over the border into the buffer zone with Syria after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was ousted earlier on Sunday after rebel forces captured the capital Damasus.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he has ordered the military to “seize” a UN-patrolled buffer zone between the Israeli-occupied and Syrian-controlled Golan Heights.
He said a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria “has collapsed”, so he “directed the [military] yesterday to seize the buffer zone and the commanding positions nearby.”
“We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border,” he added.
Earlier the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Assad had left office and departed the country after being ousted by Syrian rebels, who ended the 50-year Assad dynasty in a lightning offensive that has raised fears of a new wave of instability in the Middle East.
