Syrian rebels have said they are entering the capital Damascus without any sign of army deployments, arriving at the doorstep of President Bashar-al Assad after a lightning offensive in which they have swept across the country in just over a week.
“Our forces started entering Damascus,” Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) said on Telegram. In a second post, the rebel group said it had begun freeing prisoners from the city’s notorious Sednaya prison, regarded as a symbol of the Assad regime’s brutality.