A lightning rebel offensive early this month caught Syria’s ruling clan off guard. Then-president Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia on Dec. 8, leaving behind many of his collaborators, some of whom sought refuge in neighboring countries.
According to two sources, the ousted president, who fled to Moscow via the Russian military airfield in Hmeimim on Syria’s coast, was accompanied by only a handful of confidants.
Among them were his closest ally, the former presidential affairs secretary-general Mansour Azzam, as well as his economic adviser Yassar Ibrahim, who oversees the financial empire of al-Assad and his wife, Asma.
Photo: Reuters
“He left with his secretary and his treasurer,” an insider who requested anonymity said, mockingly.
Bashar’s brother, Maher al-Assad, commander of the elite Fourth Division tasked with defending Damascus, did not know about his sibling’s plans.
Leaving his men stranded, Maher took a separate route, fleeing by helicopter to Iraq before travelling to Russia, a Syrian military source said.
Maher arrived in Iraq by plane on Dec. 7 and stayed there for five days, an Iraqi security source said.
Maher’s wife, Manal al-Jadaan, and his son briefly entered Lebanon before departing through Beirut airport, Lebanese Minister of the Interior Bassam Mawlawi said, without disclosing their final destination.
Another al-Assad government heavyweight, Ali Mamlouk, the former chief of Syria’s security apparatus, fled to Russia via Iraq, a Syrian military source said.
His son passed through Lebanon before leaving for another destination, a Lebanese security source said.
The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior on Monday denied the presence of either Maher al-Assad or Mamlouk in Iraq.
Both are wanted men. Maher — and Bashar al-Assad — are wanted by France for alleged complicity in war crimes over chemical attacks in Syria in August 2013.
The French courts have already sentenced Mamlouk and Jamil Hassan, former head of the Syrian air force intelligence, in absentia to life imprisonment for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes.
On Friday, the Lebanese authorities received an Interpol alert relaying a US request to arrest Hassan and hand him over to the US authorities, should he enter the country.
The US accuses Hassan of “war crimes,” including overseeing barrel bomb attacks on Syrian people that killed thousands of civilians.
A Lebanese judicial source said that they had no confirmation of Hassan’s presence in Lebanon, adding that he would be detained if found.
Other prominent figures also made hasty escapes.
Bouthaina Shaaban, former translator for Hafez al-Assad — Bashar’s father who founded the brutal system of government his son inherited — fled to Lebanon on the night of Dec. 7.
Shaaban, Bashar al-Assad’s long-time political adviser, then traveled to Abu Dhabi, according to a friend in Beirut.
Kifah Mujahid, head of the Baath Brigades — the military wing of Syria’s former ruling party — escaped to Lebanon by boat, a party source said.
Other officials took refuge in their hometowns in Alawite regions, some of them said.
Al-Assad hailed from Syria’s Alawite minority.
Not all escape attempts were successful.
Ihab Makhlouf, Bashar al-Assad’s cousin and a prominent businessman, was killed on Dec. 7 while trying to flee Damascus.
His twin brother, Iyad, was injured in the same incident, a military official from the former government said.
Their elder sibling, Rami Makhlouf, once considered Syria’s richest man and a symbol of the regime’s corruption, managed to survive. Rami, who fell out of favor with the al-Assad regime years ago, is believed to be in the United Arab Emirates.
Several other figures close to al-Assad’s government crossed into Lebanon, according to a security source and a source in the business world. These included Ghassan Belal, head of Maher’s office, and businessmen Mohammed Hamsho, Khalid Qaddur, Samer Debs and Samir Hassan.
A former Lebanese minister with close ties to Syria said that several senior Syrian military officers were granted safe passage by Russians to the Hmeimim airbase.
They were rewarded for instructing their troops not to resist the rebel offensive to avoid further bloodshed, he said.
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