The Syrian president said the Turkish Foreign Minister this Sunday (8).
Questioned by Christiane Amanpour, from CNNin an interview in Doha, Qatar, whether he knew where Assad could be, Hakan Fidan said: “I can’t comment on that, probably outside of Syria”.
There is conflicting information about Assad’s whereabouts – an eastern European agency believes he is in Latakia, his coastal stronghold.
The Syrian leader has not been seen or heard from publicly since rebels entered the capital this morning.
Understand the conflict in Syria
the Arab Spring in 2011, when the regime suppressed a pro-democracy uprising.
The country was plunged into full-scale conflict when a rebel force was formed, known as the Free Syrian Army, to fight government troops.
Furthermore, the Islamic State, a terrorist group, also managed to gain a foothold in the country and came to control 70% of Syrian territory.
Fighting has escalated as other regional actors and world powers – from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United States to Russia – have joined in, escalating the country’s war into what some observers have described as a “proxy war”.
Russia has allied with Bashar al-Assad’s government to combat the Islamic State and rebels, while the United States has led an international coalition to repel the terrorist group.
After a ceasefire agreement in 2020, the conflict remained largely “dormant”, with minor clashes between the rebels and the Assad regime.
More than 300,000 civilians have been killed in more than a decade of war, according to the UN, and millions of people have been displaced across the region.
