Russian state media reported that Moscow has granted asylum to Bashar al-Assad and members of his family.

This was reported by the Russian press after the fall of the Syrian regime on Saturday at the hands of the rebels. The Kremlin justified its decision on “humanitarian grounds”

Bashar al Assad and his family are in Moscow, Russian news agencies announced on Sunday evening, citing a source from the Kremlin, after the Syrian dictator was overthrown by an offensive by an alliance of rebels led by radical islamists.

"Assad and his family members have arrived in Moscow. Russia has granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds," the source told the news agencies. TASS y Ria Novosti.

In addition, Russia announced that it has called for a meeting of the UN Security Council to address the situation in Syria.

“In light of the latest developments in Syria, the depth and consequences of which for this country and the entire region have not yet been measured, Russia has called for urgent closed-door consultations of the UN Security Council,” a senior Russian UN official posted on Telegram on Sunday.

Assad's flight brought to a dramatic end on Sunday his nearly 14-year struggle to hold on to power as his country fragmented into a brutal civil war turned into an indirect battlefield between regional and international powers.

The departure of Assad, 59, marked a sharp contrast with his first months as the unlikely president of Syria in 2000, when many expected him to be a young reformer after three decades of his father's iron grip. At just 34, the Western-educated ophthalmologist seemed like a mild-mannered techie.

But when faced with protests against his regime that erupted in March 2011, Assad resorted to his father's brutal tactics in an attempt to crush them. As the uprising spiraled into civil war, he used his army to bomb opposition-held towns with support from allies such as Iran y Russia.

International human rights groups and prosecutors have denounced widespread use of torture and extrajudicial killings in detention centres run by the Syrian regime. The war in syria has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of the country's pre-war population of 23 million.

The conflict appeared to have reached a stalemate in recent years, with the Assad regime regaining control of most of Syria's territory while the northwest remained in the hands of opposition groups and the northeast under Kurdish control.

Although Damascus remained under strict Western sanctions, neighbouring countries had begun to resign themselves to Assad’s continued dominance. The Arab League reinstated Syria’s membership last year, and Saudi Arabia announced in May the appointment of its first ambassador to Syria since cutting ties with Damascus 12 years earlier.

But the geopolitical tide quickly turned with a surprise offensive launched in late November by opposition groups based in northwestern Syria. Government forces quickly collapsed, while Assad’s allies, preoccupied by other conflicts — including Russia’s war in Ukraine and the wars launched more than a year ago between Israel and Iranian-backed terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas — seemed reluctant to intervene forcefully.

The end of decades of Assad family rule

Assad came to power in 2000 by a twist of fate. His father had been grooming Bashar's elder brother Basil as his successor, but Basil died in a car crash in Damascus in 1994. Bashar was brought back from his job as an ophthalmologist in London, subjected to military training and promoted to the rank of colonel to establish his credentials so that he could one day rule.

When Hafez Assad died in 2000, parliament moved quickly to lower the presidential age requirement from 40 to 34. Bashar's rise was sealed in a national referendum, in which he was the only candidate.

Hafez, a career military man, ruled the country for nearly 30 years during which he established a Soviet-style centralized economy and kept such a stifling grip on dissent that Syrians were afraid to even joke about politics with their friends.

He imposed a secular ideology that sought to bury religious differences under Arab nationalism and the image of heroic resistance to Israel. He formed an alliance with Shiite religious leaders in Iran, consolidated Syrian domination over Lebanon and established a network of Palestinian and Lebanese militia groups.

At first, Bashar seemed completely different from his authoritarian father.

Tall and thin with a slight lisp, he had a calm and amiable manner. His only official position before becoming president was as head of the Syrian Computer Society. His wife, Asma al-Akhras, whom he married several months after taking office, was attractive, elegant and British-born.

The young couple, who later had three children, seemed to shun the trappings of power. They lived in an apartment in the upmarket Abu Rummaneh district in Damasco, unlike a palatial mansion like other Arab leaders.

Initially upon taking office, Assad released political prisoners and allowed more open discourse. In the “Damascus Spring”, salons for intellectuals sprang up where Syrians could discuss art, culture and politics to a degree impossible under his father’s regime.

But after 1.000 intellectuals signed a public petition calling for multiparty democracy and greater freedoms in 2001 and others tried to form a political party, the salons were stifled by the feared secret police who jailed dozens of activists.

Source: INFOBAE