Syrian state TV hails ‘victory’ of ‘revolution’, fall of al-Assad

Syrian state television broadcast a message proclaiming the “victory” of Syria’s uprising on Sunday and the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s “criminal” regime, after armed opposition forces seized the capital from government control.

“Victory of the great Syrian revolution and the fall of the criminal al-Assad regime,” read the full-screen message in large white writing on a mainly red background.

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The Military Operations Administration has pressed a lightning offensive since November 27, seizing swathes of the country from government hands, including major cities Aleppo, Hama and Homs, and entering the capital Damascus early Sunday.

The armed opposition groups in an earlier message broadcast on state television said they had toppled “tyrant” al-Assad and freed unjustly detained prisoners.

A group of people were shown in the state television news studio, with one reading a statement from the “Damascus Conquest operations room.”

The statement announced “the liberation of the city of Damascus and the fall of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad and the release of all the unjustly detained from the regime prisons.”

It called on fighters and citizens to safeguard the “property of the free Syrian state.”

Syria’s civil war began after the repression of anti-government protests in 2011 and spiraled into a complex conflict drawing in foreign armies and extremists, killing more than half a million people.

The lightning offensive by the armed opposition forces came after four years of relative calm on the front lines.

With AFP

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