'Damn his soul'

>> President flees to Moscow as rebels take over Damascus >> Starmer & Trump welcome the fall of a ‘barbaric' regime

- ANDY LINES and LIZZY BUCHAN

JOYFUL crowds gathered across Syria to celebrate after rebels took Damascus and President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, ending his family's 50-year reign of terror.

As statues of Assad and his father Hafez toppled across Syria, in Damascus jubilant resident Ghazal al-Sharif was rejoicing.

He said: "Damn his soul and the soul of the entire Assad family." Rebel forces led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham declared Damascus "free" of Assad as government forces withdrew.

HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani said: "The future is ours." Rania Kataf, 39, a researcher in Syrian culture in Damascus, said: "No one slept in Syria last night and no Syrian abroad slept.

"The whole community was holding their phones waiting for the final news." Looking forward to the end of a civil war that began in 2011, she said: "Overwhelmed is not even a word that can describe this.

"We all feel like we have been under water literally for 13 years and we just took a breath.

Lawyer Omar Daher, 29, said: "My feelings are indescribable. After the fear that Assad and his father made us live in for many years, and the panic and state of terror that I was living in, I can't believe it." He said his father had been killed by security forces and his brother was in detention.