How did Assad deceive his aides in the presidential palace before fleeing to Russia?

According to confidential reports seen by The New York Times, “Assad’s escape ended his family’s more than 50-year rule over Syria, a period marked by dictatorship, repression and murder. In his final days, Assad sought military assistance from Russia, Iran and Iraq, but to no avail, as his military intelligence agencies documented the steady collapse of his forces.”

Diplomats from several countries sought ways to remove him from power peacefully, in order to spare the Old City of Damascus a bloody battle for control, according to four officials in the region who took part in the talks.

One of the proposals, one official said, is to hand over power to the army chief, effectively accepting a coup against him.

The newspaper built its account of Assad's fall, much of which is now known, through interviews with Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis and Turks, as well as diplomats in Damascus, people close to Assad and the opposition that took part in his overthrow.

Opposition fighters now guard the presidential palace, while his house has been cleared of looters, amid the anger of Syrians who remained loyal to him throughout the war, as he left them without a word and handed them over to an unknown fate.

“You sacrificed all the people for your own safety,” said a palace insider who fled Assad moments before the opposition entered. The man who hid in Damascus from the capital’s new masters still does not understand, or cannot understand, the president’s sudden escape. “It is a betrayal that I do not believe,” he added.

According to the accounts of six Iranian officials, Iranian officials continued to call for a diplomatic solution, but the leadership in Tehran concluded that Assad would not survive, and Iran began quietly withdrawing diplomats and military officials from Damascus.

In an internal Revolutionary Guard memo seen by the newspaper, “They told us that the fighters would arrive in Damascus by Saturday and there was no plan for combat. The Syrian people and the army are not ready for another war. It is over.”

According to the palace source, the feeling of panic had not yet reached the palace. Assad and his aides were in their offices trying to manage a crisis whose seriousness they did not realize.

"People were still drawing up scenarios, and no one was suggesting the idea of Damascus falling," he said.

Palace staff spent the day waiting for the speech that Assad was supposed to record, hoping it would somehow halt the rebel advance. “There were a lot of people in the palace who said it was time for him to appear, to support the army and reassure the people,” the insider said.

But the shoot was repeatedly delayed without explanation. By dusk, no one on the staff was sure where Assad was, the insider said.

That evening, the opposition entered Homs, heightening fears that Damascus was next. “After the fall of Homs, everything became very, very tense and no one knew anything, neither in the palace nor outside,” said the palace insider.

Assad had chosen to live in a villa in the Malki neighborhood rather than in the many available mansions. Residents said they heard soldiers shouting, “Escape, escape, they’ve arrived,” and a neighbor of Assad’s recalled them shouting, “God damn him, he left us.”

Chaos reigned in the air force intelligence branch elsewhere in the city, and a soldier who gave only his first name, Mohammed, said that as the rebels approached, orders came to defend the capital. But soldiers saw on their phones images of comrades elsewhere taking off their uniforms and running.

By nightfall, the orders had changed. “Burn everything: documents, files, hard drives,” they were told, Mohammed recalled. “At that moment, I and all my colleagues felt that the regime was collapsing.” He said he changed into civilian clothes and left. Inside the palace, hours passed as Assad’s aides waited for the speech, the insider recalled. “The idea that he would flee never crossed my mind.”

In the middle of the night he received a call saying that the president had fled. Then the head of security in the area came and told him that the guards had fled and that he was leaving. The source was frightened and rushed to his car. The palace was quiet and the gates were open. He concluded that the speech was nothing more than a ruse to divert the attention of the palace officials so that Assad could sneak away. “He has tricked us,” he said. “Is he still popular with his people? No, on the contrary, he has betrayed us.”

Arabic21