12 Days That Changed Syria: The Rebel Offensive in Visuals

In just two weeks, rebel forces tore across Syria, shattering the stalemate left by more than a decade of civil war and bringing an end to more than five decades of brutal rule by the Assad dynasty.

NOV. 27

The offensive begins

The first thrust was sudden.

For years, the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham consolidated control in its stronghold in Idlib in Syria’s northwest. Then on Nov. 27, the rebels suddenly began a rapid push east toward Aleppo, a major city that suffered some of the most brutal and protracted fighting during the country’s long civil war.

On Nov. 27, the rebels announced a striking initial success: They had overrun a Syrian government base, captured soldiers, taken tanks and seized several villages. “In a matter of about 10 hours,” an analyst told The Times that day, the rebels were within a few miles of Aleppo.

NOV. 30

The rebels take Aleppo

It had taken Bashar al-Assad more than four years to reassert control of Aleppo during the civil war, deploying siege tactics, assaults and airstrikes in a confrontation that claimed the lives of thousands of civilians. Losing it took fewer than four days.

Even as Syrian and Russian warplanes launched intense strikes on Idlib, and bombed the city of Aleppo, the rebel forces said they had faced little resistance on the ground.

By Nov. 30, rebel fighters were ripping down posters of Mr. al-Assad from the streets of Aleppo they now patrolled, and searching for any remaining pockets of government forces.

Witnesses described a city at a near standstill, with many residents staying indoors for fear of what the sudden flip of power might mean. Others ventured out to welcome the fighters.

Rebels also pushed south, encountering abandoned government tanks in their path, and fought to seize the military air base to the east of the city.

DEC. 5

The rebels take Hama

By the following week, the fighters’ advance south had taken them into new territory: Hama, which had never fallen to the rebels.

Government forces battled rebels on the outskirts of the city on Dec. 4, before withdrawing the next day. The military said it had pulled back to avoid endangering civilians. A rebel commander said government troops were in “a significant state of confusion,” with soldiers and their leaders abandoning their posts.

Some residents of the city had profound reason to celebrate a defeat for the Assad family. Hama was the site of one of the most notorious massacres in the Middle East, in 1982, when security forces serving Bashar al-Assad’s father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad, killed thousands of people during an anti-government uprising led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Displaced people returned to the city in the wake of the rebel advance, and the leader of the main rebel group, who at the time used the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, issued a video statement urging “a conquest in which there is no revenge.” (He is now going by his real name, Ahmed al-Shara.)

DEC. 7

Homs is stormed as Damascus braces for attack

Events accelerated further that weekend. On Dec. 7, the rebels declared that they had seized control of another strategic city, Homs, only about 100 miles from the capital, Damascus.

“The remnants of the Syrian regime have fled the city,” their social media said, even as the defense ministry described Homs as “stable and secure.”

Iran, one of the Assad government’s major backers, had begun to evacuate military commanders and personnel from Syria on Dec. 6, and there were few signs that another major ally, Russia, would come to the Syrian government’s aid, beyond limited airstrikes.

The following morning, rebels were praying in central Homs, and detaining those they considered affiliated with government forces. But international attention was already shifting south, to Damascus.

DEC. 8

The fall of the Assad government

In the end, the rebels entered the capital with barely a fight, passing abandoned military checkpoints amid reports of soldiers stripping off their uniforms.

By the morning of Dec. 8, a crowd of men appeared to be inside the state television studios, announcing on camera “the liberation of the city of Damascus, the toppling of the dictator Bashar al-Assad, and the liberation of all oppressed prisoners from the regime’s jails.”

Within hours, Mr. al-Shara, the rebel leader, was offering a carefully staged celebration, shaking fighters’ hands at the Umayyad Mosque, an ancient landmark in Damascus, and declaring “a victory for the whole Islamic nation.”

When word came of the fate of Mr. al-Assad, it was from Russia, which announced that he had resigned and flown to Moscow to seek refuge. Back in Damascus, people were ransacking his residence and tearing down emblems of his family’s rule, including a statue of his father.

On the outskirts of the city at the notorious Sednaya prison, crowds gathered as people sought any sign of the fate of friends and relatives who had disappeared into the Assad government’s industrial-scale system of arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and death. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that more than 30,000 detainees were killed in Sednaya alone.

As celebratory gunfire echoed in the capital, euphoria mixed with uncertainty about the future of the country and the intentions of the rebels who now held Damascus. The new government would begin work immediately, the rebels’ military leadership announced. It did not specify who the new government would be.

By Peter Robins, Mona Boshnaq, Samuel Granados, Chevaz Clarke-Williams and Axel Boada. Reporting was contributed by Eve Sampson, Muhammad Haj Kadour, Raja Abdulrahim, Ben Hubbard, Vivian Yee, Christina Goldbaum and Aaron Boxerman.

Source: Map data comes from the Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project (December maps) and Janes (rebel control as of November)