“For displaced people around the world, a free Syria awaits you,” the statement continued.

The Syrian army command told officials on Sunday that Assad’s regime had ended, Reuters reported. According to the report, the Syrian army later said it was continuing operations against “terrorist groups” in the cities of Hama and Homs, as well as in the countryside in Deraa.

Syrian state television broadcast a video statement from a group of men saying Assad had been overthrown and all prisoners in prisons had been released, the Associated Press reported. The man who read the statement said the opposition group Operations Room to Conquer Damascus called on all opposition fighters and citizens to preserve the state institutions of the “free Syrian state,” the report said.

According to media reports, the head of a Syrian opposition war monitor had earlier said that Assad had left the country for an unknown location, fleeing the insurgents who said they had entered Damascus after the remarkably rapid advance through the country.

Syrian rebels surrounded Damascus on Saturday after a lightning offensive that saw opposition forces seize control of key cities in the country.

On Friday, the Syrian army confirmed that it had lost control of the strategic city of Hama to rebels, an al-Qaeda breakaway group called Tahrir al-Sham. The rebels captured Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, in an effective offensive late last month and forced government troops to withdraw.