Crowds gathered in Damascus on Sunday to celebrate with chants, prayers and occasional gunfire after a stunning advance by opposition forces ended The end of the Assad family’s 50-year iron rule but raised questions about the future of the country and the entire region.

President Bashar Assad and other officials left Syria, their whereabouts unknown, after resigning and holding negotiations with rebel groups, the Russian Foreign Ministry claimed on Sunday.

In a post on the messaging app Telegram on Sunday, the ministry said Assad left Syria after negotiations with opposition fighters and gave “instructions” for a “peaceful transfer of power.”

“Russia has not taken part in these negotiations,” the ministry said, adding that it was following the “dramatic events” in Syria “with extreme concern.”

The White House told CBS News it knew nothing about Assad’s whereabouts.

It was the first time opposition forces had reached Damascus since 2018, when Syrian troops recaptured areas on the outskirts of the capital after a years-long siege.

Videos from Damascus showed families entering the presidential palace, some emerging with stacks of plates and other household items.

“I didn’t sleep last night and refused to sleep until I heard the news of his fall,” said Mohammed Amer Al-Oulabi, 44, who works in the electricity sector. “Thank God it only took them (the opposition forces) a few days from Idlib to Damascus. May God bless them, the heroic lions who have made us proud.”

The rapidly developing events have shaken the region. Lebanon said it would close its land border crossings with Syria, except for one crossing connecting Beirut with Damascus. Jordan has also closed a border crossing with Syria.

Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a former al-Qaeda commander who cut ties with the group years ago and says he supports pluralism and religious tolerance, leads the largest rebel faction and is poised to shape the future direction of the group country.

The rebels now face the daunting task of overcoming bitter divisions in a country ravaged by war and still divided into various armed factions. Turkish-backed opposition fighters are battling U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in the north, and the Islamic State group is still active in some remote areas.

Syrian state television broadcast a video statement from a rebel group early Sunday saying Assad had been overthrown and all prisoners had been released. The man who read the statement called on rebel fighters and citizens to uphold the institutions of the “free Syrian state.”

Reaction from all over the world

Iran, which strongly supported Assad’s ousted government, says Syrians should decide their country’s future “without destructive, coercive foreign intervention.”

Sunday’s statement from the State Department was the country’s first official response to rebels’ overthrow of the Assad government.

UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen called on Saturday for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition”.

The Gulf state of Qatar, a key regional mediator, hosted an emergency meeting late Saturday of foreign ministers and top officials from eight countries with interests in Syria. Participants included Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Turkey.

“President Biden and his team are closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and remain in constant contact with regional partners,” White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett wrote on social media.

The French Foreign Ministry said France “welcomes” the fall of the Assad government “after more than 13 years of violent repression of its own people.”

The ministry said in a statement: “The Syrian people have suffered too much. Bashar al-Assad bled the country dry and lost a large part of its population, who, when not forced into exile, were massacred, tortured and bombed with chemical weapons by the regime and its allies.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed understanding for the relief felt by the Syrian people after the fall of the Assad government, but warned that “the country must not now fall into the hands of other radicals.”

“Several hundred thousand Syrians have been killed in the civil war, millions have fled,” Baerbock said in a statement emailed from her office on Sunday. “Assad murdered, tortured and used poison gas against his own people. He must finally be held responsible for this.”

The war in Syria began in 2011 when a pro-democracy uprising demanding the end of Assad’s long rule quickly escalated into a brutal civil war. Since then, the conflict has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced around 12 million from their homes.