To underscore the dramatic reversal of fortunes, hours after the dictator’s escape, groups of Syrians wandered through his palaces, posing for selfies and helping themselves to his furniture.

Video footage showed crowds at the al-Rawda presidential palace as children ran through the large rooms and men pushed a large suitcase across the ornate floor. Several men grabbed gold-plated chairs to take home as souvenirs. Meanwhile, at Muhajreen Palace, others marveled at the sheer splendor of the decoration.

“My feelings are indescribable,” said Omar Daher, 29, a lawyer in Damascus. “After the fear in which he (Assad) and his father made us live for years, and the panic and terror in which I lived, I cannot believe it.”

“Damned is his soul and the soul of the entire Assad family,” said another reveler in the city. “It is the prayer of every oppressed person and God has answered it today. We thought we would never see it, but thank God we did.”

There even seemed to be the first stirrings of a long-intimidated free press. The Syrian newspaper al-Watan, which has traditionally been pro-government, wrote: “We are facing a new page for Syria. We thank God that he did not shed more blood. We believe and trust that Syria will be there for all Syrians.”

The newspaper added that reporters should not be blamed for the last decade’s news. “We just carried out the instructions and published the messages they sent us.”

Such scenes were unthinkable even when the rebels marched into Aleppo from their stronghold of Idlib for the first time last week. The ease with which they captured Syria’s second largest city was shocking.

Within a few days, Hama had also fallen. Even at the height of the Syrian civil war, the rebels had failed to take this city. But what was to come was unthinkable.

The rebels under the command of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a former al-Qaeda commander, swept through Damascus, freeing thousands of prisoners held for years in Assad’s dungeons, as crowds turned out to celebrate.

The Syrian army’s underpaid soldiers offered little resistance and its self-enriching officer corps traded their uniforms for jeans as news of the rebel approach spread.

There were no Russian airstrikes to boost their morale, no Russian strength, no Russian intelligence operation. Even as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and affiliated opposition groups stormed in from the north, Hezbollah units did not jump to Assad’s defense.

Russia and Iran had promised to send support to Assad, but by then it was too late. There was no major battle for Damascus, no final stand on Assad as the political dynasty that ruled Syria for more than 50 years fell apart in one night.

“There was no real fighting,” said Danny Mekki, a Syrian journalist and analyst who witnessed the regime’s final hours in the capital. “I spoke to people there and they said the regime just ran away. There were videos of soldiers just running away and leaving their weapons behind.”

No one expected Assad to go down without a whimper. “Nobody expected it, not even the Syrian opposition expected it,” Mekki said. “They winged it.”

But the forces coalescing to topple Assad had been simmering for years, just as it appeared he was in tighter control of the country than at any time since 2011.

The front lines had been frozen since 2020, with Assad controlling most of the country while the rebels and opposition were limited to the northwestern Idlib province and the east.

Assad, meanwhile, was busy rehabilitating himself internationally – Arab governments that had expelled him from the Arab League once again welcomed him on the grounds that he was an evil they would have to live with.

The United States and Europe were considering lifting their sanctions against his government, partly to encourage him to cut his ties with the Iranians, who along with Russia had propped up his regime during the civil war.

Nevertheless, all signs are there, said a senior Arab diplomat. “If you could read, you should have read it long ago,” he said.

Egypt, other Arab countries and Turkey urged him to introduce reforms and reconcile with opposition groups, but he rebuffed them. They also urged him to crack down on the drug production that was flooding their countries, and he ignored them as drug revenues brought billions into his coffers.

Meanwhile, he has hollowed out his army as Western sanctions took their toll, although he still managed to enrich himself.

“This son of a bitch has billions of dollars, but he couldn’t come up with a few million for fuel for his tanks,” said another Arab diplomat who has worked on Syria.

In a surreal last-ditch effort to rally his troops, Assad this week ordered an increase in officer salaries, from a measly $30 a month. It was too little, too late. Officials have moved to sending their soldiers home so they can collect their pay, said Joshua Landis, who directs the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

As the rebels advanced, they encountered undermanned and demoralized troops who fled, abandoning their weapons and uniforms. Several thousand of them packed themselves into trucks and fled to Iraq; others simply went home.

The advance surprised the Russians and Iranians. Russia still had a handful of fighter jets in the country after diverting its firepower to Ukraine.

Iran was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Syria last year, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah – the force that helped Assad early in recapturing Homs and other Syrian cities – was nursing wounds from its devastating war with Israel just ended this month.

Hezbollah rushed hundreds of troops into Syria to fight alongside Assad’s forces, but along with the Russians and Iranians, they realized there was no army to fight alongside. In apparent retaliation for the regime’s support, the Iranian embassy in Damascus was stormed by rebels on Sunday.

“Officers were paid $30 a month, and enlisted soldiers were paid $10 a month,” Landis said. “Of course, no one could support their families on this meager wage. Soldiers took money from traders and others at checkpoints because Damascus wouldn’t feed them, and officers sent their men home so they could take the soldiers’ money.”

In some areas, such as Deraa outside Assad’s stronghold of Damascus and the coastal bastion of his Alawite minority, armed groups that had reconciled with his government ruled. They had been allowed to keep their light weapons and mobilized again as more territory fell to the rebels.

His elite Tiger Forces, a largely Alawite militia, had taken up positions in Homs but were more focused on protecting the Alawite heartland. Other minorities that once supported Assad, such as the Shiite Ismailis and the Druze, defected, with the latter seizing the southern city of Suwayda over the weekend and declaring it free of the regime.

“He was an arrogant sob,” Landis said. “He had to make a compromise with the Kurds. The Kurds have America’s ear, he needed supporters. He didn’t help the Druze – they really let the regime down – and the same goes for the Ismailis. Most importantly, he doesn’t talk to the Syrian people.”

In contrast, Assad’s main opponent, Jolani, had taken the opposite path. Jolani returned to fight in Syria at the behest of the Islamic State’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before turning against him and then cutting his ties with the organization.

His current group, HTS, is designated a terrorist organization by the US, Britain and others, and he is now trying to allay their fears and those of minorities that he would install a jihadist government. His efforts appear to be successful, at least among his home audience.

“Jolani has made extraordinary adjustments, getting rid of his jihadists and reassuring Christians. Assad did none of that,” Landis said.

The makeup of the rebels — Islamists, U.S.-backed Kurds, Turkish-backed militias — may sound like a recipe for further internal conflict, but many Syrians hope they will work together to form an interim government and then elections.

Anas Salkhadi, a rebel commander who appeared on television, said: “Syria is for everyone, without exceptions. Syria is for Druze, Sunnis, Alawites and all sects. We will not treat people the way the Assad family did.”

“I think Syrians are really tired after 13 years,” Yasser Alhaji, head of foreign policy for the Syrian Transitional Government, told an opposition group. “Everyone will make concessions to make things work. We have no other choice.”