The Assad family’s secret escape tunnels have been revealed after Syrian rebels discovered the huge luxury underground network amid their raids.
A video claiming to show Major General Maher al-Assad’s ‘mansion’ shows a white staircase cut into the floor, spiralling underground.
From there, it is another two staircases descending even further into the white-and-grey depths.
The footage, said to have been snapped by a rebel, then cuts to show a vast network of empty, wide tunnels with tall, curved ceilings.
Maher al-Assad – who is the deposed President’s brother and is known for his ruthlessness – holds a rank equivalent to major general and leads the elite Fourth Division of the Syrian army.
The video was captioned: ‘Massive tunnel complex beneath Maher Assad’s mansion, wide enough for trucks carrying Captagon and gold to drive through.’
Another claimed the tunnels were ‘ready with ventilation, sitting rooms, bedrooms, locks and metal doors’.
Syrian rebels seized the capital Damascus unopposed on Sunday, sending President Bashar al-Assad fleeing after a 13-year civil war and six decades of his family’s autocratic rule.
The deposed leader and his family fled the country and have been given asylum in Moscow, Russian state media confirmed. His brother’s whereabouts, however, are unknown.
Top rebel commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani’s group was once Syria’s branch of al Qaeda but has softened its image to reassure members of minority sects and foreign countries.
It comes as dramatic pictures showed hundreds of Syrians with bags and suitcases gathered on the Lebanese border hoping to cross back into their country.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said there is already some evidence of Syrians returning.
However experts believe that if deposed president Bashar al-Assad’s downfall leads to more stability in the country then it could have the opposite effect, with Syrians returning home in their thousands.
An estimated seven million Syrians have fled Assad’s murderous regime since the civil war began in 2011 – most of them to refugee camps in neighbouring countries such as Turkey and Jordan.
More than a million have since settled in Europe, with a majority in Germany. Between 2015 and 2021, 20,319 Syrian migrants came to the UK under a government relocation scheme.
A further 9,766 Syrians have been granted asylum in the UK in the last three years after arriving irregularly, with Syrian nationals making up about eight per cent of small boat arrivals in the last six years.
US President Joe Biden cheered Assad’s fall but acknowledged that it was also a moment of risk and uncertainty.
The US Central Command said its forces conducted dozens of airstrikes on Islamic State targets in central Syria on Sunday.
In a statement, the CENTCOM said its strikes were aimed to ensure that the Islamic State does not take advantage of the current situation in Syria.
Jubilant supporters of the revolt crowded Syrian embassies in various cities around the world, lowering red, white and black Assad-era flags and replacing them with the green, white and black flag flown of his opponents.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Assad’s fall was thanks to blows Israel had dealt to Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, once the lynchpin of Assad’s security forces.
‘The barbaric state has fallen,’ French President Emmanuel Macron said.
Supporters of the rebels who toppled Assad have entered some Syrian embassies around the world to hoist their flag.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer welcomed the fall of the ‘barbaric regime’ and called for ‘peace and stability’.
In Britain, Trafalgar Square was crowded with people celebrating the news, and refugees swore to return to their homeland.
Muhamad Khatib came to Trafalgar Square with his son to celebrate. He said Al-Assad was ‘the worst dictator in the world’.
He said he and his wife were ‘wanted’ people in Syria and he would ‘love to go back and live there in a big democracy’.
Others called it a ‘dream’ come true and they are looking forward to seeing what Syria will look like in the future.
Syrian opposition leaders had agreed to guarantee the safety of Russian military bases and diplomatic institutions in Syria, a Kremlin source told state media.
But some Russian war bloggers said the situation around the bases was extremely tense and the source did not say how long the security guarantee lasted.
A deal to secure Russia’s air base in Syria’s Latakia province and its naval facility at Tartous on the coast would come as a relief to Moscow.
The facility is Russia’s only Mediterranean repair and replenishment hub, and Moscow has used Syria as a staging post to fly its military contractors in and out of Africa.
Losing Tartous would be a serious blow to Russia’s ability to project power in the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Africa, say Western military analysts.
Influential Russian war blogger ‘Rybar’, who is close to the Russian Defence Ministry and has over 1.3 million followers on his Telegram channel, said the situation around the bases was a serious cause for concern whatever Moscow’s official line.
‘Russia’s military presence in the Middle East region hangs by a thread,’ Rybar said.
Rescuers are battling to liberate Syria’s alleged hellhole the ‘Red Prison’, but rebels who freed caged women and children reportedly still can’t access the men trapped.
Saydnayah Prison near Damascus – nicknamed the ‘Human Slaughterhouse – is said to contain ‘highly secured underground’ cells in its Red Building.
Unverified footage reportedly shows rebels ‘opening cells one by one’ by breaking down walls, and they are said to have rescued ‘hundreds of inmates, including women and young children’.
But there are men trapped in cells three floors underground in a section named the ‘Red Prison’, some have said.
The military prison, dubbed the ‘industrial torture chamber’, has reportedly seen between 5,000 to 13,000 inmates hanged since 2011, according to AlJazeera.
Heartbreaking video showed a toddler walking out of the unlocked cell doors looking confused as rebel soldiers shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ – meaning ‘God is greatest’ – as they free hundreds of inmates.
It comes as an alleged Russian plot to spread fake news of an Assad ‘plane crash’ has been uncovered.
The Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security of Ukraine posted on X to claim Russia ‘covered their trail’ of helping Assad escape by spreading false reports that he died in a crash.