HMEIMIM AIRBASE, SYRIA — The Sukhoi fighter aircraft punched through the clouds, its growl echoing over Russia’s Hmeimim Airbase on Syria’s coast. Abu Zaid, a bearded militant with the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al Sham, cocked his ear toward the roar.

Rebel forces in Syria captured the capital Damascus and toppled the regime ... Bashar al-Assad and his family are now in Moscow, Russian state-owned news agency TASS is reporting, citing a source in the Kremlin. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attends ...

Bashar al-Assad was branded the "rat of Damascus" after fleeing to Moscow as his brutal regime collapsed. Foreign Secretary David Lammy slammed Assad as a “monster” as the horrors of his prisons, where thousands of political inmates were locked up, tortured, and killed, were emerging.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he will ask ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad about the fate of an American journalist who went missing in Syria 12 years ago

Georgina Deiratani, a Syrian Christian who has lived in Moscow for over two decades, says she is still in shock at the ouster of president Bashar al-Assad and his escape to Russia."We lived well together,

Syria's former President Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow with his family after Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds, a Kremlin source told Russian news agencies on Sunday, and a deal has been done to ensure the safety of Russian military bases.

After the fall of the Assad regime, Russian cargo planes flew equipment from Syria to bases Moscow controls in eastern Libya, according to U.S. and Libyan officials.

The sudden collapse of the long-established Assad family dictatorship in Syria changes the balance and constellation of competing forces in the Middle East. For many years, the Syrian government has been a client of Russia, and before that the Soviet Union. Turkey has also intervened, mainly in pursuit of the Kurd minority regarded as dangerous.

Vladimir Putin has been conspicuously silent about Syria since the end of Bashir Assad's rule. Analysts say it points to weakness and a need for a win.