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       Crowds gathered near the Maasna border crossing into Syria.Credit...Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

       Al-Assad flees Syria as rebels take Damascus President Bashar al-Assad has resigned and fled Syria for Russia, according to Russian state news media outlets, a stunning fall for a longtime dictator who had kept rebel forces at bay for years with the help of Moscow and Tehran. Follow for live updates here.

       Earlier Sunday, the main group in the rebel coalition, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, announced that its fighters had taken the capital, Damascus. State television broadcast an announcement by a group of rebels. “The city of Damascus has been liberated, the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has been toppled,” one of them read out, adding, “Long live a free and independent Syria for all Syrians of all sects.”

       It was a moment filled with hope, as many Syrians no longer feared al-Assad’s oppressive regime. Celebratory gunfire crackled around Damascus. Prisoners were freed from notorious prisons.

       “The main legacy of the Assad family that dominated Syria politically, militarily and economically for more than 50 years will be the savage oppression of the population,” Neil MacFarquhar, who has reported from across the Middle East, told me, adding: “Bashar abandoned any attempt at reform after he realized it would mean dismantling the older Assad’s legacy, even after the uprising.”

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       But the present remains rife with uncertainty. Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, the prime minister, said he was ready to work with whomever Syrians chose as their leader, and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham said it would work with him.

       “This is going to result in so many different unfolding outcomes that it is difficult even to think through what they will all be,” said Alissa Rubin, a senior Middle East correspondent. “But for those people who were so terribly persecuted by Assad, this is a moment of incredible joy, relief, and also a sense of all that’s been lost. For all those people who fled Assad for Turkey, this is a time of new uncertainty of possibly going back to a home they haven’t been to in years to pick up their life as Syrians in Syria. And for those who were close to the Assad regime, there’s great uncertainty about their safety.”

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