Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination on Sunday, as rebels said they had infiltrated the capital with no sign of army deployments.

Syrian army units abandoned their positions on the outskirts of Damascus on Saturday night, fleeing the advance of rebel forces.

The military said it was “reinforcing” defensive lines around the capital, which appeared to have collapsed.

Mohammed al-Rahmoun, the Syrian interior minister, earlier said there was a “very strong security cordon on the outskirts of Damascus and no one can break it”. But the Syrian opposition fighters early on Sunday disproved this, as they reached the capital for the first time since 2018.

The Syrian regime fell back from the cities of Aleppo, Hama and Homs in quick succession since the rebel offensive began less than two weeks ago.

In the civil war of 2011 to 2016, the Assad regime turned the tide against opposition forces with the aid of Russian airstrikes and Hezbollah troops.

Both Moscow and Iran, Hezbollah’s key sponsor, have their attention on conflicts elsewhere.

It has left the Syrian army without much support in the face of the lightning rebel offensive led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group.

Analysts told The Telegraph that low pay and morale as well as little experience were hampering the effectiveness of the army.

“The Syrian army has never been very good – it ruled by fear and terror, bolstered and backed up by Russians since 2015 who provided firepower and direction. Most of the officers were selected because they were close to Assad,” said Hamish de Bretton Gordon, a retired British army colonel and a chemical weapons adviser to NGOs working in Syria and Iraq.

“The commanders… are more focused on smuggling and extortion than on actually creating defensive positions and leading their troops,” said Greg Waters, of the Middle East Institute.

The army has largely avoided heavy combat since a ceasefire was struck with the rebels in 2020 at the start of the pandemic.

“The army’s collapse is a reflection of a more general collapse in Syrian state institutions,” said Jihad Yazigi, editor-in-chief of the Syria Report.

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