Follow live updates on Syria and the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government.

As armed rebels have advanced at lightning speed in recent days from the north of Syria toward the capital, Damascus, footage online showed statues of the Assad dynasty — which has kept the country in its authoritarian grip for over 50 years — crashing to the ground.

But as the figures of President Bashar al-Assad’s deceased father and brother fell to cries of “God is Great!” the question looming over the astonishingly rapid resurrection of the torpid civil war into a five-alarm fire is whether the rebels might topple the president himself.

The commander of the rebel alliance, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who depicts himself as a reformed zealot from Al Qaeda, has bluntly made that point.

“Our goal is to liberate Syria from this oppressive regime,” he said in a video interview with The New York Times.

Whether the rebels succeed or not, experts believe that an expected brutal fight to control Damascus, and by extension Syria, would constitute the most important confrontation yet in the struggle to remake the region, one ignited on Oct. 7, 2023, with the Hamas-led attack on Israel.

The main regional players — Israel, Iran and Turkey — all have a stake in the outcome, which means that the ripples will affect not just the Middle East, but also global powers like the United States and Russia.

Joint control with

Syrian government

Turkish army and

Syrian opposition

Aleppo

Kurdish forces

Kurdish advances on Friday

Rebels

Hama

Syrian government

IRAQ

Homs

Rebel advances

since November

LEB.

U.S. military base

and Syrian allies

Damascus

JORDAN

Southwestern

opposition

groups

50 MILES

Turkish army

and Syrian

opposition

Joint control with

Syrian government

TURKEY

Aleppo

Kurdish forces

Raqqa

Rebels

Latakia

Kurdish advances

on Friday

Deir al-Zour

Hama

Syrian government

Homs

IRAQ

SYRIA

Rebel advances

since November

LEBANON

Damascus

50 MILES

U.S. military base

and Syrian allies

JORDAN

Southwestern

opposition groups

Note: Areas of control are approximate. Advance since late Nov. shown as of Dec. 6.

Sources: Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project (areas of control); Janes (rebel control as of November)

See How the War in Syria Has Changed

A surprise advance by Syria’s rebels has redrawn a conflict marked for more than a decade by unusual, shifting alliances.

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