Syria’s Bashar al-Assad boarded a plane in Damascus for an unknown destination early on Sunday, two senior army officers said, as anti-regime forces seized the city and ousted him from power after 24 years as president.
Assad has not spoken in public since the sudden rebel advance a week ago, when insurgents seized northern Aleppo in a surprise attack before marching into a succession of cities as frontlines crumbled.
His whereabouts now – and those of his wife Asma and their two children – remain unknown.
A Syrian Air plane took off from Damascus airport around the time the capital was reported to have been taken by Syrian opposition, according to data from the Flightradar website.
The aircraft initially flew towards Syria’s coastal region, a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect, but then made an abrupt U-turn and flew in the opposite direction for a few minutes before disappearing off the map.
Reuters could not immediately ascertain who was on board.
Two Syrian sources said there was a very high probability that Assad may have been killed if he was on the plane, as it took a surprise U-turn and disappeared off the map according to data from the Flightradar website.
“It disappeared off the radar, possibly the transponder was switched off, but I believe the bigger probability is that the aircraft was taken down…,” said one Syrian source without elaborating.
The plane departed Damascus soon after rebels had taken the central city of Homs, cutting the capital off from the coast where Assad’s Russian ally has air and naval bases.
The only trackable flight departing Syria visible after midnight on Flightradar24, a flight tracking site, left Homs for the UAE, but that was hours after anti-regime groups had captured the city.
As the Syrian opposition advance gathered steam over the past week, there was speculation that he may seek refuge in Moscow or with his other main ally Iran.
Syrian state media said on Saturday he was still in Damascus. They have not commented on his whereabouts since.
He was visiting Moscow just before the rebel offensive and Iranian news agencies published a photograph of him on Saturday that they said showed him meeting a top Iranian official in Damascus.