°®Âþµº

In a seismic shift for the Middle East, Syrian rebels declared the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday after capturing Damascus, ending over 23 years of his authoritarian rule.

The Islamist-led offensive not only toppled Assad's regime but also dealt a significant blow to the regional influence of his key backers, Russia and Iran.

Despite the collapse of his stronghold, Assad's exact location remains unknown. Two senior army officers told Reuters that he had fled Damascus for an undisclosed destination hours before rebels entered the capital.

"[Assad] left the country on a plane to an unknown destination," sources told the news agency.

His whereabouts nowÌý— and those of his wife Asma and their two childrenÌý— remain unknown.

Possibly dead?

A Syrian Air plane took off from Damascus airport around the time the capital was reported to have been taken by rebels, 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.

Two Syrian sources told Reuters 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.

"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.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Sunday that Assad was probably outside Syria.

Assad is "probably outside of Syria", Fidan said when asked in Qatar about Assad's whereabouts and whether his life might be in danger.

Fled to Russia?

The chargé d'affaires of the Syrian embassy in Qatar, BilalÌýTurkiah, told °®Âþµº's affiliatedÌý that Assad had fled, leaving Syrians to determine their fate, suggesting that he was likely headed to key-ally Russia.

Samir Al-Abdullah, director of the policy department at the Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies, indicated that the Syrian president fled to Russia with his family.

Speaking to Alaraby TV from Istanbul, Al-Abdullah noted that most officers in the regime's army had moved towards the Syrian coast.

On Friday,ÌýThe Wall Street Journal reported that Asma al-Assad, Assad's British-born wife, fled Syria with their three children last week, citing Syrian and Arab security officials.

The same report indicated that Assad's two brothers-in-law had also left the country for the United Arab Emirates.

Assad in UAE?

Assad has maintained diplomatic relations with the UAE, which welcomed him during a rare state visit in 2022, marking a significant moment of Arab rapprochement.

The Emirati diplomatic advisor to the president, Anwar Gargash, said on Sunday he was unaware if Assad was in the UAE.

"I don't know," he toldÌýreporters on the sidelines of the Manama Security dialogue in Bahrain when asked if Assad was in the UAE, adding that Syria was not out of the woods yet and "extremism and terrorism" had remained a key concern.

Gargash blamed Assad's downfall on a failure of politics and said he had not used the "lifeline" offered to him by various Arab countries before, including the UAE.

"Now there was a major failure, basically, in part in politics and policy, because Assad did not really use the sort of, you know, lifeline, that was thrown to him by various Arab countries, including the UAE, and did not really use that to open up, to move on to constitutional discussions that were taking place,"ÌýGargash said.

"We don't know about the shape of developments in Syria. Is this going to be a sort of wiser group that will be able to actually transcend, as I mentioned, Syria's tortured history, or are we going to go back into a reincarnation of radical and terrorist organisations playing a major role?"

The UAE had hoped to distance Assad from Iran and had taken up a leading role in rehabilitating him among the mainly Sunni Muslim Arab states that shunned him after he accepted help from Shia, non-Arab Iran and Russia to put down the Sunni-led rebellion against him.

Sources had told Reuters earlier this month that the US and the UAE had discussed with each other the possibility of lifting sanctions on Assad if he peels himself away from Iran and cuts off weapons routes to Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Given the UAE's role as a refuge for regional leaders, such as granting asylum to former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in 2021 after he fled Kabul during the Taliban's takeover, and its historically nuanced position on Syria, it remains a plausible, yet unverified, destination for Assad's escape.