Syrian rebels said President Assad had already fled as they declared their capture of Damascus. Reports said that he left the capital by plane for an unknown destination.
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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Alex Ritson and this is a special edition recorded at 0600 GMT on Sunday 8th December,
to mark the historic events unfolding in Syria after more than half a century.
The Assad era appears to be over.
Hafiz Al Assad became president of Syria in 1971 under the Ba'ath Party.
His son Bashar took power after his death in the year 2000.
In the last few hours, he's widely believed to have fled the country by plane en route to an unknown destination.
Islamist rebels say they're now in control of the capital city, Damascus,
and are, at the time of recording, preparing to broadcast on state tv.
We'll get the very latest from our correspondents.
We'll be assessing what all this means for the people of Syria and for President Assad's former international allies,
including Russia and Iran.
After almost a quarter of a century in power and almost 14 years of civil war,