Ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and family have landed in Moscow and have been granted asylum, Russia state media reported today, hours after Islamist-led rebels took control of his country.

“Assad and members of his family have arrived in Moscow,” a Kremlin source told the TASS and Ria Novosti news agencies. “Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds,” he added.

There was buzz on social media with flight trackers speculating the mysterious whereabouts of Assad for most part of Sunday.

A Syrian Air plane took off from Damascus airport around the time the capital was 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.

The sudden change in course and disappearance of the plane from tracking could indicate it had been shot down, or that it had switched off its transponder.

With Assad and family in Russia now, it is clear the plane had switched off its transponder.

Assad’s departure comes less than two weeks after the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group challenged more than five decades of the Assad family rule with a lightning offensive.

“After 50 years of oppression under Baath rule, and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and displacement… we announce today the end of this dark period and the start of a new era for Syria,” the rebel factions said on Telegram.

The Islamist leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, visited the capital Damascus’s landmark Umayyad Mosque, as crowds greeted him with smiles and embraces. HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.

Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, HTS has sought to soften its image in recent years.

Across Syria, people toppled statues of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s father and the founder of the system of government that he inherited. For the past 50 years in Syria, even the slightest suspicion of dissent could land one in prison or get one killed.

As rebels entered the capital, HTS said its fighters broke into a jail on the outskirts of Damascus, announcing an “end of the era of tyranny in the prison of Sednaya”, which has become a by-word for the darkest abuses of Assad’s era.

UN war crimes investigators on Sunday described Assad’s fall as a “historic new beginning” for Syrians, urging those taking charge to ensure the “atrocities” committed under his rule are not repeated.

The rapid developments came just hours after HTS said it had captured the strategic city of Homs, where prisoners were also released. Homs was the third major city seized by the rebels, who began their advance on November 27.

US President Joe Biden was keeping a close eye on the “extraordinary events” unfolding in Syria, the White House said. US president-elect Donald Trump said that Assad had “fled his country” after losing Russia’s backing.

With inputs from AFP