The End of Assad? Syrian Rebels enter the outskirts of Aleppo for the first time since 2016

But they forgot to tell the Russians,, they were really caught on the wrong foot..lots of their troops now trapped, and Putin has asked Turkey to take them until a rescue can be arranged. I sure as hell would not like to be a Russian soldier sourrounded by HTS right now,

Do you have a plan for how the weapons could be safely transported to Ukraine, rather than end up in Islamist or Russian hands?

Great excuse for stealing more land and killing more Arabs as well, two things Israel loves more than anything

Didn't take long did it ? You mean what Israel is doing by bombing another country and violating it's territorial integrity is perfectly fine now.

Makes sense. They aren't Arabs so Israel does not view them as subhuman scum and might make a vague effort not to kill them

One is forced to, inevitably, wonder I suppose. But when we hear who these so called "rebels" are made up of, it doesn't fill one with any kind of positive foresight. The Assad's Alawite dictatorship - over half a century of it - may have been a cruel one to his enemies, but the fact is he was keeping a lid on a lot worse over there. His prisons may be getting emptied now, but they might not remain empty for long. Or maybe this glorious rebellion might just resort to summarily executing the people they don't like instead.

I may be wrong. I hope I am…and this turns out to be new and optimistic future for Syria (the same way Bashar Al Assad's government was greeted when he took over from his father 24 years ago).

But deep down I fear that there's going to be a lot of people, who are cheering now, ending up with an abundance of egg on their face. Because there's a smack of Larry Dunne's famous quote about all of this.

I don't know how the world appears from that high horse of yours, but here, in the common sense land, we don't need another heavily armed islamic theocracy, there are more than enough already and it's not good for anyone.

These are chiefly Islamists. After 13 years we have a fairly good grasp of who's who.

Assad didn't keep a lid on anything, a couple of kids wrote some graffiti on a school, he had them beaten, there were peaceful protests and he held a brutal violent crackdown. All at a time when there was serious anger over food stock and serious strain. He let that spin out of control on his watch. Then he had 10's of thousands of people tortured and murdered, sparked a regional conflict, indirectly created ground zero for Islamic fundamentalists, created millions of refugees and ended up being one of the few leaders in the world to gas his own people.

As much as other components were at play, most of this is on him (and his brother) and as a result of his decisions.

Naturally people are delighted he's gone.

I haven't come across anyone who isn't dubious of HTS at best. The country is still at war, still fractured, with many factions vying for control.

Without a doubt, Basher Al Assad ran a regime that was a cruel dictatorship and there would be few who'd be rooting for him. However, Assad wasn't toppled by a democratic conglomerate of rebels who have a liberally minded view of Syria's future. He was toppled by a group that includes the likes of Al Nusra Front, Al Queda and ISIS.

A sobering thought for anyone who isn't viewing this from a simplistic Team A/Team B perspective.

My focus is on that side who wants more than half of Europe as their caliphate - so disarming them and ideally making them disappear is a common sense goal.

I keep thinking how Mick Wallace, Clare Daly and Catherine Connolly decided to be a mouthpiece for Assad. And how they had pictures smiling in Syria.

I don't think one democratic state would ever work, base case scenario is probably that it breaks up into 3 or 4 different territories and each group can run their own show.

It does matter what comes after, it really really matters, especially in a region as unstale and as volatile as the middle east. Yes it is great the Assad has been removed and fled the country but what comes next is vitally important for not only Syria but for the whole of the middle east to just blatantly dismiss it as you have with the "regardless what comes now" line is just ridiculous. No one knows what sort of system the rebels will put in place, they could go like the Taliban or they could be more democratic but it just can't be dismissed because one brutal dictator is gone when what comes next could be as bad or even worse.