US monitoring ‘extraordinary events’ in Syria

US President Joe Biden is keeping a close eye on “extraordinary events” transpiring in Syria, the White House said late Saturday.

The US president took up the move after a war monitor said President Bashar Assad fled the country and rebels declared they have taken the capital.

“President Biden and his team are closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and staying in constant touch with regional partners,” National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement on social media.

President-elect Donald Trump said that Assad had “fled his country” after losing the backing of Russia.

“Assad is gone,” he said on his Truth Social platform Sunday. “His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer.”

Earlier, Trump said Saturday that the US military should stay out of the escalating conflict in Syria as a shock opposition offensive closes in on the capital, declaring in a social media post, “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT.”

With world leaders watching the rapid militant advance against Syria’s Russian- and Iranian-backed president, Bashar Assad, Biden’s national security adviser separately stressed that the Biden administration had no intention of intervening.

“The United States is not going to ... militarily dive into the middle of a Syrian civil war,” Jake Sullivan told an audience in California.

He said the US would keep acting as necessary to keep the Daesh — a violently anti-Western extremist group not known to be involved in the offensive but with sleeper cells in Syria’s deserts — from exploiting openings presented by the fighting.

Insurgents’ stunning march across Syria sped faster Saturday, reaching the gates of Damascus and government forces abandoning the central city of Homs. The government was forced to deny rumors that Assad had fled the country._Arab News