Overthrown
Rebel groups finished their rapid advance across Syria yesterday, seizing the capital, ousting President Bashar al-Assad, and ending the country’s 13-year civil war.
Assad’s removal ends his family’s 50-year rule of the country, freeing tens of thousands of political prisoners overnight. The Syrian rebel coalition announced plans for a transitional government, and Syria’s Prime Minister said he’d cooperate and hand over functions to the insurgents.
Russian state media said Assad and his family have been given asylum in Moscow.
Western leaders have cheered Assad’s fall with caution. Yesterday, President Biden described Assad’s fall as an “act of justice” that brings additional “risk and uncertainty” to the region. He promised humanitarian aid and said the U.S. and its allies are working to promote stability and prevent ISIS from capitalizing on the “new vacuum” of power.
ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE
There may be good reasons to be worried about the future of your community or the global one. God does not promise good days, but he does promise his presence and a great eternity with him. Stay focused on him; it changes everything.
“Therefore we do not give up... For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (CSB) (read full passage)