Bashar al-Assad granted asylum in Russia, reports Russian media

Confusion and fear have swept through the former president's Alawite sect, other loyalist communities since his fall

Syria's Bashar al-Assad and his family have arrived in Russia and have been granted asylum by the Russian authorities, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing a Kremlin source.

The Interfax news agency quoted the unnamed source as saying: "President Assad of Syria has arrived in Moscow. Russia has granted them (him and his family) asylum on humanitarian grounds."

Confusion and fear have swept through Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect and other loyalist communities since his fall, with many questioning how the collapse was so rapid after so many of their members had died to keep him in power.

Loyalists spoke with a sense of resignation about the implosion of his 24-year rule and with it, the end of decades of rule by minority Alawites - an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam - in majority Sunni Syria.

Prisoners pour out as Assad's jails flung open

Bewildered and elated prisoners poured out of Syrian jails on Sunday, shouting with joy as they emerged from one of the world's most notorious detention systems and walked to freedom following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's government.

All across Syria, families wept as they were reunited with children, siblings, spouses and parents who vanished years ago into the impregnable gulag of the Assad dynasty's five-decade rule.

A video verified by Reuters showed newly freed prisoners ran through the Damascus streets, holding up the fingers of both hands to show how many years they had been in prison, asking passers-by what had happened, not immediately understanding that Assad had fallen.

"We toppled the regime!" a voice shouted and a prisoner yelled and skipped with delight in the same video. A man watching the prisoners rush through the dawn streets put his hands to head, exclaiming with wonder: "Oh my god, the prisoners!"

Throughout the civil war that began in 2011, security forces held hundreds of thousands of people seized into detention camps where international human rights organisations say torture was universal practice. Families were often told nothing of the fate of their loved ones.

As insurgents seized one city after another in a dizzying eight-day campaign, prisons were often among their first objectives. The most notorious prisons in and around Damascus itself were finally opened on the uprising's final night and the early hours of Sunday.

When they reached Sednaya prison, rebels shot the lock off the gate, a video showed, using more gunfire to open closed doors leading to cells. Men poured out into corridors and a courtyard, cheering and helping them open more cells.

In a video uploaded by Step News Agency, a grey-haired man leapt into the arms of relatives in a sudden, disbelieving hug, the three men clasping each other and sobbing with joy before one fell to his knees, still clutching the freed man's legs.