Syria’s armed opposition says they have captured the capital, Damascus, and that President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country.
The announcement comes after rebels seized the city of Homs in a lightning offensive hours earlier.
“The tyrant Bashar al-Assad has fled,” the armed opposition said in a statement.
“We declare Damascus free of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad.”
Syrian rebel sources tell Al Jazeera Arabic that government forces have withdrawn from the Defence Ministry headquarters in Damascus.
According to Al Jazeera Arabic, citing opposition sources, the rebels have taken over the public radio and television building in the Syrian capital.
The public radio and TV building is an important, symbolic site in Syria.
In addition to being located in the heart of Damascus, the building was used to announce new governments during Syria’s era of successive coups in the 1950s and ’60s.
There are reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad boarded a plane and left to an unknown destination.
It cited two unnamed senior army officers familiar with the incident.
Earlier on Saturday, the government denied reports that al-Assad had fled Damascus. The state news agency said he remained in Damascus and was carrying out his work from the capital.
The president’s exact whereabouts are unknown, however, and he has reportedly not been seen for days.
Al-Julani, the Syrian opposition leader has been signing his statements with his legal name Ahmed al-Sharaa in an apparent effort to distance himself from his past ties to al-Qaeda.
Al-Assad’s Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said earlier that he will remain in Damascus to oversee state institutions.