As Syria’s regime collapsed, the world’s eyes were on Bashar al-Assad’s getaway flight. Behind him, officials key to his brutal rule made a mass exodus, virtually undetected.

Some are only now coming forward with accounts of loved ones who disappeared during the civil war and are presumed dead.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his Syrian counterpart, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in what experts described as the Kremlin's bid to cling to its foothold in the Middle East amid mounting setbacks and waning influence.

New York Times reporters compiled a wide array of clues to uncover what happened to Bashar al-Assad’s key enforcers after the fall of the regime.

Reuters has discovered a mass grave near Damascus that was created in a clandestine campaign to conceal atrocities under Bashar al-Assad. From 2019 to 2021, thousands of bodies were dug up from a known mass grave and trucked to a vast new site in the desert.

Syria’s foreign minister has arrived in Lebanon’s capital in what observers say could mark a breakthrough in relations between the two neighbors