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Rebels Celebrate, Declaring Damascus Free From Assad Regime; Inside Damascus As Syrian Regime Falls; Assessing U.S. Military Strategy In Syria Post-Assad; Syrian Rebels Celebrate The Fall Of Assad Regime, Assad And Family In Moscow, Granted Asylum; Aired: Netanyahu Orders Israeli Military To Seize Syria Buffer Zone; Eras Tour Is The Highest-Grossing Tour of All Time. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired December 08, 2024 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[19:00:56]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. And I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

The brutal half century Assad family regime in Syria is over. Rebels have taken hold of the capital of Damascus, one of several major cities they took control of in a lightning advance. Bashar al-Assad fled the presidential palace. That residence a symbol of his ruthless reign has now been burned and ransacked.

At this moment, Assad and his family are in Moscow after being granted asylum in Russia. That's according to a source. And the entire world now waits to see what happens next in Syria.

CNN's chief international security correspondent Nick Paton Walsh has more on Assad's fall from power.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Decades of savage, horrific rule, over in a matter of days. Thousands of Syrians celebrated in the streets of Damascus after rebel forces advanced on the capital early Sunday morning, declaring it free of President Bashar al-Assad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We announce to you from the Syrian News Channel the victory of the great Syrian revolution after 13 years of patience and sacrifice. We won the bet and toppled the criminal Assad regime.

PATON WALSH: Facing crumbling resistance from regime forces, rebels launched a stunning, lightning offensive. Russia undermining its long- term ally by announcing he had fled the country and was granted asylum in Moscow.

Hours of jubilation followed as civilians and rebels entered the presidential palace, looting furniture with children running about, a sign of how every day the suffering he inflicted had been. Some even touring the presidential kitchen in a land where starvation was once a weapon.

What would you like, one woman says while filming. Our people are hungry. Take whatever you want.

Traces of Assad were being dismantled across the country. This statue of the man who had children gassed in a gutter basement 11 years ago toppled in the eastern city of Tartus. His image torn down from buildings in Damascus and on top of the gates of Homs city center. Symbolically where protesters tore apart his image more than a decade ago in a scene that defined the civil war's early days.

Inspired by the seismic shifts of the Arab Spring, Syrians rose up in 2011 demanding democracy but were met with live rounds and eventually jet planes, chemical weapons and mass executions and torture. Hundreds of thousands were killed, millions displaced.

As rebels swept through the capital on Sunday, images surfaced of prisoners being released from the notorious Sadnaya prison from which so few emerged. Dubbed the human slaughterhouse by Amnesty International.

The militant figure leading this rebel offensive is Abu Mohammed al- Jolani, seen here prostrating in prayer upon entering Damascus. Once affiliated with al Qaeda, Jolani has been suggesting he has matured from his extremist roots, though there are deep concerns about what kind of new Syria may now emerge.

At one of the oldest mosques in the world in Damascus, he was received with applause and jeers as he held total victory.

ABU MOHAMMED AL-JOLANI, SYRIAN REBEL LEADER (through translator): This victory, my brothers, is a victory for the entire Islamic nation. This new triumph, my brothers, marks a new chapter in the history of the region.

PATON WALSH: Without doubt a new chapter, but with the joy of change comes anxiety at the future and surely a reckoning of sorts for the decades of horror past that could mire the hope of the days ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: That was Nick Paton Walsh reporting. Thank you so much for that.

And tonight, CNN is getting a rare look inside Damascus. Our Clarissa Ward, the first Western journalist to report from Syria since Bashar al-Assad's fall, takes us through the city just hours after he fled with his family. She spoke with Wolf Blitzer shortly after arriving in the Syrian capital. Here's that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, I have to say the moment is just utterly surreal.

[19:05:03]

For those of us who have been covering this story for more than 14 years, it never seemed possible that it would end like this.

I want to say that the streets are incredibly calm, incredibly quiet, but you can see just behind me a few cars have been going through the street. There's actually a curfew in place from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. That is a security measure of course. There has been some looting in Damascus earlier on, some chaotic scenes. And so as a precaution, as we saw in Aleppo, they have put this curfew into place.

I want to show you, though, Wolf, a clip of the moment that we crossed the border because this is a border that I crossed many times when I used to live in Lebanon, when I used to cover Syria at the very, very beginning of the uprising, and the contrast from what it was and what we experienced tonight is just startling. So take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARD: So we're just crossing now into Syria. It's astonishing to see it's absolutely empty. The border points before there would have been soldiers. There would have been border guards. Now there is absolutely nobody from the Syrian regime.

Some friendly people waving us through. And honestly, the last time I came down this road was back in 2011. I was leaving Syria. I had been undercover in Damascus posing as a tourist. Went back into Lebanon, and I never imagined this moment would come when we would be driving through this border with no one from the regime to stop us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WARD: The scene at that border crossing as we pass through it, again, it was already dark, already past curfew. Very, very quiet and just nothing like we've seen it before.

The only real evidence we saw, Wolf, of any struggle to finally take Damascus, to finally ouster Bashar al-Assad was a tank in the road below a torn poster of president or I should say, former president Bashar al-Assad.

And Wolf, my cameraman, Scott McWhinnie, just found this on the ground, literally, as we were listening to that clip. This is the old flag of the Syrian regime, which has two green stars. The rebels' flag has three green stars, but this one has now been -- literally we just found it on the floor. I guess a real moment where you see how much things have changed just in the past 24 hours.

In terms of the security situation on the streets, I would just add, we anticipated that we might see quite a lot of checkpoints as we came into the city. We didn't. We did see a group of men. They did not appear to be armed, but they asked us what we were doing, where we were going, and now that we are sort of ensconced in our place where we're staying for the night, we have seen a couple of patrols.

I saw two men armed and I went up to them and asked them where they were from. They told me they were from Idlib, which is in the northern part of the country. And we saw a man on the street go up and wanted to pose for a photograph of them, which I think sort of speaks to the moment. There is obviously jubilation, elation, but also this sense of you can't compute. It was so fast, so breathtaking. It's astonishing. And I think people are taking some time to try to process the magnitude.

Keep in mind, Wolf, we're talking about 53 years of Assad rule, 53 years of a brutal police state. And I can't tell you how many Syrians have said to me, Wolf, that, you know, we understand that there are concerns about the rebels and the makeup of the rebels and the fact that some of them are Islamists, and some of them are even jihadists, or have been affiliated with al Qaeda or a proscribed organizations.

But, let us have this moment. Let us celebrate the fact that this brutal dictator who has ruthlessly killed hundreds of thousands of people, who has gassed children with lethal nerve agents, who has locked people in prisons and tortured and beaten them to death, that he is finally gone, and that whatever may come and whatever the anxiety, this is a new chapter for Syria -- Wolf.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Clarissa Ward there, thank you so much for that reporting.

Joining us now is CNN military analyst retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling and Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "The End of Ambition: America's Past, Present and Future in the Middle East."

[19:10:07]

Good to have both of you here with us on such a momentous night here as we start to see what will come next in Syria.

General, I do want to start with you. You were actually in Baghdad when Saddam Hussein was found. You understand the complex nature of a regime change. What are you expecting in Syria as we look at the days and months ahead?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, that's a great question, Jessica. And Clarissa's report just now was very good because anytime you have regime change, especially in regimes within the Middle East, there's always going to be dynamics and chaos and dysfunction afterwards.

I wasn't surprised that she didn't see border guards as she traveled from Lebanon into Syria, because the security forces have dissolved, not only the Syrian army, but all of their police forces. The border forces have likely just gone away. So that is going to contribute to chaos.

We saw the looting of the presidential palace in the film that you showed earlier. That's another indicator of what happens in regime change. And it will be the next few days that will tell the tale of what is going to happen next. You know, it was certainly a lightning quick offensive operation by the freedom fighters, by the rebels and it was a collapse of the Syrian army as well as the Syrian government. All of those things contribute. But, you know, tomorrow people are going to be looking for the trains

to run on time after they get past the celebration. They're going to look for government to function. And in a regime change initiative like this, it's going to take a long time to get a new government up operating and serving the people.

DEAN: Yes. And Steven, I kind of want to get your take on all of that as well because I think to Mark's point, Clarissa's reporting is so right on in that this is such a moment for Syrians, so many of them may be able to go home who have had to be refugees for many, many years. This was such a brutal regime and at the same time, these rebels have telegraphed they want to rule a certain way.

They are still designated as a terror group by many nations, including the U.S., so it's complicated, it's nuanced.

STEVEN COOK, SENIOR FELLOW FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: It is indeed one of the most complicated situations that anyone will face. This is 53 years of the Assad regime. Those posters that were being pulled down were not just of Bashar al-Assad, but his father Hafez, who brought a repressive stability to Syria after many decades of instability and coup and counter-coup in Syria.

Now, now people are looking forward to a new era but what exactly will it look like? Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is a jihadist. He is someone who is affiliated with al Qaeda. He's been telegraphing to the world that he and the group he leads, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has changed. But how much have they changed? The reports coming out of Idlib which they have administered for the better part of the last decade are not necessarily encouraging.

But of course, Syrians want this moment to celebrate. I know Syrian refugees who are holding their breath in Washington, D.C. at this moment, hoping that everything turns out well. But they understand how difficult this is going to be. And, of course, for the United States, Iraq casts a very, very long shadow. This was a regime change by Syrians themselves. But those scenes of looting in Damascus may not -- are not a harbinger of a constructive future if they're allowed to continue, and how HTS handles this, and Abu Mohammed al-Jolani handles this power vacuum will tell us much about what the trajectory of post- Assad Syria will be.

DEAN: Yes. And General, I want to play a clip from what President Biden said earlier today about all of this and then we can talk about it. Let's listen to what the president said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some of the rebel groups that took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human rights abuses. We've taken note of statements by the leaders of these rebel groups in recent days and they're saying the right things now. But as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words, but their actions.

(END VIDEO CLIP) DEAN: We'll assess not just their words, but their actions.

General, that's what they're going to have to go on at this point.

HERTLING: Yes, and I think Steven just brought up a very good point before that clip, Jessica. And that has to do with the fact that there is such a dynamic of culture in all of these Middle Eastern countries. Iraq, Iran, Syria. But especially Syria. You know, you have so many different cults, so many different religions. The Hashemites, the Alawites, the Sunnis, the Shia, the Kurds are in the area.

The -- you know, you just have the potential for the kind of chaos that we saw in Iraq when they began their own civil war between the Sunni and the Shia, when the Samarra Mosque was bombed.

[19:15:09]

You could have that same kind of action. What President Biden was talking about specifically is when you have a terrorist group, one of many gangs that are in the area, I'll call them gangs. They're a different group. They go by different names. This one, the translation of HTS actually stands for the liberation of the levant which not only includes Syria but also Lebanon and Israel. So you're talking about a group that has wider perspectives, even though they right now are, you know, bathing in their glory of liberating Syria.

What comes next? And will they take into consideration the rest of the population of Syria? How do they pull it together? It's very difficult in these kinds of societies.

DEAN: And Steven, as we wait and see how that unfolds it seems there's no denying that the Middle East is a very different Middle East today than it was even six months ago.

COOK: Yes, six months ago, the betting was that the Assad regime had weathered the worst of it. And despite not controlling significant portions of the country would come out at the end of this and remain in place. And here we are with, as General Hertling points out, a terrorist organization that is now in power in Damascus.

I want to put a finer point on something that he said. If we look at Syria's closest neighbor it's Lebanon, and Syria has a very similar type of ethnic and religious structure as Lebanon and Lebanon has been a failed state for quite some time. And this is the real danger of what's happening.

No one will ever miss the Assad regime. And I think that's what President Biden was getting at. No one would miss the Assad regime. But there are very serious questions about the people who are now claim power in Damascus.

DEAN: All right. General Mark Hertling and Steven Cook, thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it.

HERTLING: Thanks, Jessica.

COOK: Thank you.

DEAN: Still ahead more of our breaking news coverage. The U.S. conducting more than 75 new airstrikes inside Syria today. What we know about those targets, we're going to talk about that.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:21:54]

DEAN: With ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad taking refuge in Russia and getting asylum from Moscow, according to a source, the world is watching to see how the rebels' seizure of power will impact the wider Middle East.

President Biden saying the fall of the Assad regime is a moment of both risk and opportunity for the people of Syria.

Let's bring in Priscila Alvarez, who is at the White House, and Katie Bo Lillis, who's at the Pentagon for us.

Priscilla, let's go first to you and just how the White House is taking in all of this information. And obviously monitoring it quite closely.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, senior administration officials acknowledged to reporters that this came abruptly. It was a swift fall, one that they again concede they wouldn't have expected even just a week ago but here they are. And the president today in his remarks outlining the next steps ahead, while also acknowledging that there is so much uncertainty, as you just said.

He said in his remarks, it was, quote, "a moment of historic opportunity," but also, quote, "a moment of risk and uncertainty." And while he laid out a roadmap, he also took a bit of a victory lap by acknowledging that U.S. policy played a role in the weakening of Iran and Russia that facilitated in part the situation in Syria but what he did make clear over the course of those remarks was, as you see there, that he would, that the U.S. will support Syria's neighbors, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Israel, that he would speak to his counterparts and send senior administration officials to the region.

Who and when, however, still unclear. That he would prevent the resurgence of ISIS and that he would engage with Syrian groups in this transition, essentially encouraging them to speak out over the course of this transition, but also that it is ultimately up to Syria. While the U.S. is going to play a helping hand in this transition, the president and U.S. officials over the course of the afternoon making clear that it is ultimately Syria that will determine its future -- Jess.

DEAN: All right. Priscilla, thank you.

I want to go to the Pentagon where Katie Bo Lillis is, and just get the reaction from the Pentagon. Just a reminder to everyone, there are U.S. forces that remain inside Syria right now.

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right. There's about 900 American troops still in Syria. Their job is to continue to take the fight to ISIS. They are there on a counter-ISIS mission. They are not sort of directly involved in any way in the events that led to the downfall of Bashar al-Assad.

Right now, our sense from the -- both the Biden administration and the Pentagon is that these troops aren't going anywhere, at least for the foreseeable future. But that could, of course change on January 20th, when President-elect Donald Trump comes into office.

Trump, during his first administration, sought to completely withdraw all American troops from Syria. He was eventually persuaded to leave this sort of smaller footprint of about 900 troops that that rotate in and out and are there to basically try to keep the lid on ISIS, to prevent ISIS from reconstituting inside Syria. They continue to back the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are directly engaged in that fight.

[19:25:00]

Whether or not he will continue in his second administration to agree to keep these 900 troops there, big unanswered question going forward.

DEAN: Yes, and, Priscilla, I did do want to go back to you and ask you about the American journalist Austin Tice, who's been held captive in Syria for more than 12 years now. Today the FBI saying it's still offering that million-dollar reward for information leading to his safe return.

How does the White House think if they do that this regime change could potentially help get him home?

ALVAREZ: -- his commitment to bringing Austin Tice home when he concluded his remarks earlier this afternoon. We also know that U.S. officials have reached out to the Syrian opposition force last week about Tice, but notably, this is what the president said, that he believes that Austin Tice is still alive, and they think that they can get him back. Those of course just really notable and significant words by the president, although U.S. officials have indicated that they are unsure of his whereabouts, but certainly they are using this opportunity to try to bring him home after, as you mentioned, there more than a decade of him being held in Syria.

DEAN: Yes. I know they are so very ready to have him home.

All right. Priscilla Alvarez and Katie Bo Lillis, thank you both very much.

Still ahead what's being done to keep her son's weapon arsenal from falling into the wrong hands. We're going to talk more about that.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:30:50]

DEAN: Syrian rebels claiming victory after the fall of Damascus in the fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. And tonight, new concerns about who will fill that power vacuum and what comes next for the people of Syria.

We turn to an expert on this, CNN military analyst and retired US Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel, thanks so much for being here, I know you have a lot of information you're going to try to walk us through. Let's start first, though, with these US airstrikes against ISIS in Syria today, a lot of them, about 75. Give us a sense of where those targets were and the types of weapons being used here.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Absolutely, Jessica, it's great to be with you again. Basically, what we're talking about is this area right in here. This is part of the Eastern Syrian Desert and its fairly near the Al-Tanf US Base.

And the basic idea is that the targets were ISIS areas that we had probably a meeting of ISIS leaders and where we had the intelligence indicators that they were doing this.

They also were looking at the possible melding of various ISIS groups to then take advantage of the situation in the rest of Syria where the rebels were going and the types of weapons that we use, the weapons platforms included the A-10, the B-52 and the F-15 all of these highly capable aircraft. The types of weapons that they used would include joint direct attack munitions and various other bombs and missiles that could be used in a very precise way.

DEAN: Another concern tonight, Colonel, is Assad's weapons arsenal, which potentially contains chemical weapons falling into the wrong hands. We do have video that we will show everyone of the aftermath of one of those alleged chemical attacks in 2013, and it shows just a horrific scene of victims, including children who had been gassed by their own government. What can you tell us about that? Do we know where the arsenals could be stored?

LEIGHTON: So, we have some idea where those arsenals are, Jessica. And there are about six sites throughout history. Some of them were originally located about this far from Aleppo. So about 50 to 60 miles from Aleppo.

There are some others that are in the Homs region, there's one site in Damascus, there's another one on the coast, and the types of weapons that we are talking about are gases, like VX and Sarin, as well as Mustard gas. So these are the kinds of things that could be used and could have the effects that you just saw in that very terrible video from several years ago.

DEAN: Yes, it could be very, very bad if those were to get out. I also want to ask you about Bashar al-Assad fleeing to Russia. According to officials there, he is there, he has been given asylum. Rebels never made contact with him directly, but they did do some very serious damage to the presidential palace in Damascus. Walk us through that.

LEIGHTON: Yes, one of the key things, Jessica, is this very opulent palace looks like this now. They've basically gone through this -- the crowds, the rebels, who you know, were in this area, did a lot of damage. They would also go into some of the kitchen areas. They would destroy some of the other parts of these palaces.

And it became basically a public spectacle, very similar to some of the things we saw in other countries where leaders have been deposed. In this particular case Assad got away, some of the other leaders have not been so lucky.

DEAN: Certainly. All right, Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you very much.

Joining us now, we have CNN military analyst General Mark Hertling, and I kind of want to pick up where we just left off there with Colonel Leighton.

There seems to be a theme here with these strongmen dictators. As you well know Saddam Hussein found hiding underground in a hole. Gaddafi, the leader of Libya, was captured and killed after being pulled from a drainage pipe. Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow.

The bottom line is when the walls are closing in, they run, they hide, they try to escape.

GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: And they leave places like Cedric just outlined, Jessica. These opulent palaces, marble floors, gold plated fixtures, beautiful furniture, while their people are starving and living in just horrible conditions.

[19:35:08]

The other thing, and what you're showing now is the hole that Saddam Hussein was found in just outside of Tikrit, where soldiers, special operators and then soldiers from the Fourth Infantry Division found him as he had been hiding underground for many days. You're saying it exactly right. These authoritarian dictators gain their power, and they live in opulence while the rest of the population just suffers.

One of the other things I'd mentioned, Jessica, because you were talking about the gassing of the Syrian citizens. The same thing occurred with Saddam Hussein when he gassed thousands of Kurdish citizens, part of the Iraqi state at Halabja, a massacre that is celebrated every year, commemorated I should say, in the Kurdish region so again, it's similarities.

Fancy places to live, living off the spoils of the land, multiple cars in their garages. And then when the people see all this, they not only take the furniture like you're seeing here, this individual looting the place, but they're also seeing more and more how their authoritarian leaders treated them if they didn't know it already.

I'd add one more thing, if I may, Jessica. The speed of the operation by the rebels, by the so-called freedom fighters down the road from Homs to Hama to Damascus happened so quickly. Because if you look at the history of all of those cities along the route, massacres have occurred. In Hama, 40,000 people were killed by Assad's father in 1982.

They have long grievances against the Assad regime, and I think these citizens within these cities, along the M5 and M1 routes that the rebels took, certainly were very helpful in allowing them to not only proceed, but also to tell them where the Syrian forces were and how they could conduct their operations a little bit faster.

DEAN: What do you think happens to Assad? As our colleague Nic Robertson was reporting, I believe it was last night. He was making the point that so much has been documented. And to your point, about what Assad did to his own people. Would he face -- the question being, would he face any sort of, you know, criminal trial? What might happen? Obviously, he's in Russia. The Russian government and Vladimir Putin has granted him asylum. What do you think happens next?

HERTLING: Well, isn't it interesting, too, that you now have Assad a war criminal, as you say, with multiple charges against him now fleeing into the arms of another war criminal, President Putin, who has committed literally thousands of war crimes in Ukraine.

So you're seeing the kinds of people that flow together. The Iranian regime, North Korea Syria, Russia, to a degree, China are all the axis of the people who have these authoritarian dictators who treat their citizenry very poorly while building up their own power.

What do I think will happen? I don't know. Will The Hague or the International Criminal Court be able to process and charge Bashar Assad? I certainly hope so. We have not seen that kind of action since the Balkans.

But I tell you, it would be a very wonderful occurrence if some of these war criminals were actually prosecuted by the International Criminal Court and I hope that happens with Assad.

DEAN: General Mark Hertling, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

HERTLING: Thank you, Jessica.

DEAN: Still ahead, how Israel is responding tonight to the fall of the Assad regime. Breaking news continues next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:43:34]

DEAN: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today calling the fall of Syria's Assad regime a direct result of Israel's military campaigns against Iran and Hezbollah. Netanyahu is now sending troops north to the border that separates the Israeli occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria. CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports now from Tel Aviv.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Israeli troops on

Sunday began moving into that demilitarized buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces for just over 50 years. This will position those Israeli troops between these newly victorious rebel forces and the communities inside the Israeli held Golan Heights.

Now, this buffer zone is Syrian territory, but the Israeli prime minister said that he ordered troops into that zone after the Syrian troops on the other end of that buffer zone abandoned their positions.

The Israeli prime minister, speaking from the Golan Heights, also said that he views the collapse of the Assad regime as a "great opportunity" but he also warned that it is one that is also fraught with significant dangers.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: This is a historic day for the Middle East. The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus offers great opportunity, but also is fraught with significant dangers.

One of them is the collapse of the Separation of Forces Agreement from 1974 between Israel and Syria. This agreement, held for 50 years, last night it collapsed.

The Syrian Army abandoned its positions. We gave the Israeli Army the order to take over these positions to ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel. This is a temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found.

[19:45:16]

DIAMOND: And in addition to taking positions inside that buffer zone, Israeli troops are also to the border are as well. You can see in these images provided by the Israeli military, these vehicles moving the earth in that area to build up a barrier between Israeli held and Syrian held territory.

Now, we also know that the Israeli military has warned the residents of that buffer zone, Syrian residents, to remain in their homes as Israeli troops operate in the area.

The Israeli prime minister in that video message also sought to take some credit for what has happened inside of Syria, saying that the fall of the Assad regime here by these rebels is a "direct result" of Israel's actions against Iran and its proxy in the region, Hezbollah. Both Hezbollah and Iran have, of course propped up the Assad regime throughout the course of this 13-year Civil War. And Israel, we know, has significantly weakened Hezbollah's capabilities, both in Lebanon but also inside of Syria.

As for the Iranian regime, perhaps distracted by the other events in the region, distracted by Israel itself, and of course we know that the fall of the Assad regime will amount to a significant blow for Iran as well.

And so, that's where the question leads, in terms of the future of Syria and the future of its relations with Israel. Netanyahu said that he is extending a, quote, hand of peace to all Syrians across the border and that he would like to establish, "neighborly and peaceful relations."

The real question, though, is going to be what kind of government actually emerges inside of Syria? And will it be one that will preserve what has effectively been a 50-year detente between Israel and Syria or will it take another tack. And critically, for Israeli officials, will be the question of what happens to the weapons that have flowed from Iran via Syria into Hezbollah's hands inside of Lebanon.

There had been some hope inside the Israeli government that perhaps the Assad regime would cut off that flow of weapons, secure its border with Lebanon. That, of course is off the table now. And so the question is, will these rebel forces now secure the border with Lebanon and prevent Iranian weapons from getting to Hezbollah via Syria.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN Tel Aviv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Jeremy, thank you, and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:52:25]

DEAN: It is the end of an era.

After crisscrossing five continents, 21 countries, and performing 149 concerts, Taylor Swift's iconic Eras Tour wraps up tonight in Vancouver.

It is estimated her tour made more than $2 billion since starting the tour back in March of 2023. She has won two Grammys, released three albums, a concert film and a book.

Joining us now, CNN's Camila Bernal. Camila, how are Swift fans reacting to the end of this era?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Jess, a lot of them are so sad, but also so grateful for the memories. We're talking about thousands and thousands of people who went to the shows, or who even stood outside of the stadium just to listen to her. Many of them going on social media to watch the streams almost every time she would take the stage, and even waking up in the middle of the night when she was playing in Asia or overseas. So really just meaningful for a lot of these fans.

Look, this is a more than three-hour long show with 44 songs in this set list. It really shows you the span of her 18-year career, but it's been a huge impact for so many people. For the local economies. It's even caused earthquakes in certain places and if you ask a lot of the Swifties, they're going to tell you that it is about the love, that it is about the friendship, that it is about the songs, and really coming together.

A lot of them saying that it really helped them forget about the problems, forget about the world, and just focus on something that they commonly love and enjoy together.

I met one of the fans, one of the superfans, as I've been covering different aspects of this story. Her name is Julie Barfuss and I asked her what it's like to see this coming to an end. Take a listen to what she told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIE BARFUSS, SWIFTIE: There's so much community and connection with this group of people, the Swifties that are out there, and it has kind of restored my hope and faith in humanity a little bit.

I definitely am going to miss it in some ways, but also it is going to just sit on the shelf in my mind as this just really bright happy memory of time and like I said, I will eternally be grateful to Taylor for giving this to us because really, what a gift it has been.

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BERNAL: And, Julie will be watching tonight on those streams.

Now, it is important to point out that Taylor Swift's team, they have not released official numbers in terms of the grossing, how much this tour has made. But you mentioned it. It is estimated to be over $2 billion. This is a record setting number.

You know, there's many other artists who are getting close, but really nothing like Taylor Swift. You're not even getting anywhere near those two billion. You see Coldplay and Elton John high up there, but just nothing compared to Taylor Swift.

The US Travel Association, they estimate that fans between travel, hotel food, they spent about $1,300.00 wanting to go to these concerts. It has impacted so many economies and it's not just the fans that are going to miss this tour -- Jess.

[19:55:24]

DEAN: Yes, no doubt about it and it happened right coming out of COVID, it was kind of everyone's first chance to get back together. I got to go to London this summer. There's a lot of joy in those stadiums. It was a good time.

All right, Camila Bernal, thanks so much.

And thank you for joining me this evening. I'm Jessica Dean. We're going to see you again right here next weekend.

"CNN Heroes" is next. Have a great night.

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