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Rebels Declare Damascus "Free," Claim Assad Fled Capital; Sources: Police Close To Identifying CEO Shooter; U.S. Defense Sec. Announces $1 Billion Aid For Ukraine. Aired 12-1am ET

Aired December 08, 2024 - 00:00   ET

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

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome everyone. I'm Omar Jimenez in New York.

We're going to begin with breaking news in Syria, where 50 years of authoritarian rule by the Assad family is quickly crumbling. Rebel forces have entered the capital of Damascus.

And the rebels are celebrating after declaring Damascus free and claiming President Bashar al-Assad has fled the city.

They say they're preparing to take over state media offices to broadcast their victory. Now a source tells CNN that the Syrian military there has fallen as well, as Syria's Prime Minister says the government is ready to, quote, "cooperate with any leadership the people choose."

Rebels have been sweeping through the country since launching an offensive last week. They claim to have captured four cities in a single day before reaching the capital. That includes the third largest city, Homs.

Now Syrians were seen tearing down and setting fire to posters of Assad. Rebels say senior Assad regime officials are preparing to defect in the capital as well. We're also seeing reports of Syrian soldiers fleeing the country and going to Iraq. And the White House says it's closely monitoring these fast-moving developments and staying in touch with regional partners.

There's a lot of developments this hour that we are continuing to monitor. I want to bring in Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi.

Paula, what can you tell us, what is the latest that we are seeing, again, in this very fast-moving situation right now?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Omar, it is extremely fast, the events that we're seeing unfold at this point. In fact, just a matter of hours ago, there were text messages going out from the Bashar al-Assad regime's military, telling people that they would create calm and stability, that they were in control. And now we see, just a few hours later, a very different situation.

So events have unfolded very quickly, Syrian rebels saying that they are in control of Damascus, that they have entered Damascus, and that Bashar al-Assad is nowhere to be seen. We have not heard from him in some time at this point. So residents in Damascus, in fact, across Syria, are waking up to a very different reality at this point.

As you mentioned there, the rebels are moving to place themselves, they say, in strategic positions across the capital. We understand that they are moving to take over the media as well, the state-run media, the broadcasting station, as expected. You control the media, you control the narrative within the country. And it is an uncertain time for many residents within Damascus and many other cities across the country.

I think one statement that stands out is showing the change in the situation is a statement we had from the Syrian Prime Minister, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali. And he has said that he is ready to cooperate with any leadership the people choose, saying that he would do everything that he can to try and make sure that this is a smooth transition, so effectively an olive branch to the rebels and acceptance that the regime of Bashar al-Assad has fallen.

Also, calling on Syrians to protect public facilities and saying to military forces do not enter any of these public facilities or any of the institutions, and also saying it's forbidden to fire bullets into the air.

So there's some attempt by the Prime Minister there to try and ensure that this could be a smooth transition, himself saying that I am at home, I will not be leaving home except in a peaceful manner. So we will have to see how that unfolds.

When the rebel forces entered Damascus, we did have some reports of clashes, but not many, and it appears that there are many reports that the military did disband and did move out of the city itself. So it is an uncertain time for residents. You can see there these pictures at the Damascus airport, where many people fled to, thinking they could fly out of the country.

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But when they got there, there were no personnel there. There was no one to check them in, no one to get them onto the plane. And according to some flight monitoring systems, there don't appear to be any flights leaving Damascus at this point. So it is a very uncertain time, Omar.

JIMENEZ: Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi, thank you so much for catching us up to speed.

I want to expand this conversation now, bring in CNN Analyst and Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton, who joins us now from Washington.

Colonel, as you listen to Paula as well, obviously these updates and these developments are incredibly fast-moving right now. But can you just give us the significance of what the reverberations here are going to be with the end, potentially, of an Assad regime in a place like Syria? What happens next?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (Ret.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, that's a great question, Omar. One of the key things is the entire structure of the state is either going to evaporate or it's going to become part of what the rebels will use to control the population themselves. And that includes the intelligence services.

So one of the key pillars of the Assad regime was their intelligence system, which was a very thorough, brutal, almost Soviet-style system. And that is something that's going to be interesting to see how the HTS and other rebel forces deal with that.

The other aspect of this, of course, is on the international side of things. And each of the neighboring countries, you know, whether it's Israel or Lebanon or Iraq to the east or Turkey to the north or Jordan to the south, each of them is going to have to figure out exactly what their relationship with Syria is. And all of them have had a history with Syria, some of it good, some of it bad. And in the case of Israel, mostly bad.

But that is something where, in many cases, those relationships might not change that much. But they are going to definitely be something that's going to change a bit with the advent of a new regime in Syria. So then the next factor, of course, is which group will actually control most of Syria's territory. Is it going to be HTS? That is a possible scenario, a very likely scenario. But they've got other groups.

You know, right now it's a coalition of the willing, basically, that's going after the Assad regime and has been very successful in doing so. But the remnants of the Assad regime are in the western, northwestern part of the country. And then, of course, you have the Kurdish forces in the northeast.

So those are things that are going to have to be worked out if Syria is to remain a unified country. So there is a possibility that Syria may come apart in some ways at this juncture. But it's going to take a while for that to materialize.

There's also going to be a degree of consolidation that HTS probably will lead in the areas that it controls directly, and it will try to, I think, work with some of the other groups that they've formed a coalition with in order to have as much strength as possible, at least in the middle and northern parts of the country.

JIMENEZ: And as you've been speaking about them, HTS, Hayat Tahrir al- Sham, they have sort of been the leaders of the opposition groups that have formed really over a number of different factions. So, of course, working together to seize power from Assad is one thing. Finding ways to lead among a number of groups that have differences but united for this cause is something else entirely.

But I do want to track some of the progress that we saw them make really quickly. I mean, it was just a week and a half ago we were starting to see reports of rebel forces clashing with government forces, taking certain parts of cities, taking Aleppo, for example. And then that offensive seemed to rapidly escalate and accelerate.

Are you surprised at the pace with which these rebel forces were able to move from city to city to city, and then, of course, here to the capital in Damascus?

LEIGHTON: Yeah, this is a really interesting feature of the way HTS did this. And they had excellent, from a military perspective, excellent preparation, not only of their own troops, but basically of what we call the battle space. So they knew the terrain that they would be fighting, and they knew the strengths and weaknesses of the forces that were arrayed against them from the Syrian regime.

And so when it came to this, the actual moment of attack, that part was a surprise. But once they captured Aleppo, then everything started to roll forward, and it was kind of like a snowball rolling downhill. And you could see the movement was almost irreversible, because at each particular location, whether it was Aleppo in the north or Hama or then Homs, you saw the government forces not really putting up much of a fight.

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And once you see that happen, once that degree of inevitability comes into play, then it becomes pretty clear that this is going to be a very quick situation. So I basically -- once Aleppo fell, it became clear to me that Damascus would fall within a few days, within a week to 10 days, I predicted at that point in time.

But it is certainly something to see this happen. It is not unprecedented. We saw something similar with the Taliban in Afghanistan. And you can go back in history and look at some of the movements in the Middle East when it came to the unification of Saudi Arabia in the 1920s, or you look at war in Saudi Arabia and those movements during World War I.

There were some areas where you had this period of what seemed to be static, no movement at all between various military forces, but then things accelerated. And that's basically what we saw here. So there was this degree of inevitability and HTS was able to exploit that quite effectively.

JIMENEZ: And Colonel, before you go, I want to get your take on a bit of reporting that we're just getting in. One U.S. official told CNN that what is happening is the collapse of, quote, "Iran's artifice" across the Middle East. Hezbollah and Hamas have been decimated. Now Assad's regime has collapsed.

I wonder what your take is on that. Do you see this collapse as -- as an indictment of Iran's influence and even Russia's as well in the region?

LEIGHTON: To a certain extent, it certainly is that. And I remember when I first went to the Middle East as far back as the 1980s, and we observed a lot of activity even back then between Iran and Syria.

Now, that relationship up until this point, at least, had become a quite strong relationship. But the problem that the Iranians have is that each one of their allies or proxies in the case of Hezbollah and Hamas, and of course, in the case of Syria now. Each one of those has been irreparably weakened and become useless to them from an international bridge standpoint.

And as far as the Russians are concerned, it remains to be seen exactly what arrangements HTS or whichever successor regime comes into place in Syria, which what kind of arrangements they make for the bases, the two bases that the Russians have in the western part of Syria. But that presence has also been weakened and they certainly did nothing to support Assad.

And that very fact makes it very difficult for them to continue to exercise leverage over the rest of the Middle East or even beyond that. So this is a serious blow to both Iran and to Russia.

JIMENEZ: All continuing developments that will likely play out in the days and potentially weeks to come. But of course, right now, rebels are declaring Damascus free after that stunningly quick and rapid offensive throughout the country. Retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton really appreciate the time and perspective.

All right, everyone, we're going to have much more on the breaking news happening right now in Syria. Rebel forces say Damascus is now free. And this video is set to show rebels they're firing into the air in celebration.

We'll be right back.

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JIMENEZ: Welcome back, everyone. We're going to continue on with the breaking news in Syria, rebel forces there say the capital, Damascus, is now free and that President Bashar al-Assad has fled the city.

Now, the Prime Minister says the government stands ready to, quote, "cooperate with any leadership the people choose."

And this was the scene in Damascus a short time ago. The video is set to show rebels troops firing into the air in celebration and the rebels say they're moving to capture state media offices to broadcast their victory announcement over Assad.

Rebels have been sweeping through the country since launching an offensive last week. They claim to have captured four cities in a single day before reaching the capital. You can see a sense of how quickly they have moved in the amount of territory they've captured on this map here.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is also weighing in on the escalating situation in Syria, posting on social media that the United States should have nothing to do with it. This is not our fight. Let it play out. Do not get involved.

But he also criticized the Obama administration for failing to enforce the 2013 red line, which stated that Syria's use of chemical weapons would mean U.S. military action.

Now, the President-elect also said that the ouster of Bashar al-Assad might be good for Russia because there is no benefit for Moscow in supporting Syria.

So a lot to keep up with here. I want to go now to Los Angeles, where I'm joined live by Kim Ghattas. She is a contributing writer for "The Atlantic" and the author of Black Wave, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the 40- year rivalry that unraveled culture, religion and collective memory in the Middle East.

Kim, thank you for being here.

I want to start with a bit of news that we got in a little while ago because I think it's pertinent to some of what you've written about, a U.S. official telling CNN that what's happening in right now is the collapse of Iran's artifice across the Middle East. Hezbollah and Hamas have been decimated and now Assad's regime has collapsed. I wonder how you see the context of what we're seeing right now Newswise within the region.

KIM GHATTAS, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Great to be with you. And yes, it's a bit strange to be in Los Angeles. I just happen to be on a work trip. But where I really want to be is home back in Beirut, because this is a momentous, historic moment for Syria, for Syrians and for Lebanon as well, which was occupied by Syria for many years and which suffered a lot under Syrian occupation and then trying to stand up to the Syrian regime of Hafez al-Assad and then Bashar al- Assad.

And many people were assassinated for doing that, including our former Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri, in 2005, who tried also not just to oppose Syria, but to push back against the Hezbollah's triangle hold on Lebanese politics, which has only grown or had only grown stronger since that day.

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And now, as you say, we've watched Hezbollah being decimated in Lebanon. And the fall of the Syrian regime, which was -- which had become key in that axis that Iran had built across the region. And that leaves Iran with not very much left in what I describe as its forward defense strategy. It had all these proxies around the region to keep the fight with its enemies in Iran's view, America and Israel, far away from its own borders. And that has now very clearly collapsed.

That carries some dangers for countries like Israel, possibly for Lebanon. We'll have to see how things unfold inside Syria. There is at first the incredible joy that we need to recognize that Syrians are elated to see this oppressive regime that has ruled them for 54 years, including 13 years of bloody civil war, that that regime is finally gone.

So there is the geopolitics of what this means for the region. But there is also an incredible moment that we should pause and recognize, because people have been killed, half a million or more in the last 13 years, thousands, hundreds of thousands held in prison. Some of them disappeared, never to be heard from again.

They may be alive or they may not be alive. We've seen some of them come out of the prisons that are being opened up. And of course, just the sense of relief and joy that 13 years of war trying to unseat Bashar al-Assad have now finally paid off.

And it is the doing of Syrians themselves. They have outside backers, of course, like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS. But this is the hard work, the sweat, the blood, the suffering of Syrians that we need to pause and really recognize and recognize the agency that they have in this moment.

And it will change the regional politics. It will have implications for the politics of Lebanon, where Hezbollah is now not only decimated militarily by Israel, but will be weakened politically within the country. And I think its opponents will inside Lebanon will now speak out even more forcefully.

Hezbollah is going to be isolated in Lebanon because supply chain of weapons and other support that used to come from Iran through Syria to Lebanon will now most definitely be cut. And amidst that joy, of course, the uncertainty of what comes next. So far, it's been fairly smooth, fairly bloodless, almost.

It's hard to believe that the regime that has held on for so long, including over those last 13 bloody years, finally collapsed in just, you know, 9 or 10 days.

JIMENEZ: Kim, stay with us right now. I just want to add one person in the conversation. I want to bring in CNN's Nic Robertson, who's in London with us right now.

Nic, because one of the things, Kim, was just mentioning is about what comes next. Of course, you know, you pause to mark the significance of what this moment actually means after more than a decade of fighting, hundreds of thousands killed, millions of refugees.

This rebel group is made up of a number of different factions that I guess, for lack of a better term, united in this effort to overthrow Assad's regime. Just can you explain the different factions that we're seeing here? And if there's maybe an indication of -- of who would take the country forward from here?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, I don't think we have a good enough understanding at the moment to see a principal political leadership emerging. Jolani, as head of HTS, is the military commander and we're still in the military phase. So this is very much under -- under -- under his control.

The political move forward from this and he's articulated it in part. He said that he wants to see all foreign forces leave the country and another senior political figure who's been on the landscape of trying to negotiate peace with the Assad regime almost a decade ago and has been very much at the forefront of continuing as a political leader in the opposition.

He told me this. He said, look, once you have that military control, once you have that transition of power, the government, this sort of the government institutions, the government buildings, the running of the country, the day to day, the paying of pensions, all those sorts of things that are -- that are that are vital for the country to keep ticking along.

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Once the military has done its job of securing the cities and the countryside, they want to be able to pass on to a political -- to a political set of leaders. And the initial idea would be, that that there would be an interim period of a six-to-nine-month period of a -- of a sort of a power sharing agreement between all the different political factions before it would then go to a vote for the public. And that's -- that's really aspirational at this stage.

I mean, let's remember that this evening, tonight in Damascus, the -- the rebel command has told their fighters not to shoot in the air, but we're seeing a lot of shooting in the air.

The fight to -- for control of the whole country is not over yet. We're seeing pockets of it, pieces of it. We don't know where Bashar al-Assad will end up and if he'll coalesce support around him and if that will be in the north west of the country or the Mediterranean around Lattakia, you know, sort of his home turf, if you will, where -- where he has a lot of support on if the rebels will try to shut that down and if they can do it quickly.

The political process perhaps holds on that. There are so many, so many questions at this moment. But I think everything that we've seen so far indicates that they do want to make a smooth transition and that there is a plan.

When I spoke to this political -- very senior political figure earlier this evening, I did not expect him to be able to tell me specifically step by step what they what they plan to do. But it's very clear that planning has been going on.

I can also update you from what my source is telling me is happening in and around Damascus. The rebels at the moment are questioning military commanders and intelligence officials about where Assad may be.

They're obviously speaking, I'm told, to those officers who would necessarily in the course of their duties perhaps have an insight into where Assad has gone. Those who might have been close to him in his offices or those who might have been involved with his travel and transport or readying that travel and transport, all those sorts of figures in intelligence and military. The rebels are trying to track them down to question them so they can get a handle on what's happened to Assad, because until he appears or makes a statement, that's an open question.

And it's a key and open question because he is likely the only figure that any realistic resistance is going to, if it's going to coalesce, is going to coalesce around him. And that gets, of course, to the political transition, which happens after the military stability.

JIMENEZ: And of course, it's another reminder to emphasize, yes, we are still, as you mentioned, in the military phase of this. The noting that Damascus is free has come from rebel leaders, as you mentioned as well. We have not heard in any form from President Bashar al-Assad.

I want to bring Kim back into the conversation because, Kim, you said something really interesting right before we went to Nic, that this rebellion, this move was built in the blood, sweat and tears of the Syrian people. And I just want to dig into that a little bit more because, look, this comes after more than a decade since the Arab Spring. Of course, hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions of refugees since then.

This rebel offensive is made up of a number of different factions that might have their own individual disagreements and beliefs, but united around this particular movement. Can you just characterize the significance of these various groups coming together and sort of how we got to this moment?

GHATTAS: They did come together in a rather incredible way and created this pincer movement from the north with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham starting first from Aleppo. Then, you know, you had the Kurds come in and from the south other factions as well. And that, in essence, meant that Bashar al-Assad in Damascus and holding the coast was increasingly isolated and cut off from international borders then with Iraq and Jordan. The only border he still controlled was with Lebanon.

I think time will reveal details of how this campaign came together because it is rather incredible how fast it unfolded. It relied on several factors. It must have relied on the organization and coordination of these different factions. It also was made possible by the increasing decrepit state of whatever was left of the state that Bashar al-Assad ruled over.

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And of course, it coincided, as we've been saying, with a moment in the region where Iran's proxies were weakened. Iran is feeling vulnerable and cannot send more support for Bashar al-Assad the way it did to save his regime in 2013, '14 and '15. And Russia is otherwise occupied as well with Ukraine.

So this confluence of events suddenly meant that the writing was on the wall for Bashar al-Assad. And that is an incredible sequence of events that has been put in motion, you could argue, since October 7th with the massacre committed by Hamas in Israel, at which point I think Iran realized, because it did not want to go to war with Israel effectively and did not want to enter into that conflict, and that's why we saw that for a long period of time, for a year almost, Hezbollah was trying to keep the war simmering on the border between Israel and Lebanon, but not launch into a full war.

I think Iran realized then, and I wrote it in "The Atlantic," that its strategy of using proxy militias and proxies around the region had really come to an end, because it was staring down the barrel of the gun itself. And that's the result of this incredible sequence of events.

But again, I don't want to take away from the incredible courage of Syrians themselves who have made this happen with a lot of blood, sweat and tears and pain. And it is just really incredible to speak to some of them, to hear their news, to hear some of them already flying back the best they can to Damascus or, you know, trying to make their way back towards -- towards Syria.

You know, I really think that 2013, '14 and '15 changed the world. Syria changed the world. When President Obama did not enact his red line and allowed Russia to enter that space by brokering a deal to remove Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons, which in itself is a positive thing, but that opened the gate to so many developments, including Russia's military involvement in Syria, including the rise of ISIS, because there was a sense that Syria had been let down by the West and jihadis thought this is our chance to come and save the Syrian people, the ummah, whatever you want. And that led to hundreds of thousands of refugees into Europe, into Turkey, into Lebanon. And that led us to the rise of populism and refugee crisis.

I think it's very important to remember that people don't want to be refugees. They want to be able to stay at home. And hopefully, if things continue to go smoothly, and I know that's a tall order, many of them will now be able to actually go home.

JIMENEZ: Kim Ghattas, I really appreciate the time and perspective. Again, we are in the initial stages of, it seems, rebels entering Damascus and declaring the city free. But of course, there is so much more that still needs to come after that. Really appreciate you being here. And thank you to Nic Robertson as well.

We want to continue on with the breaking news coverage happening right now, Syrian rebels firing guns and celebrating in Damascus amid claims the capital is free. Stay with us.

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JIMENEZ: We're following what amounts to really a political earthquake in Syria. The toppling of the Assad regime. Rebel forces say they are in control of the capital. And there's been no word from President Bashar al-Assad, whose whereabouts, as it stands right now, are unknown.

Now, Syria's Prime Minister says the government is ready to, quote, "cooperate with any leadership the people choose." And the rebels have declared Damascus free, saying Assad has fled the city, where he's held power for nearly 25 years and his family for much longer. Sources tell CNN's Nic Robertson the rebels are trying to track Assad down. And a source tells CNN that the Syrian military there has fallen, as video shows some soldiers fleeing Damascus altogether.

Rebel fighters say they're taking over state media offices to broadcast their victory over Assad, adding that some senior regime officials are preparing to defect in the capital as well.

I want to bring in Ibrahim Al-Assil. He's a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute. He joins us now from Washington.

Thanks for being here. I want to get your take on what we're hearing, for starters, from the Syrian Prime Minister, saying we are ready and willing to cooperate with whoever the people choose to lead next. Do you view that statement as significant in any way for what might come now?

IBRAHIM AL-ASSIL, SENIOR FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: Thank you for having me. So clearly Syria is now in a transitional phase, and it's definitely important that we see some cooperation between different sides for this transition to make it as smooth as possible and as fast and quick as possible. If every part of the Syrian state has fallen, that would make it much more difficult for a transition.

So the best-case scenario is where the regime falls, but the state institutions hold. That's what Syrians are hoping for, and that's what we are trying to understand, if it will happen or not.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, I think the two sides here that people see might be the rebels and the government or the regime. Well, the rebels are made up of a number of different factions of groups that don't always see eye to eye, but have seemingly come together for this purpose of overthrowing the Assad regime. Can you just tell us a little bit about the significance of who these groups are and why their coming together is so significant?

AL-ASSIL: So the armed groups are really a composition of so many different groups. We have the biggest one, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, but it's not the only one. Many of these groups came together to form this force to attack Assad and try to liberate all the Syrian cities.

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And while they were making their journey or their way from the north to the south, at every city other armed groups joined them. Whenever they reach a town or a city, they get connections or they get calls from other groups who fought Assad before and they want to join at this point.

Now this coalition has achieved its primary goal of ousting Assad from ruling Syria. What's going to come next is a big question because this coalition might now start to disintegrate and we might start to see different groups trying to fight each other or compete against each other. We haven't seen any indications yet that it's still happening, but it is likely. JIMENEZ: And, you know, for viewers who might be seeing this story for the first time or just tuning in and think that this might have come out of nowhere, I mean this has evolved very quickly over the past week and a half or so militarily as we've seen these groups go from city to city.

But what I find interesting in this is typically when there have been flare-ups from any form of opposition group towards the government in a serious way, we've seen supported air force strikes from Russia, of course from the Syrian government as well. It's been more of a coordinated response from the government among their allies in the region.

At least as far as from where I'm sitting, I have not seen a significant addition of resources from Russia, from Iran or Hezbollah or anything of that nature during the course of this offensive over the past week and a half. Are you surprised that they have not contributed in a way or to a level of significance that we've seen them do in the past?

AL-ASSIL: I think what was very interesting is how the regime forces imploded because once that happened, there is no point of any support if the Syrian army is not there fighting. No matter how much support the Russians offer with their air power, they won't be able to convince fighters on the ground to fight for Assad. And Assad couldn't motivate or couldn't get the fighters to fight for him.

And I think that's due to multiple reasons. Among them is that over the last few years and during the ceasefire, the de-escalation that took place in Syria between 2020 up until last week. Assad couldn't offer a vision for Syria. He couldn't improve the living conditions for those fighters. He couldn't offer them any hope for the future. The economic situation kept deteriorating. The corruption multiplied inside Syria.

And there was a clear disconnection between Assad and his loyalists. And apparently at some point, they reached a convention that he is the worst-case scenario and he is the worst of the two evils and that they would take anything over him, hoping that it's going to be better and there might be a chance for their life to get better in the future.

JIMENEZ: And, of course, we are waiting to hear in any form from Assad. We have not seen any of his whereabouts. We know from our reporting that rebel leaders or rebel forces are questioning regime members over to where Assad may be, but no communication, at least publicly, we have heard at this hour. But, of course, we are looking for that.

Ibrahim Al-Assil, I've got to leave the conversation there, but thank you for being here.

AL-ASSIL: Thank you.

JIMENEZ: All right, everyone, our breaking news coverage continues after a quick break.

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JIMENEZ: Welcome back, everyone. We want to update you on our other top story that we've been following. As authorities brace for another day in the manhunt for the shooter of a health insurance CEO, we're learning the backpack that investigators recovered in Central Park in New York City is believed to have belonged to the gunman. It contained Monopoly money. But the search for the murder weapon in New York drags on as the investigation expands to Atlanta. CNN's Gloria Pazmino has the latest.

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GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Well, the finding of this backpack inside of Central Park last night has now led investigators down a different path. After the backpack was processed in an evidence lab by the NYPD, which found that there was no weapon inside of that backpack.

So the NYPD sent a team of its divers into the lake at Central Park, and that is where they have been searching for a murder weapon. So law enforcement sources confirming to us that the divers are on the search for a gun.

Now, let's talk about all the other evidence that police have been able to gather so far. We've seen the surveillance video. We know about the backpack. We know about the jacket. We also know that they have potential DNA evidence that was left behind on a water bottle that the suspect left behind not far from the crime scene.

Now, of course, the missing piece here is who this person is. What is the identity of this person? And one of the most important pieces of evidence is what NYPD officials here have referred to as the money shot. That's the photo we see of the suspect at the hostel where he was staying. You see that he is pulling down his mask and flashing a smile. That is the only full view that we have of this person's face.

The police are hoping that that will help to identify who this person is. For now, two people briefed on this investigation tell us that they believe the NYPD is close to identifying this man.

Now, we are also learning more about just how fast it all happened. We know that from the moment the suspect opened fire, killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, to the moment he arrived right here to this bus terminal behind me, it was less than an hour. It took him less than an hour to commit the shooting, to escape on a bike, to ride through Central Park, to exit the park and get on a cab and ride here, where police have video of him entering the bus terminal, but not ever leaving the terminal. That leads them to believe that the suspect has likely left the city of New York.

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On that front, they are working with law enforcement agencies around the country, including the FBI as well as other local police departments, as they try to identify who this person is.

For now, detectives here in New York City have said there is no indication that the shooter and the CEO had any prior interaction or that this was in any way related to Thompson's personal life.

In the meantime, there is a $50,000 reward for any information that may help lead to the capture of the suspect.

Gloria Pazmino, CNN, New York.

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JIMENEZ: Thank you, Gloria.

We also want to keep you updated on another story. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced an initial billion-dollar military aid package for Ukraine on Saturday. He also argued strongly for U.S. leadership around the world. The U.S. has led a coalition of countries to arm and equip Ukraine's military since Russia invaded in February 2022.

Now, Austin said it would be a mistake to abandon Kyiv. The aid package includes weapons vital for Ukraine's defense.

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LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Now, that package will provide Ukraine with more drones, more rockets for its HIMARS systems and more support for crucial maintenance and sustainment. And that brings the total of U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine since February 2022 to more than $62 billion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Now, our breaking news coverage continues after a quick break, including on recent developments out of Syria. Stay with us.

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[00:55:44]

JIMENEZ: Welcome back, everyone. New video is coming in from Syria where rebel forces have entered the country's capital. Just a short time ago, these rebel troops were broadcasting this message on Syrian state television. Rebel troops have declared Damascus free and say that President Bashar al-Assad has fled the city.

Now, a source familiar with the rebels' operations says there's an active search underway for President Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, outside in Damascus, scenes like this are playing out, people standing on a tank, posing with weapons and waving a Syrian flag, potentially the beginning of a new chapter in the country of Syria.

Thanks for joining us this hour. I'm Omar Jimenez in New York. We're going to have much more on the breaking news out of Syria, which continues after a quick break.

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