(FILES) Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma arrive to deliver a speech for the Syrian Community on December 9, 2010 in Paris during a two-day official visit to France. A Syria war monitor said that Assad has left the country, after losing swathes of territory to a lightning offensive led by an Islamist-led rebel coalition that said it entered Damascus on December 8, 2024. (Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP)