In what the breathless corporate media describes as a surprising ten day blitzkrieg, Syrian “rebel groups” have at last overthrown the Assad family dictatorship.

The so-called civil war – which has been going since at least 2011 – involved not just the “the rebels” and the Syrian government and its military, but also, Turkey, Kurdish militias, Russia, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iran, Israel and, of course, the USA, among others.

One of those principle rebel groups is something calling itself Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) which “has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the United Nations,” according to AP News.

The Guardian online reports ‘Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has fled to Moscow. Islamist-led rebels declared they had taken the Syrian capital in a lightning offensive, sending al-Assad fleeing and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria. The presidential palace in Damascus has been overrun by rebel forces and now people are taking selfies in the grand reception rooms.’

The USA has already bombed ISIL, one of the disparate groups involved in ridding Syria of Assad. Aljazeera reports: ‘The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday that it had struck more than 75 targets, including ISIL (ISIS) leaders, operatives and camps, to ensure that the armed group does not take advantage of the end of al-Assad’s rule.’ Israeli forces have also already moved into Syria.

Also from Alazeera: ‘In his first public appearance since seizing Damascus, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani, a former leader of the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, described al-Assad’s fall as an opportunity to turn Syria into a “beacon for the Islamic nation” and the beginning of a “new history” for the region. “God will not fail you,” al-Julani said in a victory speech at the symbolic Umayyad Mosque in the Syrian capital.’

No doubt the US Home of the Knave and Land of the Freak and Israel’s “most moral” genocidal Occupation Forces will bomb the shit out of any emerging new Syrian government that they disapprove of.

The irony – or something – is that Assad was once a US ally (back in the good old daze, the Yanks had a nasty Black Site there for torturing Afghans and Iraqis). In 2014 Patrick Cockburn reported: “The US has already covertly assisted the Assad government by passing on intelligence about the exact location of jihadi leaders through the BND, the German intelligence service… This may explain why Syrian aircraft and artillery have been able on occasion to target accurately rebel commanders and headquarters.”

I know! Hilarious, right?

Independent commentator Caitlin Johnstone pins the tail on the ass: “Obviously there were many Syrians who wanted Assad gone, and obviously there were many people who had their own reasons for fighting him which had nothing to do with the US empire. There is no contradiction between this obvious fact and the well-documented reality that the US-centralized power structure has been balls deep in Syria from the very beginning of the violence in 2011, and that its involvement led to the events we are seeing today.”