Ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s inner sanctum bore signs of a hasty exit.
In a sumptuous palace office, a pair of wigs lay abandoned on a desk strewn with documents, bottled water, a glasses case and a magnifying glass.
Mr Assad and his family fled the country when rebel forces entered the capital, Damascus, on Sunday, marking the end of about 50 years of rule by the Assad family in Syria.
They arrived in Russia, where they have been granted asylum, according to Russian state media.
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Now, the presidential palace in the country’s capital has been vacated and people have been seen taking selfies and making off with the furniture.
Some walked through the still-smouldering and gutted rooms.
A fire burns in a room of the Presidential Palace in Damascus’s al-Muhajirin area. (AFP: Omar Haj Kadour)
A youth walks past a fire burning in the palace. (AFP: Omar Haj Kadour)
A man looks at a fire burning in the palace. (AFP: Omar Haj Kadour)
Unlike the fall of past dictators, such as the late Saddam Hussein of Iraq, those storming the palace didn’t so much trash the joint as dishevel it — for the most part.
The main entrance was littered with torn-down propaganda posters but the red carpet was left intact — as if to welcome those with designs on replacing Syria’s deposed family dynasty.
A giant picture of Bashar al-Assad lies on the ground inside the palace. (AP: Omar Sanadiki)
Syrian opposition fighters take a selfie inside the palace. (AP: Omar Sanadiki)
People walk in a conference room inside the palace. (AP: Hussein Malla)
A casually dressed group of men and women lounged on a palace sofa, smiling and flashing “V for victory” signs.
Children ran up and down an indoor art installation like it was a playground.
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A young man carried a modest-sized flat-screen TV.
Some took selfies on their mobile phones, others posed for photographs.
A group of people take a family photo while sitting on a couch in a hall of the palace. (AP: Hussein Malla)
A man holds an AK-47 and flashes the victory sign as he poses for a photo in the palace. (AP: Hussein Malla)
The spectacle before foreign media marked the end of a family dynasty that did not last through its second generation.
It was a different palace from the one where Hafez al-Assad, months after taking the presidency in 1971, let a few staged moments during a high-level meeting with Egypt and Libya play out before a news camera.
Syria’s original strongman and his counterparts chatted amiably in cosy armchairs as staffers smoked cigarettes and tried to thrash out a draft constitution for a proposed Federation of Arab Republics.
Two decades later, al-Assad the elder had built a new palace — designed by celebrated Japanese architect Kenzo Tange — on a mountain plateau overlooking Damascus.
A Syrian man sits on a chair and flashes a victory sign. (AP: Hussein Malla)