Update: BREAKING: Bashar al-Assad and family are in Moscow: Russian news agencies, via AFP

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Since the overnight hours Damascus has been under the control of the Islamist militants led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and backed by Turkey. The country's President Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown, and his whereabouts are unknown, after the extremely rapid insurgent advance out of Idlib, where city after city fell starting with Aleppo in a matter of about a mere week. And just like that 50 years of Assad family rule has ended, and a new extremely unpredictable era of Syria begins. 

Will the country hopelessly fracture as did Iraq and Libya for years after their strongman leaders were overthrown? Will there be mass reprisal killings? Will Christians, Alawites, and Shia be subject to mass persecution and extermination? Will the country, which has already been through over 13 years of horrific proxy war, descend into sectarian and factional chaos and hell? Will Sharia law be enforced by gunpoint? Or will some semblance of a stable transitional government emerge?