MOSCOW: A group of men at the Syrian embassy in Moscow raised the opposition flag there on Monday morning, an AFP journalist saw.

Standing on the embassy balcony, the men clapped and sang as they raised the green, red, black and white Syrian opposition flag under falling snow.

“Today the embassy opened and is working normally under a new flag,” an embassy representative told TASS state news agency.

Russia was a key ally of Syria’s ousted president, Bashar al-Assad.

With Assad ousted, a new era starts in Syria as the world watches

A Kremlin source told Russian news agencies on Sunday that Assad and his family were in Moscow, hours after he fled the country as Islamist-led rebels entered Damascus.

The source also said the rebels who ousted Assad in a lightning offensive “guaranteed the security of Russian army bases and diplomatic institutions on Syria’s territory”.