Not a week passes without some new rumor from Syria tearing up the Arab social media channels. Usually these rumors are sent out by the Syrian Free Army Rebels as a mixture of propaganda and wishful thinking.
Today’s rumor is of a senior Syrian official taking off from a closed airport in Damascus and heading straight to Moskow on flight SYR411, which landed at 11:00 PM on Saturday.
This rumor says the passenger is none other than Assad himself.
Of course, as in previous social media rumors where they say Assad has died, most versions of this rumor say he’s dead too, in a few others, that Assad ran away to sanctuary and exile in Russia.
It probably didn’t help that Syrians didn’t have internet for the past 3 days and need to let loose today.
This rumor was so widespread that the Russian Minister of the Interior felt compelled to respond to it on Saturday evening to say there was no truth to it at all.
We’re waiting to see what next week’s Syrian social media rumors bring.