By Karolina Tagaris, Edward McAllister, Riham Alkousaa ATHENS/BERLIN (Reuters) -Najem al-Moussa was delighted when news of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's overthrow first beamed from the television in his tiny Athens apartment.

In just over a week, Syrian rebel forces seized much of Syria’s northwest. First, the rebels captured Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, then Hama and Homs. On Sunday, they entered Syria’s capital, Damascus, taking the city without a fight as government forces fled.

A growing number of European countries said they would stop processing asylum claims, and some want to pressure Syrians to leave.

Syrian rebels are vowing to secure Assad's stockpile of chemical weapons after the fall of his regime. Chair of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center and former U.S. envoy to Syria Ambassador James Jeffrey joins Chris Jansing to provide more insight on the "complex and uncertain" situation and how the U.

With Syrian opposition forces advancing rapidly toward the capital, Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad’s fate lay in Russia’s hands as his army melted away.

NBC News' Richard Engel reports from inside one of Syria's most notorious prisons, Saydnaya military prison nicknamed "the human slaughterhouse." Thousands of people in Syria have rushed to the country's prisons after the fall of the Assad regime searching for any trace of loved ones they feared had disappeared into their unseen depths.