Syria’s Damascus On Monday, happy Syrians with flags climbed up on a government tank that had been left in the main square of the capital city and snapped selfies.
Others destroyed or vandalized the ubiquitous images of former President Bashar al-Assad that were displayed in government buildings. Simultaneously, hundreds of Syrian exiles returned to Syria via unsecured border crossings from Lebanon.
Additionally, the tall monument of Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, the despot who initially established his tyrannical rule over Syria fifty years ago, was thrown to the ground by joyous crowds just outside of Damascus. After that, they dragged it past applauding onlookers through the streets while attached to the back of a truck.
The noises of rebels firing their AK-47s into the air, honking horns, and Syrians of all ages shouting “Hurriyah! Hurriyah!” or “Freedom! Freedom!” seemed to be a part of the celebrations everywhere.
The abandoned uniforms of Assad’s soldiers, who dispersed before the militants of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) invaded Damascus and essentially put an end to the 13-year civil war that had ripped this ancient land apart, were scattered across the streets.
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Assad was not present to witness his compatriots welcoming the HTS rebels who had quickly seized control of Syria after fleeing with his personal family to Russia and receiving asylum from his longtime benefactor Vladimir Putin.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of the HTS, showed up at a mosque in Damascus wearing military fatigues just hours after Assad withdrew.
He has also started going by Ahmad al-Sharaa, his real name, in recent years.
While Syrians were observed stealing furniture and other stuff from Assad’s abandoned palaces and ogling the fleet of expensive cars the dictator maintained in a garage, al-Jolani ordered his forces to refrain from harming civilians and to stop looting.
Al-Jolani’s troops liberated thousands of detainees from Assad’s cruel prisons, many of whom had been detained for decades in appalling conditions where rape and other forms of sexual torture were common. This was one of the first things they did.
However, al-Jolani is the leader of a militant group that was formerly the Syria branch of Al Qaeda and has been classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations. A cautious international community was also keeping an eye on Syria to determine if it was displacing one autocrat with another.
Nevertheless, on Sunday, President Joe Biden said, “At long last, the Assad regime has fallen.”
In order to create a transition away from the Assad dictatorship, we will work with all Syrian factions, including through the UN-led process,” he declared.
The United States has been keeping a close eye on the HTS takeover of Syria and has roughly 900 American forces stationed in northern Syria.On his Truth Social platform, President-elect Donald Trump posted a different message Saturday morning. He wrote in bold letters that the United States should not get involved in the Syrian conflict.
We’re not fighting this,” he wrote. “Watch it happen.
In multiethnic and multireligious Syria, al-Jolani has attempted to reassure his compatriots that all religions will be respected and that the military and low-level government employees who worked for the Assad regime will not face any retaliation.
He has also promised not to target the Alawites, a minority sect that includes Assad’s family. The Alawites controlled the government and military and had a secret police force modeled after the Soviet Union, whose primary goal was to crush any dissent by any means necessary.
As of right now, the majority of Syrians seemed to believe al-Jolani.
After Damascus fell, Syria s prime minister, Ghazi al-Jalali, said in a statement that hedoes not intend to leaveexcept in a peaceful manner that ensures the continued functioning of public institutions and state facilities, promoting security and reassurance for our fellow citizens.
He said that the government is ready to cooperate with any leadership chosen by the Syrian people.
In the town of Qardaha, where the Assad family is from and where Hafez al-Assad is buried, the elders vowed in a statement Monday to cooperate with Syria’s new rulers.
As for the portraits of the father-son dictators that are everywhere in this coastal Syrian city, “the attendees call for the removal of all statues and images from public squares and places,” the elders declared.
Nearly 7 million Syrians have fled the country in the last four years, many of them to Europe where the sudden influx of refugees fueled a resurgence of anti-immigrant far-right movements.
With the fall of the Assad regime, the governments of Britain, Germany, Finland and several other European countries announced they wouldsuspend making decisions on asylum applicationsfrom Syrian nationals.
We are analyzing various migration scenarios following the political changes in Syria taking place before our eyes,” Poland’s deputy interior minister,Maciej Duszczyk, whose country takes over the presidency of the European Union Council on Jan. 1, posted on X. “Ensuring security is key.”
Richard Engel reported from Damascus, and Corky Siemaszko from New York City.
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