Damascus started a sluggish return to normalcy Monday as anti-regime forces took management of the capital following Bashar Assad’s flight to Russia, marking the top of his household’s 50-year rule and 13 years of civil warfare.
Heavy site visitors returned to the streets and folks ventured out after a nighttime curfew however most outlets remained shut. Members of the armed teams milled about within the heart.
Firdous Omar, from Idlib within the northwest, amongst fighters in central Umayyad Square, stated he had been battling the Assad authorities since 2011 and was now wanting ahead to laying down his weapon and returning to his job as a farmer.
“We had a purpose and a goal and now we are done with it. We want the state and security forces to be in charge.”
The lightning advance of an anti-Assad alliance spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was a generational turning level for the Middle East.
It ended a warfare that killed a whole lot of 1000’s of individuals, triggered one of many largest refugee crises of recent occasions and left cities bombed to rubble, swathes of countryside depopulated and the economic system hollowed out by world sanctions. Millions of refugees might lastly go dwelling from camps throughout Türkiye, Lebanon and Jordan.
Assad’s fall worn out one of many essential bastions from which Iran and Russia wielded energy throughout the area. Türkiye, lengthy aligned with the Syrian opposition, emerges strengthened, whereas Israel hailed it as an final result of its blows to Assad’s Iran-backed allies.
The Arab world faces the problem of reintegrating one of many Middle East’s central states which additionally noticed horrific sectarian violence carried out by the Daesh terrorist group.
‘A brand new historical past’
The HTS chief, Ahmed al-Sharaa, higher often called Abu Mohammed al-Golani, vowed to rebuild Syria.
“A new history, my brothers, is being written in the entire region after this great victory,” he instructed an enormous crowd on the historic Umayyad Mosque in Damascus on Sunday. With onerous work, Syria could be “a beacon for the Islamic nation.”
Assad’s prime minister, Mohammed Jalali, instructed Sky News Arabia he could be keen to satisfy with Golani and was prepared to supply paperwork and help for the switch of energy.
The destiny of Syria’s military could be “left to the brothers who will take over the management of the country’s affairs,” he stated. “What concerns us today is the continuation of services for Syrians.”
Assad’s police state was identified for generations as one of many harshest within the Middle East, holding a whole lot of 1000’s of political prisoners.
On Sunday, elated inmates poured out of jails. Reunited households wept in pleasure. Newly freed prisoners have been filmed operating by the Damascus streets holding up their fingers to indicate what number of years that they had been in jail.
The White Helmets rescue group stated it had dispatched emergency groups to seek for hidden underground cells nonetheless believed to carry detainees.
One of the ultimate areas to fall to the anti-regime forces was the Mediterranean coast, the heartland of Assad’s Alawite sect and the positioning of Russia’s naval base.
Looting passed off within the coastal metropolis of Latakia on Sunday however had subsided Monday, residents stated, with few folks within the streets and shortages of gas and bread.
Two Alawite residents stated that to date the state of affairs had panned out higher than that they had anticipated, seemingly with out sectarian retribution in opposition to Alawites.
One stated a pal had been visited at dwelling by insurgent fighters who instructed him handy over any weapons he had, which he did.
Near Latakia, anti-regime forces had but to enter the Assad household’s ancestral village of Qardaha, the positioning of an enormous mausoleum for Assad’s father who took energy within the Nineteen Sixties. A resident stated all senior figures tied to Assad and his rule had left.
“Only the poor are left here. The rich guys and thieves are gone,” he stated.
The Kremlin stated it was too early to know the way forward for Russia’s navy bases in Syria, however it could focus on the problem with the brand new authorities.
Source: www.dailysabah.com