New Delhi:

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani aka Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Syrian rebel leader who led the lightning offensive that put an end to Bashar al-Assad’s rule, has said the new dispensation would go after senior officials responsible for torture and abuses under the previous regime.

Sharaa met outgoing prime minister Mohammed al-Jalali “to coordinate a transfer of power that guarantees the provision of services” to Syria’s people, a statement posted on the rebels’ Telegram channels said.

The statement added that the new government “will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people”.

The movement against the Bashar al-Assad regime began in 2011, but he cracked down hard, killing about half a million people and forcing many more to flee the country. With support from allies Russia and Iran, Assad managed to stave off any rebel offensive for over a decade. But with his allies occupied in wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Assad was exposed and the rebels did not miss the opportunity. As the rebel tanks rolled into Damascus, Assad fled Syria and curtains came down on the five-decade rule of his clan.

The regime change in Syria came as a rebirth for the thousands of inmates in Syria’s prisons and detention centres, many of them jailed for dissent.

According to news agency AFP, thousands gathered outside Saydnaya prison near Damascus, synonymous with the worst atrocities of Assad’s rule, to look for their relatives.

Over 1 lakh inmates are believed to have died — including executions and natural deaths — in Syrian prisons during the Assad rule, according to a 2021 report by the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Of them, more than 30,000 died in Saydnaya alone. An Amnesty International investigation found that “murder, torture, enforced disappearances and extermination carried out at Saydnaya since 2011 have been perpetrated as part of an attack against the civilian population that has been widespread, as well as systematic, and carried out in furtherance of state policy”. Such were the tales of torture in Saydnaya that it was known as a “human slaughterhouse”.

With Assad gone, the family members of these inmates, many of whom have been detained for years, are looking for them. Among them is Aida Taha, 65, who is looking for her brother, arrested in 2012. “I ran like crazy. But I found out that some prisoners were still in the basements. There are three or four floors underground,” she told AFP.

Many of the prisoners who have managed to escape from the now-unmanned prisons roam the streets of Damascus, with unmistakable signs of torture and hunger.

A civil servant at the finance ministry said people were scared to speak out. “It’s indescribable. We never thought this nightmare would end. We are reborn. We were afraid to speak for 55 years, even at home. We used to say the walls had ears,” Rim Ramadan, 49, told AFP.

Syria’s parliament, earlier pro-Assad, has said it supports “the will of the people to build a new Syria towards a better future governed by law and justice”. Baath party has said it will support “a transitional phase in Syria aimed at defending the unity of the country.”

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led the rebel groups’ blitzkrieg, was earlier banned by Western powers for its links with Al-Qaeda. Over the years, the organisation has tried to soften its image.

As Syria looks to rebuild, Germany and France have said they were ready to cooperate with the new leadership “on the basis of fundamental human rights and the protection of ethnic and religious minorities”. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said HTS must reject “terrorism and violence” before Britain can engage with it. US State Secretary Antony Blinken Washington DC is determined to prevent IS re-establishing safe havens in Syria. “We have a clear interest in doing what we can to avoid the fragmentation of Syria, mass migrations from Syria and, of course, the export of terrorism and extremism,” he said.

The UN has said the Assad regime must be held to account. The ousted leader has reportedly fled to Russia, but Kremlin has not confirmed this.

New Delhi:

As Syrian President Bashar Al Assad fled the country amid a regime change and rebel forces moved in, statues of his father and former President Hafez Al-Assad in and around the capital were pulled down by protesters welcoming the rebel fighters.

More history in the making – Syrians in Jaramana, a SE #Damascus suburb, tear down the Hafez al-#Assad statue.

The end is near. pic.twitter.com/ySTpVKHImo

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) December 7, 2024

Seizing power through a coup in 1970, Hafez Al-Assad started as a Prime Minister and then remained Syria’s President till his death in 2000. The three-decade rule, though autocratic, gave Syria an era of stability and established it as a major force in the Middle East. His son, Bashar Al Assad, succeeded him and ruled Syria for over two decades till an armed rebellion overthrew his regime.

This is the head of a statue of Hafez Al-Assad. The person who massacred their families in the 80s, the former dictator and the father of the current dictator. Syrians will never stop fighting until freedom is achieved. This is #Hama pic.twitter.com/wxQJTGwlyj

— Omar Alshogre | عمر الشغري (@omarAlshogre) December 6, 2024

Dramatic scenes played out in the streets of Damascus and other cities as the regime changed in Syria. In particularly symbolic visuals, a statue of former President Hafez al-Assad was pulled down in Syria’s fourth-largest city Hama — over 200 km from Damascus. Celebratory firing and cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ rang out loud as the statue was destroyed. A video showed a vehicle dragging the statue’s decapitated head through the road as people chased it to kick. In the city of Latakia too, a statue of the former President was pulled down as protesters cheered and recorded the moment on their phones.   

The vandalism of statues is a symbolic act witnessed in regime changes worldwide in recent history. When the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh was overthrown earlier this year, statues of the country’s first president and Sheikh Hasina’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman were vandalised. The scenes in Syria are also reminiscent of the 2003 footage of a US armoured vehicle toppling a statue of former dictator Saddam Hussein on the day Baghdad fell.

The rebellion that proved to be Bashar Al Assad’s undoing began after peaceful anti-government protests in 2011 were repressed. Over time, the movement snowballed into a complex conflict drawing in foreign powers and leaving half a million people dead and many more displaced.