Damascus:

About half of school-age children in Syria are missing out on education after nearly 14 years of civil war, Save the Children told AFP on Monday, calling for “immediate action”.

The overwhelming majority of Syrian children are also in need of immediate humanitarian assistance including food, the charity said, with at least half of them requiring psychological help to overcome war trauma.

“Around 3.7 million children are out of school and they require immediate action to reintegrate them in school,” Rasha Muhrez, the charity’s Syria director, told AFP in an interview from the capital Damascus, adding “this is more than half of the children at school age”.

While Syrians have endured more than a decade of conflict, the rapid rebel offensive that toppled president Bashar al-Assad on December 8 caused further disruption, with the UN reporting more than 700,000 people newly displaced.

“Some of the schools were used as shelters again due to the new wave of displaced people,” Muhrez told AFP.

The war, which began in 2011 after Assad’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters, has devastated Syria’s economy and public infrastructure leaving many children vulnerable.

Muhrez said “about 7.5 million children are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance”.

“We need to make sure the children can come back to education, to make sure that they have access again to health, to food and that they are protected,” Muhrez said.

“Children were deprived of their basic rights including access to education, to healthcare, to protection, to shelter,” by the civil war, but also natural disasters and economic crises, she said.

– ‘Trauma’ –

Syria’s war spiralled rapidly from 2011 into a major civil conflict that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

More than one in four Syrians now live in extreme poverty according to the World Bank, with the deadly February 2023 earthquake bringing more misery.

Many children who grew up during the war have been traumatised by the violence, said Muhrez.

“This had a huge impact, a huge traumatic impact on them, for various reasons, for losses: a parent, a sibling, a friend, a house,” she said.

According to Save the Children, around 6.4 million children are in need of psychological help.

Muhrez also warned that “continued coercive measures and sanctions on Syria have the largest impact on the Syrian people themselves”.

Syria has been under strict Western sanctions aimed at Assad’s government, including from the United States and European Union, since early in the war.

On Sunday, Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa expressed hope that the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump would lift sanctions.

“It’s very difficult for us to continue responding to the needs and to reach people in need with limited resources with these restrictive measures,” she said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Syria’s new authorities launched an operation in a stronghold of ousted president Bashar al-Assad on Thursday (December 26, 2024), with a war monitor saying three gunmen affiliated with the former government were killed.

What’s happening in Syria? Explained

Assad fled Syria after an Islamist-led offensive wrested from his control city after city until Damascus fell on December 8, ending his clan’s five-decade rule.

After 13 years of civil war sparked by Assad’s crackdown on democracy protests, Syria’s new leaders from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) face the monumental task of safeguarding the multi-sectarian, multi-ethnic country from further collapse.

Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim jihadist group, HTS has moderated its rhetoric and vowed to ensure protection for minorities, including the Alawite community from which Assad hails.

With 500,000 dead in the war and more than 100,000 missing, the new authorities have also pledged justice for the victims of abuses under the deposed ruler.

On Thursday, state news agency SANA said security forces launched an operation against pro-Assad militias in the western province of Tartus, “neutralising a certain number” of armed men.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, three gunmen linked with Assad’s government were killed in the operation.

It comes a day after 14 security personnel of the new authorities and three gunmen were killed in clashes in the same province when forces tried to arrest an Assad-era officer, according to the Observatory.

The Britain-based monitor said the wanted man, Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, was a military justice official who had “issued death sentences and arbitrary judgements against thousands” of detainees at the notorious Saydnaya prison complex.

Hate or revenge

The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.

The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of his rule.

During the offensive that precipitated Assad’s ousting, rebels flung open the doors of prisons and detention centres around the country, letting out thousands of people.

In central Damascus, relatives of some of the missing have hung up posters of their loved ones, in the hope that with Assad’s ouster, they may one day learn what happened to them.

World powers and international organisations have called for the urgent establishment of mechanisms for accountability.

But some members of the Alawite community fear that with Assad gone, they may be at risk of attacks from groups hungry for revenge or driven by sectarian hate.

On Wednesday, angry protests erupted in several areas around Syria, including Assad’s hometown of Qardaha, over a video showing an attack on an Alawite shrine that circulated online.

The Observatory said that one demonstrator was killed and five others wounded “after security forces… opened fire to disperse” a crowd in the central city of Homs.

We want peace

The transitional authorities appointed by HTS said in a statement that the shrine attack took place early this month, with the interior ministry saying it was carried out by “unknown groups” and that republishing the video served to “stir up strife”.

On Thursday, the information ministry introduced a ban on publishing or distributing “any content or information with a sectarian nature aimed at spreading division and discrimination”.

In one of Wednesday’s protests over the video, large crowds chanted slogans including “Alawite, Sunni, we want peace”.

Assad long presented himself as a protector of minority groups in Sunni-majority Syria, though critics said he played on sectarian divisions to stay in power.

In Homs, where the authorities imposed a nighttime curfew, 42-year-old resident Hadi reported “a vast deployment of HTS men in areas where there were protests”.

“There is a lot of fear,” he said.

In coastal Latakia, protester Ghidak Mayya, 30, said that for now, Alawites were “listening to calls for calm”, but putting too much pressure on the community “risks an explosion”.

Noting the anxieties, Sam Heller of the Century Foundation think tank told AFP Syria’s new rulers had to balance dealing with sectarian tensions while promising that those responsible for abuses under Assad would be held accountable.

“But they’re obviously also contending with what seems like a real desire on the part of some of their constituents for what they would say is accountability, maybe also revenge, it depends on how you want to characterise it,” he said.

Since HTS and its allies swept to power earlier this month, a bevy of delegations from the Middle East, Europe and the United States have visited Damascus seeking to establish ties with the country’s new rulers.

A delegation from Iraq met with the new authorities Thursday to discuss “security and stability needs on the two countries’ shared border”, Iraqi state media said, while Lebanon, which has a fraught history with Syria, said it hoped for better ties with its neighbour going forward.

Amy Pope, Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The raft of international sanctions on Syria must be reassessed to help the country rebuild following the ousting of president Bashar al-Assad, the head of the UN’s migration agency said on Friday (December 20, 2024).

Amy Pope also said Syria’s women must be empowered to play a full role in building a new society and bringing stability to the shattered nation.

Also read | U.S. diplomats visit Syria to meet new rulers

The lightning offensive that forced Mr. Assad’s departure was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Al-Qaeda’s Syria branch but has more recently adopted a moderate tone.

The international community has been in no rush to lift sanctions on either Syria or members of HTS, waiting to see how the new authorities exercise their power.

“In terms of the sanctions, we really are talking about all the sanctions: UN sanctions, U.S. sanctions, other sanctions,” said International Organization for Migration chief Pope after visiting the country.

“You can see that across the board the sanctions have had quite a significant effect, especially on vulnerable populations. So to rebuild the situation, there will be a need to re-evaluate those sanctions,” she told a press conference in Geneva.

“People do not have access to credit. They are very much reliant on cash.

“The salaries that people are getting for work are extremely low.”

The ousting of Mr. Assad ended decades of abuses and years of civil war, but it has raised concerns about the rights of minorities, as well as women, and the future of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

On Thursday, hundreds of demonstrators in Damascus demanded democracy and women’s rights, in the first such protest since Assad’s departure.

“We… are strongly urging the caretaker government to continue to empower and enable women, because they are going to be absolutely critical to the rebuilding of the country,” Pope said.

A worker tears down the pictures of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, Lebanon’s late Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a gas station in Nubl, a Shi’ite village seized by rebels, in rural Aleppo, Syria, December 11, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the country has to live with the new “realities” of Syria after the ouster of Tehran-backed president Bashar al-Assad, state media reported on Thursday (December 12, 2024).

Regarding Syria, Iran “was really trying day and night to help in whatever way it could; we have to live with the realities of Syria; we look at them and act based on them,” Hossein Salami said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

“Strategies must change according to the circumstances; we cannot solve numerous global and regional issues with stagnation and employing the same tactics,” he added.

Iran has been a strong ally of the Assad family, whose decades-long rule of Syria ended on the weekend when a whirlwind rebel offensive took the capital Damascus.

Assad had long played a strategic role in Iran’s anti-Israel “axis of resistance”, particularly in facilitating the supply of weapons to Tehran’s ally Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.

The axis of resistance includes Hezbollah as well as Hamas in Gaza, Huthi rebels in Yemen and some smaller Shia militia groups in Iraq.

Also on Thursday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps strongly condemned “the abuse of the current instability in Syria by the US and the Zionist regime,” which is Iran’s term for Israel.

“The Resistance Front will not be passive in confronting any plan or scheme that seeks to disrupt the resistance and weaken the power and authority of the countries in the region,” the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.

Turkey has forces in northern Syria, while in the south the Israeli army has sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the countries’ shared border, east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

The United States also has troops based in Syria, where they have worked with Kurdish-led fighters battling the Islamic State group.

Ties between Tehran and Damascus peaked during the Syrian civil war that started in 2011, with the Revolutionary Guards sending what it called “military advisers” to help Assad.

The Syrian rebels now in power in Damascus appointed Mohammad al-Bashir as head of a transitional government that will be in place until March 1. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Syrian rebels now in power in Damascus appointed Mohammad al-Bashir as head of a transitional government that will be in place until March 1, state media said Tuesday (December 10, 2024).

Syria civil war LIVE Updates – December 10, 2024

On Sunday (December 8, 2024), the rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized the capital Damascus in a lightning offensive, toppling President Bashar al-Assad who fled the country.

“The general command has tasked us with running the transitional government until March 1,” said a statement attributed to Mr. Bashir on state television’s Telegram account, referring to him as “the new Syrian Prime Minister”.

Before being tapped for the role, he had been head of the rebels’ so-called Salvation Government in northwest Syria and previously held the role of its Development Minister.

Also Tuesday (December 10, 2024), a source within the political affairs department of the Salvation Government told AFP Mr. Bashir would head the transitional government.

The Salvation Government, with its own ministries, departments, judicial and security authorities, was set up in the Idlib bastion in 2017 to assist people in the rebel-held area people cut off from government services.

It has since begun rolling out assistance in Aleppo, the first major city to fall from government hands after the rebels began their offensive.

A drone view shows buildings in Damascus, after Syrian rebels ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Syria December 10, 2024
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian Islamist militant group, had been preparing for months for a large-scale offensive against regime forces. The civil war was quiet for years, particularly after the regime of President Bashar al-Assad captured most of its lost territories — including Aleppo, Hama and Homs. The HTS, formerly al-Nusra Front, the Syrian arm of al-Qaeda, had built a statelet in Idlib, in northwestern Syria, under the leadership of its ‘emir’, Abu Muhammed al-Jolani. The HTS and its ally Syrian National Army (SNA), formerly the Free Syrian Army, had informed Turkiye, their patron, at least six months ago about the offensive plan, according to a Reuters report. And Ankara had given its tacit approval.

Mr. Assad’s troops were in a bad shape. Soldiers were poorly paid and lacked motivation. The country never recovered from the scars of the civil war. Under crippling American sanctions, its finances were in shambles. During the peak of the civil war, in 2015-16, Mr. Assad had heavily relied on his external allies for security — Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. Now, the situation was different. The Russians were focused on Ukraine. Iran lost a host of its Syria commanders to Israeli strikes. Hezbollah had been weakened in a year-long war with Israel. The HTS launched its offensive on November 27, the day Israel and Lebanon signed a ceasefire. On the 12th day, the Assad regime fell, sending tremors across the region.

Offensive begins

When they launched the offensive, the militants’ initial target was the western suburbs of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city which Mr. Assad’s forces recaptured in 2016, after four years of a brutal battle. When HTS and SNA militants advanced towards Aleppo, they faced little resistance from government forces. Within four days, they reached Aleppo’s city centre.

The rapid collapse of government forces in Aleppo stunned both the militants and the regime alike. And Mr. Assad’s allies took note of it. The HTS’s victory triggered rebellion elsewhere in the country. In the south, local militias, who were backed by Jordan, started attacking government positions. In the northeast, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish militia, started advancing towards the eastern city of Deir Ezzour. The HTS, the main militant group, marched south from Aleppo towards Hama. On December 5, they entered Hama. Mr. Assad’s forces did not fight back. Some of them crossed the border to Iraq, seeking refuge. Others abandoned their uniforms and fled. The militants raided military depots and grabbed more weapons, making their position stronger. Mr. Assad turned to Iran and Russia for help. But Syrian and other Arab officials say both Russia and Iran told the Syrian President that they could not help him much this time. Iran, according to some reports, evacuated its personnel from Syria.

Shrinking circle

Mr. Assad’s circle was shrinking. His troops are not fighting back. He is not getting any external help. The militants are on a march from multiple fronts. From Hama, the HTS advanced towards Homs, a strategically important city that sits at an intersection between Syria’s Mediterranean coast and Damascus, the seat of power. If Homs falls, Damascus would be cut off from Mr. Assad’s coastal stronghold. On December 7, HTS-linked militants entered Homs, Syria’s third largest city. The next day, the Southern Front, militants from the south who had already taken Daara, entered Damascus first, followed by the HTS. Syria’s Prime Minister Muhammad al-Jalali said he would ensure a peaceful transition of power. The army chief said Mr. Assad’s government was over, bringing the almost 60-year rule of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party in Syria to a dramatic end. Later in the day, Russia said Mr. Assad and his family were in Moscow and granted political asylum.

Different rebel groups

The fall of the regime leaves a huge vacuum in Syria. Until December 8, the opposition militias had a common enemy–’Assad the tyrant’. Now, they are facing each other while trying to expand their influence. Roughly, there are four rebel coalitions in Syria. One, the HTS, led by Jolani. It is the most prominent one. HTS telegram channels already call him ‘President’ Shara, referring to his real name, Ahmed Hussein al-Shara. The HTS has built a statelet in Idlib and some 25,000 soldiers under its command. But that’s not enough to run a vast country like Syria. But the HTS certainly wants to play a key role in the new Syria, and has sent reconciliatory messages to the country’s different sects and militias. The SAA, another northern militia, is an ally of the HTS and a proxy of Turkiye.

Two, local militias in the south. They would not like to give up their privileges. That they entered Damascus first was a clear message to Jolani that he was not the only ‘rebel’ in the game. Three, the SDF, the Kurdish militia. In the northeast, the Kurds have enjoyed relative autonomy since the beginning of the civil war. But Turkiye was alarmed by the Kurds’s growing strengths and had launched incursions into Syria in the past, grabbing territories on the border. The SDF would not like to give up their autonomy, which could put them on a collision course with the HTS and the SAA, the Turkish backed groups. And lastly, there are Alawites, Mr. Assad’s sect who live mostly in the mountainous coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, and enjoyed power for nearly 50 decades. The Alawites were the backbone of the Syrian army. They are unlikely to immediately trust Jolani, a committed Salafi Islamist militant, whose group in the past had carried out targeted attacks against Alawites.

Syria is a diverse country. It now has a diverse set of militias, without a central authority. And then there are external players. Turkiye, as the main supporter of northern militias (HTS and SAA), would seek to extend its influence in the government formation. Jordan would like to see the southern militias getting their due. The Gulf Arabs, who are wary of both Islamists and Turkiye, would be alarmed by the developments. Iran risks losing its territorial link with Hezbollah. Russia’s primary objective would be to safeguard its Tartus naval base and Khmeimim air base. And Israel has already sent troops to capture land in Syria’s Golan Heights and is carrying out massive air strikes aimed at destroying the Syrian army’s military capabilities.

Britain, Germany, France, Italy and several other European countries said Monday they would freeze all pending asylum requests from Syrians, a day after the ouster of president Bashar al-Assad.

While Berlin and other governments said they were watching the fast-moving developments in the war-ravaged nation, Austria signalled it would soon deport refugees back to Syria.

Far-right politicians elsewhere made similar demands, including in Germany — home to Europe’s largest Syrian community — at a time when immigration has become a hot-button issue across the continent.

Alice Weidel, of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, reacted with disdain to Sunday’s mass rallies by jubilant Syrians celebrating Assad’s downfall.

“Anyone in Germany who celebrates ‘free Syria’ evidently no longer has any reason to flee,” she wrote on X. “They should return to Syria immediately.”

World leaders and Syrians abroad watched in disbelief at the weekend as Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus, ending Assad’s brutal rule while also sparking new uncertainty.

A German foreign ministry spokesman pointed out that “the fact that the Assad regime has been ended is unfortunately no guarantee of peaceful developments” in the future.

Germany has taken in almost one million Syrians, with most arriving in 2015-16 under ex-chancellor Angela Merkel.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said many Syrian refugees “now finally have hope of returning to their Syrian homeland” but cautioned that “the situation in Syria is currently very unclear”.

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees had imposed a freeze on decisions for ongoing asylum procedures “until the situation is clearer”.

She added that “concrete possibilities of return cannot yet be predicted and it would be unprofessional to speculate in such a volatile situation”.

Rights group Amnesty International slammed Germany’s freeze on asylum decisions, stressing that for now “the human rights situation in the country is completely unclear”.

The head of the UN refugee agency also cautioned that “patience and vigilance” were needed on the issue of refugee returns.

‘Repatriation and deportation’

In Austria, where about 100,000 Syrians live, conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer instructed the interior ministry “to suspend all ongoing Syrian asylum applications and to review all asylum grants”.

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner added he had “instructed the ministry to prepare an orderly repatriation and deportation programme to Syria”.

“The political situation in Syria has changed fundamentally and, above all, rapidly in recent days,” the ministry said, adding it is “currently monitoring and analysing the new situation”.

The French interior ministry said it too would put asylum requests from Syrians on hold, with authorities in Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway announcing similar moves.

Britain’s interior ministry said it was taking the same measure “whilst we assess the current situation”.

The Italian government said late Monday after a cabinet meeting that it too was suspending asylum request “in line with other European partners.”

The leader of the far-right Sweden Democrats, a coalition partner in the government, said residence permits for Syrian refugees should now be “reviewed”.

“Destructive Islamist forces are behind the change of power” in Syria, wrote their leader Jimmie Akesson on X.

“I see that groups are happy about this development here in Sweden. You should see it as a good opportunity to go home.”

In Greece, a government spokesman voiced hope that Assad’s fall will eventually allow “the safe return of Syrian refugees” to their country, but without announcing concrete measures.

‘Populist and irresponsible’

In Germany, the debate gained momentum as the country heads towards February elections.

Achim Brotel, president of a grouping of German communes, called for border controls to stop fleeing Assad loyalists reaching Germany.

The centre-right opposition CDU suggested that rejected Syrian asylum-seekers should now lose so-called subsidiary protection.

“If the reason for protection no longer applies, then refugees will have to return to their home country,” CDU legislator Thorsten Frei told Welt TV.

CDU MP Jens Spahn suggested that Berlin charter flights to Syria and offer 1,000 euros ($1,057) to “anyone who wants to return”.

A member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats criticised the debate as “populist and irresponsible”.

Greens party deputy Anton Hofreiter also said “it is completely unclear what will happen next in Syria” and deportation talk was “completely out of place”.

Many Syrians in Germany have watched the events in their home country with great joy but prefer to wait and see before deciding whether to return.

“We want to go back to Syria,” said Mahmoud Zaml, 25, who works in an Arabic pastry shop in Berlin, adding that he hopes to help “rebuild” his country.

“But we have to wait a bit now,” he told AFP. “We have to see what happens and if it is really 100 percent safe, then we will go back to Syria.”

Israeli soldiers stand near tanks near the border with Syria on the Israeli side of the border on December 9, 2024 in Golan Heights.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Israeli troops that have moved into the buffer zone on the edge of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights “constitute a violation” of the 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, a UN spokesman said on Monday (December 9, 2024).

The UN peacekeeping force deployed in the Golan Heights, known as UNDOF, “informed the Israeli counterparts that these actions would constitute a violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

He said that the Israeli forces that entered the zone were still present in at least three locations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday he had ordered the army to “seize” the demilitarized zone in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights after rebels swept Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from power.

Also read:Fifty years ago | Israel seeks more planes, missiles from U.S.

Most of the Golan Heights plateau has been occupied since 1967 by Israel, which later annexed it in a move not recognized by most of the international community.

In 1974 a buffer zone was established to separate the Israeli-held and Syrian territories, with UN peacekeepers stationed there.

Israel’s troop deployment in Golan Heights

Amid the downfall of Assad, Israel announced a troop deployment to the Golan Heights citing “the possible entry of armed individuals into the buffer zone.”

Israeli forces “will continue to operate as long as necessary in order to preserve the buffer zone and defend Israel,” it added.

Israeli troops “have entered the area of separation and have been moving within that area where they remain in at least three locations throughout the area of separation,” Dujarric said.

“There should be no military forces or activities in the area of separation. And Israel and Syria must continue to uphold the terms of that 1974 agreement, and preserve stability in the Golan,” he said.

Damascus stirred back to life on Monday (December 9, 2024) at the start of a hopeful but uncertain era after militants seized the capital and President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, following 13 years of civil war and more than 50 years of his family’s brutal rule.

Heavy traffic returned to the streets and people ventured out after a nighttime curfew, but most shops remained shut militants milled about in the centre.

Arrangements for a transitional government

The main militant commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, met overnight with Mr. Assad’s Prime Minister Mohammed Jalali and Vice-President Faisal Mekdad to discuss arrangements for a transitional government, a source familiar with the discussions said.

Al Jazeera television reported that the transitional authority would be headed by Mohamed Al-Bashir, who ran the administration in a small pocket of rebel-held territory before the 12-day lightning offensive that swept into Damascus.

Syria’s banks would reopen on Tuesday and staff had been asked to return to offices, according to a Syrian central bank source and two commercial bankers. Syria’s currency would continue to be used, they said.

Fighters from the remote countryside milled about in the capital, clustering in the central Umayyad Square before Damascus’s great eight-century mosque.

“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,” said Firdous Omar, who said he had been battling the Assad government since 2011 and was now looking forward to laying down his weapon and returning to his job as a farmer in provincial Idlib.

The advance of a militia alliance spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate, was a generational turning point for West Asia.

It ends a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble, swathes of countryside depopulated and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions. Millions of refugees could finally go home from camps across Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Assad’s government collapse

Mr. Assad’s fall wipes out one of the main bastions from which Iran and Russia wielded power across the region. Turkiye, long aligned with Mr. Assad’s foes, emerges strengthened, while Israel hailed it as an outcome of its blows to Mr. Assad’s Iran-backed allies.

The Arab world faces the challenge of reintegrating one of West Asia’s central states, while containing the militant Sunni Islam that underpinned the anti-Assad revolt but has also metastasized into the horrific sectarian violence of Islamic State.

HTS is still designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations, but has spent years trying to soften its image to reassure foreign states and minority groups within Syria.

A New History

The group’s leader Jolani, who spent years in U.S. custody as an insurgent in Iraq but broke with al-Qaeda and Islamic State to align his movement with more mainstream anti-Assad groups, has vowed to rebuild Syria.

“A new history, my brothers, is being written in the entire region after this great victory,” he told a huge crowd at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus on Sunday. With hard work Syria would be “a beacon for the Islamic nation”.

Mr. Assad’s Prime Minister Mr. Jalali told Sky New Arabia he was ready to provide documents and assistance for the transfer of power.

The fate of Syria’s Army would be “left to the brothers who will take over the management of the country’s affairs”, Jalali said. “What concerns us today is the continuation of services for Syrians.”

Political prisoners freed

Mr. Assad’s police state was known for generations as one of the harshest in West Asia, holding hundreds of thousands of political prisoners. On Sunday, elated inmates poured out of jails. Reunited families wept in joy. Newly freed prisoners were filmed running through the Damascus streets holding up their hands to show how many years they had been in prison.

The White Helmets rescue organisation said it had dispatched emergency teams to search for hidden underground cells still believed to hold detainees. One of the final areas to fall to the rebels was the Mediterranean coast, heartland of Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect and site of Russia’s naval base.

Looting took place in the coastal city of Latakia on Sunday but had subsided on Monday, residents said, with few people in the streets and shortages of fuel and bread.

Two Alawite residents said that so far the situation had panned out better than they had expected, seemingly without sectarian retribution against Alawites. One said a friend had been visited at home by rebel fighters who told him to hand over any weapons he had, which he did.

Near Latakia, rebels had yet to enter the Assad family’s ancestral village of Qardaha, site of a huge mausoleum for Assad’s father who took power in the 1960s. A resident said 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 said.

The Kremlin said it was too early to know the future of Russia’s military bases in Syria, but it would discuss the issue with the new authorities.

Israel, U.S. launch strikes

Israel said Assad’s fall was a direct consequence of Israel’s punishing assault on Iran’s Lebanese allies Hezbollah, who had propped up Assad for years but were decimated since September by an Israeli air and ground campaign.

Since rebels entered Damascus, Israel has struck sites in Syria. Israeli officials said those air strikes would carry on for days, to keep Assad’s former arsenal out of hostile hands.

The Israeli military would “destroy heavy strategic weapons throughout Syria, including surface-to-air missiles, air defence systems, surface-to-surface missiles, cruise missiles, long-range rockets and coastal missiles,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said.

Israel has also pushed tanks over the border into a demilitarised buffer zone. On Monday the Israeli military published photos of its forces in the Mount Hermon border area.

The United States, which has 900 soldiers on the ground in Syria operating alongside Kurdish-led forces in the east, said its forces hit around 75 targets in air strikes against Islamic State camps and operatives on Sunday.

“There’s a potential that elements in the area, such as ISIS, could try to take advantage of this opportunity and regain capability… Those strikes were focused on those cells,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said during a visit to Japan.

The U.S.-backed Kurdish forces have clashed with Turkey-backed rebels in the north. A video, verified by Reuters, showed rebels entering the town of Manbij, captured from the Kurdish forces on Monday.

Tehran:

The fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad shattered the key link in Iran’s “axis of resistance”, but Tehran will look for ways to adapt to the new reality, analysts say.

After nearly 14 years of war in Syria, a lightning offensive launched by an Islamist-led rebel alliance brought Assad down.

The offensive began on November 27, just as a ceasefire took effect in the war between Iran’s powerful proxy Hezbollah and Israel.

Hezbollah had long used Syria as its key conduit for weapons and supplies from Iran.

With Assad gone, it is to be seen how Hezbollah will adapt, particularly after the staggering losses it suffered in its own recent war.

‘Frontline of resistance’

In the past, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in his country’s affairs, has said that “Syria is on the frontline of the resistance against Israel”.

The axis of resistance, to use Tehran’s term, comprises Iran itself and a smattering of proxy forces united by their opposition to Israel, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Palestinian operator group Hamas and Yemen’s Huthi rebels, as well as smaller groups in Iraq.

Until Sunday, Assad’s government was a key component of the axis, and he would likely not have survived for as long as he did had it not been for Hezbollah and Iran’s military backing.

But the fall of Assad on Sunday was a major blow to the loose alliance, and the latest in a string of setbacks for Iran in its fight against Israel.

In recent months Israel has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, and decimated both groups’ mid-level leadership.

Iran also blames Israel for the killing of former Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in an attack in Tehran in July.

Meanwhile, the Islamic republic has lost hundreds of its Revolutionary Guards in Syria over more than a decade of the country’s civil war, including in Israeli air strikes.

‘Destabilise’

Within Iran, some believe the Syrian rebels’ goal was to sever the link between Tehran and its allies.

With its influence now threatened in Syria, Iran “will no longer be able to support Hezbollah as it did before”, Mehdi Zakerian, an expert on international relations in Tehran, told AFP.

In Tehran’s official narrative, the revolt against Assad’s rule was an American-Israeli plot to “destabilise” the Middle East and redraw its political map.

Syria’s civil war was sparked by a crackdown on democracy protests inspired by the Arab Spring.

Iran sent to Syria what it presented as “military advisers” to support Assad’s army, at his request.

Shiite Muslim militias close to Iran also deployed, allowing Tehran to gain influence in Syria, which borders not only Lebanon but also Israel.

After the fall of Damascus on Sunday, the Iranian embassy was ransacked, an act that would have been previously unimaginable.

‘He did not pay attention’ 

And while Iran was a key backer of Assad, some official critiques of the former leader were emerging after his downfall.

“Bashar was an opportunity for Iran, but he did not pay enough attention to the recommendations of the Islamic Republic,” Iranian news agency Fars said.

Following the rebels’ declaration of victory, Iran’s foreign ministry said its policy towards any new Syrian government would depend on “developments in Syria and the region, as well as the behaviour of the actors”.

But the statement also said Iran expected to continue “friendly” relations with the country.

On Saturday, as rebels were swiftly advancing towards Damascus, Tehran had called on all sides in the conflict to engage in negotiations.

That statement by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was significant, not least because of its timing, and appeared to mark a change in tone.

Iran had long branded any form of opposition in Syria as “terrorism”.

On Sunday, with that opposition now seemingly in charge, Araghchi said: “Syria played an important role in supporting the resistance, but it is not the case that the resistance will stop without Syria.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)