One month in the past, throughout a gathering in Beirut, a senior western diplomat was venting his frustration: when would worldwide sanctions be lifted from the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad? Though the dictator had few associates, it appeared that the brutal killing and torture of a whole lot of 1000’s of protesters had succeeded in lastly crushing Syria’s 13-year revolution.
It was time to face info, the diplomat stated. Assad had gained the conflict, and the world wanted to maneuver on.
As diplomats in Beirut talked, rebels in Syria have been planning. A 12 months earlier, figures within the Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in north-west Syria had despatched a message to rebels within the south: prepare.
On 29 November, insurgent forces led by HTS captured plenty of cities on the outskirts of Aleppo metropolis, within the within the north-west of the nation, the primary insurgent victory over the Assad regime in 5 years.
Watching from Damascus, Mohammed, a van driver, stated that as quickly as HTS took these first cities, he knew what was coming.
“From the very first second, I knew this was it. The regime would fall,” he stated as he drove by way of empty checkpoints and swerved to keep away from the deserted tanks that littered the freeway main into Damascus lower than a day after Assad fell.
Rebels preventing on the frontlines weren’t so sure. “The first line of defence fought arduous. They have been made up of Hezbollah and Iranian-backed fighters they usually resisted, arduous,” stated Abu Bilal, a insurgent who fought alongside HTS in north-west Syria. Once they broke by way of the primary line of defence, nevertheless, “the military simply ran away”.
The insurgent advance was at first met with silence from Damascus. Then the defence ministry spoke of a tactical retreat designed to spare civilian lives. Syrian state media stated that movies of opposition fighters getting into previously authorities cities have been staged photo-ops: rebels have been getting into cities, asking residents if they may pose for a couple of footage after which withdrawing.
But one after one other, cities held by Assad’s forces fell to the opposition. First, they entered Aleppo, which had taken the Syrian authorities 4 years to wrest from opposition management in 2016. Then, 4 days later, they took Hama, the place Assad’s father, Hafez, had put down an rebellion in 1982, killing 40,000 individuals within the course of. Finally, they equipped for the battle of Homs – the place the regime was meant to make its final stand. Rebels took the town inside hours.
“Our guys have been supposed to attend till Homs fell earlier than they entered the battle – however as soon as they noticed the fighters approaching the town, I couldn’t management them any extra and everybody took up arms,” stated Abu Hamzeh, a insurgent commander of the Operations Room to Liberate Damascus.
The Operations Room gathered the leaders of 25 opposition factions throughout three southern provinces. It was shaped a 12 months in the past with the help of HTS, and offered a way of order to the disparate factions in south Syria. The faction leaders would talk with each other in a WhatsApp group, then cross on directions to their respective rank-and-file on a need-to-know foundation.
Fighters within the south have been supposed to attend till rebels within the north took Homs, in order that the 2 teams might method Damascus on the identical time – however out of pleasure, they jumped their mark. Rebel teams put out statements encouraging Syrian troopers to put down their arms and defect, with a cellphone quantity they may name. “I acquired 5,000 calls on Saturday evening from troopers who needed to give up – a lot of them stated their household have been urging them to give up,” Abu Hamzeh stated.
Soon, the fighters have been marching in the direction of Damascus. No assertion got here from Assad, and although state media insisted he was working dilligently in his workplace, he had not been seen in days. Soldiers have been left leaderless.
“I used to be the one one left at my barracks, everybody else had left,” stated Ziad Soof, a Syrian military common who was stationed in al-Nabek, within the countryside exterior Damascus, on Saturday evening. He remained at his station till two within the morning when a bunch of passersby instructed him Assad had fled the nation. Soof, a 37-year military veteran, took off his uniform and left his submit.
“I walked three hours till I reached Damascus,” Soof stated. “The complete approach, all I might really feel was disappointment. If he had stated one thing, if he had introduced a switch of energy – that might have been completely different, however he simply left.”
In Damascus, there was no disappointment. Rebels stormed the state TV channel at daybreak and, studying from a chunk of paper, introduced that the 54-year-long Assad regime had ended. They hung the three-star flag of the Syrian opposition, changing Assad’s flag that had been the backdrop of nightly broadcasts for half a century.
Syrians woke as much as a brand new nation and a brand new actuality on Sunday morning. “It is as if we live in a dream” – the phrase was repeated repeatedly by residents throughout the nation’s capital metropolis. In Omayyad sq. in downtown Syria, crowds started to kind, cheering and hoisting the revolutionary flag. Rebels raised their rifles, firing in a deafening cacophony that might proceed for days and left Damascus affected by bullet casings.
This was a victory 13 years within the making, which, after peaceable protests have been met with regime bullets and the opposition took up arms, had price at the least 350,000 lives. The songs of Abdul Baset al-Sarout – a goalkeeper turned insurgent commander who earlier than his dying turned famed for singing protest anthems – have been blared throughout the nation as individuals celebrated.
The Kingdom of Silence had been damaged. Pictures of Bashar al-Assad carrying Speedos in a Jacuzzi, flexing his negligible biceps, started to flow into on Syrian social media after rebels discovered them hidden within the many palaces left deserted – a far cry from the standard stern image of him in navy fatigues that gazed from billboards throughout the nation.
Residents in Damascus requested fighters the place the “home of the donkey” was, asking for instructions in order that they may lastly see the presidential palace that had taken $1bn of their tax cash to construct.
Though Assad had fled, the burden of his brutal legacy remained. As rebels superior, they opened prisons the place tens of 1000’s of Syrians have been imprisoned. Syria’s huge community of detention centres have been notorious for torture – it was right here that the regime broke the desire of anybody courageous sufficient to dissent.
Families descended upon prisons, looking for their family members. In Sednaya jail on Sunday evening, a kilometre-long line of automobiles shaped as tens of 1000’s of individuals arrived from throughout the nation to see if their lacking family have been there.
Ignoring fighters’ request for order, individuals poured into the jail and scoured the large complicated nicknamed “the human slaughterhouse”. Crowds surged out and in of cells, getting misplaced with solely their cellphone torches to information them by way of the jail’s dizzying, featureless corridors.
Almost the entire prisoners had already been launched from Sednaya earlier within the day. But nonetheless, individuals searched, satisfied that there have to be some hidden facility, some door that, if unlocked, would reveal the people who the Assad regime had taken from them years earlier than.
In Sednaya, the civil defence was wanting alongside the households. After two days of labor, they concluded that there was no hidden room, there have been no underground cells. In the top, about 30,000 individuals have been launched from prisons throughout the nation, stated Fadel Abdulghani, the director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights – leaving greater than 100,000 detainees unaccounted for.
Unwilling to imagine, households continued to look, tearing up the earth on jail grounds, passing on on-line tips on the place hidden amenities could be positioned. Four days after prisons have been opened throughout the nation, only some extra individuals had been discovered, suggesting a harsh fact in regards to the destiny of these 100,000 who remained lacking.
In the streets of Damascus, life started to return to regular. Fighters from HTS withdrew from the town; the chief of the insurgent group, Muhammed al-Jolani, dropped his nom de guerre and introduced the formation of a civilian, transitional authorities.
People started to rejoice of their capability to talk freely. Furious debates over the nation’s future ensued. In cafes, over cups of espresso and cigarettes, livid arguments have been going down in regards to the path the rebel-led authorities would take, voices raised as individuals examined the brand new limits of their freedoms.
Still, it was not straightforward to shake off the concept that the regime was watching. During an interview with a public-sector worker who most popular to stay nameless, the worker paused as they have been requested about their opinion in regards to the new authorities. They excused themselves and went to the subsequent room, the place they threw up.
Returning to the interview with red-rimmed eyes, the worker apologised.
“You ask me if I’m afraid? Of course, I’m afraid. I’m 53 years outdated. And in 53 years, that is the primary time that I’m talking freely,” they stated.
