The red, white, green and black Free Syrian Army flag flew over Damascus on Sunday as thousands of residents lined the main square in bursts of defiant jubilation \u2013 after President Bashar al-Assad relinquished his grip on power. <\/p>\n
Over the past 11 days, a rebel alliance charged through Syria in the boldest challenge to the Assad rule in years \u2013 following decades of brutal reign by the Assad dynasty marked by fighting, bloodshed and an oppressive political crackdown. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a regime that, for over 50 years, under the mantra of freedom, unity and socialism, oppressed, tortured and disappeared many millions in Syria.\u201d <\/p>\n
Now, as the anti-regime coalition starts to disband Assad\u2019s military, and lays out its vision for a post-Assad Syria, experts wonder if the next phase will be a new dawn for a people strangled by a brutal autocracy \u2013 or whether sectarianism will bring a different type of authoritarian rule. <\/p>\n
Jolani declared victory for the \u201centire Islamic nation\u201d on Sunday, in his first public remarks since the rebel-led coup, which he said \u201cmarks a new chapter in the history of the region.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cSyria is being purified by the grace of God Almighty and through the efforts of the heroic Mujahideen,\u201d Jolani told a crowd at the majestic Umayyad Mosque, in Damascus. He denounced \u201cIranian ambitions\u201d in Syria, where Tehran and its proxy Hezbollah were core backers of Assad\u2019s government. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart longed for this moment,\u201d added Jolani. \u201cThere is not a single household in Syria that the war has not touched.\u201d <\/p>\n
Before armed fighters set off a stunning offensive last month, Assad\u2019s chokehold had split Syrian territory among regime and rebel forces \u2013 some of which are backed by international powers, including the US and Turkey. <\/p>\n
Soon after the fall of Damascus to southern rebels, Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi Al-Jalali pledged to cooperate with the rebels and endorse \u201ca smooth and systematic transition of government functions\u201d and preserve \u201cstate facilities,\u201d in a recorded message. <\/p>\n
Jolani echoed a similar memo, saying that all public institutions would remain under the prime minister\u2019s jurisdiction \u201cuntil they are officially handed over.\u201d Syrian rebels also claimed that senior regime officials were preparing to defect to them in Damascus. <\/p>\n
But delegating a new governing system will be \u201cextremely challenging\u201d for a \u201cdiverse coalition\u201d of armed fighters, according to Jerome Drevon, a senior analyst at the Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group. <\/p>\n
As the rebels pressed on, so did Jolani\u2019s charm offensive. The militant leader, who emerged as a young fighter for al-Qaeda against the US in Iraq, has sought to diminish the shadow of his extremist roots. <\/p>\n
The United States designated HTS a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2018 and placed a $10 million bounty on Jolani. <\/p>\n
Millions of Syrians, including those from minority Christian and other religious communities, are haunted by a legacy of persecution suffered at the hands of extremist groups like al Qaeda and ISIS. Human rights advocates have accused HTS and other anti-regime groups of cracking down on residents in areas under their control \u2013 including in the northwestern Idlib, western Homs, and Aleppo governorates \u2013 and tortured and abused dissidents. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnti-government armed groups have promised restraint and to uphold humanitarian norms, but they will ultimately be judged by their conduct not their words,\u201d Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement on December 4. <\/p>\n
In a state TV address on Sunday, a Syrian rebel commander insisted that \u201call sects\u201d would be protected, adding: \u201cSyria is for everyone, without exception \u2026 Syria is for the Sunni, the Druze, the Alawite.\u201d <\/p>\n
Maksad, the senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, warned the fall of the Assad regime could be a \u201cmoment of potential peril\u201d for minority communities in the country, including religious groups like Alawites, Ismailis, Druze and Christians. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are concerns about the more Islamist jihadi elements of this rebel force,\u201d he said, particularly when it comes to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the main group driving the country\u2019s armed opposition, which has been designated a terrorist group by the US and many other countries,\u201d said Maksad. <\/p>\n
But on the streets of Syria, such concerns were eclipsed by scenes of excitement and mass celebration. Thousands of people assembled at the foot of the main square in Damascus, where rebels ransacked Assad\u2019s residence. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the fear that he (Assad) and his father made us live in for many years, and the panic and state of terror that I was living in, I can\u2019t believe it,\u201d Omar Daher, a 29-year-old lawyer, told the Associated Press. <\/p>\n
Another Damascus resident, Mohammed Amer Al-Oulabi, 44, said: \u201cFrom Idlib to Damascus, it only took them (the opposition forces) a few days, thank God. May God bless them, the heroic lions who made us proud.\u201d <\/p>\n
And further afield, Syrian refugees forced to flee the war shared their hopes of returning to a peaceful country. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe thank our people in Syria and the free ones, for saving us from the injustice,\u201d Wissam Ahmed, a displaced Syrian in Lebanon, told Reuters on Sunday. \u201cWe\u2019re going to Syria, God willing, to rebuild our future and our homes. The feeling is really great, we cannot describe it more.\u201d <\/p>\n
This story has been updated with additional developments.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The red, white, green and black Free Syrian Army flag flew over Damascus on Sunday as thousands of residents lined the main square in bursts of defiant jubilation \u2013 after President Bashar al-Assad relinquished his grip on power. Over the past 11 days, a rebel alliance charged through Syria in the boldest challenge to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}