Syrian insurgent fighters have destroyed the tomb of late president Hafez al-Assad, father of ousted president Bashar, within the household’s hometown.
Movies verified by the BBC confirmed armed males chanting as they walked across the burning mausoleum in Qardaha, within the north-west of the coastal Latakia area.
The rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) swept throughout Syria in a lightning offensive that toppled the Assad dynasty’s 54-year rule. Bashar al-Assad has fled to Russia the place he and his household have been given asylum.
Statues and posters of the late president Hafez and his son Bashar have been pulled down throughout the nation to cheers from Syrians celebrating the top of their rule.
In different key developments:
In 2011, Bashar al-Assad brutally crushed a peaceable pro-democracy rebellion, sparking a devastating civil struggle by which greater than half one million individuals have been killed and 12 million others compelled to flee their properties.
Hafez al-Assad dominated Syria ruthlessly from 1971 till his demise in 2000, when energy was handed to his son.
He was born and raised in a household of Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam and a non secular minority in Syria, whose principal centre of inhabitants is in Latakia province close to the Mediterranean coast near the border with Turkey.
Many Alawites – who make up about 10% of the nation’s inhabitants – had been staunch supporters of the Assads throughout their lengthy keep in energy.
A few of them now worry that they could be focused by the victorious rebels.
On Monday, a insurgent delegation with members of HTS and one other Sunni Muslim group, the Free Syrian Military, met Qardaha elders and obtained their help, in keeping with Reuters information company.
The insurgent delegation signed a doc, which Reuters reported emphasised Syria’s non secular and cultural range.
HTS and allied insurgent factions seized management of the Syrian capital Damascus on Sunday after years of civil struggle.
HTS chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who has now began utilizing his actual identify, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is a former jihadist who lower ties with al-Qaeda in 2016. He has not too long ago pledged tolerance for various non secular teams and communities.
The UN envoy for Syria has stated the rebels should rework their “good messages” into apply on the bottom.
The US secretary of state in the meantime stated Washington would recognise and totally help a future Syrian authorities as long as it emerged from a reputable, inclusive course of that revered minorities.
HTS has appointed a transitional authorities led by Mohammed al-Bashir, the previous head of the insurgent administration within the north-west, till March 2025.
Bashir chaired a gathering in Damascus on Tuesday attended by members of his new authorities and people of Assad’s former cupboard to debate the switch of portfolios and establishments.
He has stated it’s time for individuals to “take pleasure in stability and calm” after the top of the Assad regime.
In Damascus, BBC correspondents have been seeing indicators of life starting to return to regular, with individuals heading again to work and retailers reopening.
Joud Insani, who works in a chocolate store within the Syrian capital, tells the BBC she was in a position to open “with out worry”, including that she had observed a welcome change within the kinds of clients who go to.
“We reopened with out worry as a result of the individuals we serve are actually not intimidating in any respect,” she stated.
“Earlier than, everybody who got here to purchase from us was both there to signify a common or a minister loyal to the Assad regime. Now thank God, that’s now not the case.”
In one of many well-known meals meals and vegetable markets of Damascus, one salesman tells the BBC: “Now we have now oxygen within the air.” Whereas one other man famous there was “ongoing celebration any longer”.
Within the neighbourhood of Joubar, emotional reunions have been going down within the outdated opposition stronghold, greater than 90% of which has been destroyed.
Monawwar al Qahef and her husband Muhammad returned for the primary time in 12 years. The couple cried once they noticed their two-storey home, which has been decreased to a pile of concrete rocks round a single arched wall.
“That is the primary time we dared to return again,” Muhammad stated. “I really feel as if it is me that has been damaged into items.”