Excited Syrians are gathering in the squares for victory rallies

Thousands of Syrians have gathered in the streets of the capital Damascus and other cities to celebrate the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

People gathered at the iconic Umayyad Mosque for prayers ahead of rousing rallies called by Islamist rebels leading an armed revolt against Assad in Damascus.

Rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who has now started using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, called on Syrians to “express their joy” on Friday to mark the “victory of the blessed revolution.” Urged to take to the streets.

Assad fled to Russia on Sunday as the regime established by his father 50 years ago collapsed in just a few tumultuous days.

There was a party-like atmosphere at Umayyad Square in Damascus. Speakers were set up and music was played “Raise your head high, you are Syrian.”

People waved Syrian opposition flags and sang revolutionary songs and slogans.

They also included men in black combat gear, wearing body armor and carrying guns.

He was a member of the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Some people stopped to take photographs with civilians. One of them took out a piece of paper and started reading a poem written in praise of the country.

Sarah al-Zoubi, a university student living in Damascus but originally from Deraa – the city that the opposition considers the birthplace of the revolution – said Syrians had gathered on Friday to celebrate and to discuss the future. Will proceed “hand in hand” for construction.

Nour Thi al-Ghina, another participant, said, “We are gathering because we are happy that Syria is liberated, we are happy to be free from the prison that we lived in.”

Far from celebrating, bereaved families began searching for the bodies of family members who had disappeared in the Assad regime’s notorious prisons over the past decade.

At a morgue in central Damascus, some people held up photographs of their relatives, trying to compare them with the bodies lying in bags in front of them.

Some people managed to locate their missing fathers, brothers or sons, while others were left crying after finding no clues.

The morgue was filled with bodies transferred from the Syednaya prison, widely known here as the human slaughterhouse.

“All the bodies had obvious signs of malnutrition, they were very thin,” said Aslan Ibrahim, a forensic expert at the hospital.

One journalist had signs of torture on his body, he said, adding, “His arm was broken, and his leg was also broken, he also had a lot of injuries.”

Key sites of the vast network of intelligence agencies that brutally suppressed opposition movements for decades can be found on the same central streets of the Syrian capital.

In the basement of the state security headquarters in the city’s Kafr Sousa district, row after row of tiny cells stand – each just two meters by one meter and protected by thick steel doors.

Inside, the dirty walls are deeply stained. In these cells, prisoners could be kept for months, interrogated and tortured.

They are just below street level, on a busy road where thousands of ordinary Syrians passed every day, just a few meters from where their compatriots were being detained and tortured. Living their daily lives at a distance.

A short distance away is the General Intelligence Directorate, another part of Syria’s former network of spy agencies.

There are a large number of records – evidence of how the Assad regime surveilled its citizens.

There are rows upon rows of paper files on the shelves and in some rooms there are stacks of notebooks stacked from floor to ceiling.

There is a computer server room nearby. The floors and walls are a pristine white and black collection of data storage units that hum quietly.

Electricity has been cut to much of Damascus but it seems that the facility was so important that it had its own power supply.