Syrians who fled their homes celebrated Assad’s ouster, though some remain cautious. syrian war news
Beirut, Lebanon – Youssef Salah and Mohamed Mahmoud exchange blissful cheek kisses from their motorbikes at the Kola Roundabout, a busy transport hub in Beirut.
“This morning is the best,” said Mahmoud, 20, smiling. “We feel the greatest happiness,” he said, pointing to 20-year-old Ali al-Abed, sitting behind him.
“We are from Deir az Zor,” said al-Abed, “Free Deir az Zor, write it like that!”
A man in southern Lebanon was buying breakfast from a kak (a type of Arabic bread) seller and shouted: “Who will rule you now? American, Israeli?”
Mahmood shouted back, “I don’t know, but it’s been 13 years.” “Enough (enough)!”
These three young men were smiling on the morning after the end of the al-Assad dynasty’s rule in Syria after 53 years.
The massive offensive by Syrian opposition groups that freed people held in regime prisons and captured major cities – Aleppo, Hama, Homs and eventually Damascus – took just over a week.
Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1971 and was succeeded by his son Bashar in 2000 after Hafez’s death.
The Syrian people rose up against the regime in 2011 but faced a brutal crackdown that turned into a war involving regional and international actors.
By the end of November, there were more than 5 million Syrian refugees in the region and millions more internally displaced.
Syrians who had to flee their homeland to escape the violence spoke to Al Jazeera about the turbulent emotions they felt on Sunday.
echoes of cruelty
Most people in the region welcomed the end of the al-Assad dynasty.
“One heart is not enough to hold this great happiness,” Yehya Juma, a resident of Homsi, Jordan, told Al Jazeera. “We need 10 hearts to bear this happiness.”
Nevertheless, the regime has fallen, but the echoes of its brutality live on through the damage it has caused to many of its people.
Mohammed, a 33-year-old resident of Homsi in Chattoura, Lebanon, said three of his relatives were released from prison on Sunday, but others were still missing.
However, Mohammed said, the veil of fear of telling the truth has been lifted.
“In the past, if you approached me, I wouldn’t talk. But now we are not afraid,” he said, standing outside a shopping center in Chatoura, about a half-hour drive from Beirut.
“All fear is gone.”
Behind him, Syrians were cheering and shouting loudly: “God, Syria, freedom and that’s it!”
Zuma was also saddened by the condition of prisoners released from the regime’s prisons, he said.
“So many people had no idea what was going on for years. Some people thought it was (late Iraqi strongman leader) Saddam Hussein who liberated them.
Aleppon Abdelmoneim Shamieh, also in Jordan, said he too had experienced al-Assad’s prisons when he was taken there as a high school student in 1982.
“I was filled with joy, filled with tears, seeing the prisoners… When I was in the prison cells, I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears what kind of tortures the prisoners had to endure, which no human being could Can’t bear it.”
“Many of my friends (who were arrested with him) died under torture,” Shamieh said.
going home?
In Cairo, Egypt, two young Syrians talk about returning to their homeland, although only one of them is old enough to remember the land he left.
22-year-old Amjad is happy during his innings.
His Egyptian colleagues had cheered him on, hugging him and congratulating him on what happened in Syria.
“Now I can go back and live in my country,” he said with tears in his eyes.
He fled Syria two years ago to escape a brutal conscription service that could last up to eight years as al-Assad tried to consolidate his forces.
Now he will not have to stay away. “As soon as my UN card expires, in two months, I will travel.”
A stone’s throw away, 16-year-old Suleiman Sukar is running shop in the small shop his family owns.
The teenager had no sleep on Saturday night as the family waited for developments on the way to Damascus, yet on Sunday he seemed quite alert, full of thoughts.
He was only four years old when his family had to flee Ghouta in 2012 as regime attacks intensified, he said. That’s why he remembers very little about his beloved Syria.
Instead, his attachment to “home” came through memories of his parents and brothers and talking to his extended family at home.
Settling in Egypt was not easy for the Sucres as their parents had to work odd jobs for seven years before they saved enough to open a roastery.
But it doesn’t matter, Suleiman said. As soon as the situation in Syria became stable, they would go home.
Suhaib al-Ahmad, a 58-year-old grocer in the Turkish capital Ankara, agrees and believes Syrians abroad should contribute to the reconstruction of their homeland.
“We must return with hearts full of hope and work to make Syria what it was before and even better,” he said.
“I hope this happiness is a good omen for Syria and its people… I also hope that Syria’s future will be bright, as we always dreamed of.”
In Tariq al-Jadideh, Beirut, Bishar Ahmed Nijiris stood chatting happily at his fruit cart.
“This is a victory for the whole world,” said Nijris, 41.
“There is no oppression now and we can all live as one people, without sectarianism…that is what we want.”
Nijiris is also a veteran of al-Assad’s prisons, having been held without charge for two months in Mezzeh prison in 2013.
He is from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where his wife and children had gone on Saturday night – he hopes to join them soon.
“I can go and God willing I will.”
No more Al-Assad’s bogeyman
At a café in Tariq al-Jadideh, Ahmed, from rural Aleppo, scrolled on his phone while sipping espresso with his cousin Ibrahim. Ahmed has not seen Syria for 13 years but Ibrahim keeps coming and going.
As they were talking, another Aleppan entered the café with her three children, carrying a tray of baklava, a Middle Eastern dessert, which she gave to all of the café’s customers.
“Congratulations on your win,” the cafe owner told the children’s father.
“Look at this,” Ahmed said, scrolling through his friends’ Facebook stories. Most of the posts depicted the green, white and black Free Syria flag.
“Do you know where Assad is?” he asked before turning his phone around to show a meme of the ousted Syrian president. “He’s stuck in the desert!”
Ahmed and Ibrahim laugh at a digitally altered image of al-Assad sitting cross-legged outside a tent.
He said, they could not make such jokes earlier. But as the regime advances, so does the fear and burden of oppression that many Syrians felt during the al-Assad family’s decades of rule.
“We are very happy, especially for the future generations,” Ali Jassem, 38, said outside the building where he works as a doorman near the Kola intersection.
He said his wife and children had moved back to Der ez Zor three months ago as Israeli attacks on Lebanon increased and that they would probably remain there now that the regime has fallen.
Allowing himself a moment of respite, Jassem was still not ready to let his guard down completely.
His cautious optimism meant he would remain in his job in Lebanon for now.
He said, “Hopefully the coming days will be happy for everyone.”
Habib Abu Mahfouz contributed reporting from Amman, Jordan; Matt Nashed from Chatoura, Lebanon; and Zaid Islam from Ankara, Turkey.
