Syrian insurgent fighters have destroyed the tomb of the late President Hafez al-Assad, father of deposed President Bashar, within the household’s hometown.
Videos verified by the BBC present armed males chanting as they stroll across the burning mausoleum in Qardaha, within the north-west coastal area of Latakia.
Rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have invaded Syria in a lightning offensive that toppled the 54-year rule of the Assad dynasty. Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia the place he and his household had been granted asylum.
In different key developments:
Statues and posters of the late president Hafez and his son Bashar had been torn down throughout the nation amid cheers from Syrians celebrating the tip of their rule.
In 2011, Bashar al-Assad brutally suppressed a peaceable pro-democracy rebellion, sparking a devastating civil battle by which greater than half 1,000,000 folks had been killed and one other 12 million had been pressured from their properties.
Hafez al-Assad ruthlessly dominated Syria from 1971 till his demise in 2000, when energy handed to his son.
He was born and raised in a household of Alawites, a department of Shia Islam and a non secular minority in Syria, whose major inhabitants middle is within the province of Latakia, close to the Mediterranean coast close to the border with Turkey.
Many Alawites – who make up about 10% of the nation’s inhabitants – have been staunch supporters of the Assads throughout their lengthy keep in energy.
Some of them now concern they could possibly be focused by the victorious rebels.
On Monday, a insurgent delegation made up of members of the HTS and one other Sunni Muslim group, the Free Syrian Army, met with Qardaha elders and acquired their help, in response to the Reuters information company.
The insurgent delegation signed a doc, which in response to Reuters highlights Syria’s spiritual and cultural range.
HTS and allied insurgent factions took management of the Syrian capital Damascus on Sunday after years of civil battle.
HTS chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who has now began utilizing his actual identify, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is a former jihadist who minimize ties with al-Qaeda in 2016. He just lately promised tolerance for a number of teams and non secular communities.
The UN envoy for Syria mentioned rebels should flip their “good messages” into follow on the bottom.
The US Secretary of State in the meantime mentioned that Washington will acknowledge and totally help a future Syrian authorities so long as it emerges from a reputable and inclusive course of that respects minorities.
HTS has appointed a transitional authorities led by Mohammed al-Bashir, former head of the insurgent administration within the northwest, till March 2025.
Bashir he chaired a meeting in Damascus on Tuesday members of his new authorities and people of Assad’s former cupboard attended to debate the switch of portfolios and establishments.
He mentioned it was time for folks to “take pleasure in stability and calm” after the tip of the Assad regime.
In Damascus, BBC correspondents noticed indicators of life starting to return to regular, with folks returning to work and retailers reopening.
Joud Insani, who works in a chocolate store within the Syrian capital, tells the BBC he has succeeded open “without fear”, including that he has seen a welcome change in the kind of clients who go to.
“We reopened with out concern as a result of the folks we serve now do not intimidate us in any respect,” he mentioned.
“Before, everybody who got here to purchase from us was there both to characterize a normal or a minister loyal to the Assad regime. Now, thank God, that is not the case.”
At one in every of Damascus’s well-known meals and vegetable markets, a vendor tells the BBC: “Now we now have oxygen within the air.” While one other man famous that “the celebrations will proceed any more.”
In the Joubar neighborhood, transferring conferences came about within the previous opposition stronghold, which was greater than 90% destroyed.
Monawwar al Qahef and her husband Muhammad returned for the primary time in 12 years. The couple cried after they noticed their two-story home, lowered to a pile of concrete rocks round a single arched wall.
“This is the primary time we dare to return,” Muhammad mentioned. “I really feel like I’ve been torn to items.”
