On December 8, 2024, the 50 year long reign of the al-Assad regime over Syria ended after a 12 day offensive on Damascus, the nation’s capital.
Since then, the Middle Eastern nation has had to recover from the aftermath of the offensive, grapple with the challenges of rebuilding their government, and come to terms with the sheer cruelty underpinning the rule of the al-Assads.
The Al-Assad Regime –
The reign of the al-Assad’s started with former president Hafez al-Assad’s rise to power in the early 1970s.
A member of the Syrian faction of the Ba‘ath party and an air force pilot from Syria’s Homs Military Academy, Hafez was elected president in 1971, following an arduous struggle for control with chief of staff of the Syrian armed forces Salah al-Jadid, who was effectively the leader of Syria, in November 1970, which resulted in his election as prime minister.
Hafez’s time in office was characterized by ruthless suppression of political dissenters, intense military conflict with neighboring nations, and acute internal conflict. After nearly 30 years in power, Hafez passed away in 2000, passing the reins of the nation to his son, Bashar al-Assad.
The reign of Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria up until Sunday’s offensive, mirrored the violent and authoritarian nature of his father’s rule, highlighted most infamously by his alleged use of chemical weapons in the 2013 attacks on Damascus suburbs in response to the Arab Spring protests in the early 2010s.
Fall of the Al-Assad regime –
Bashar was removed from power on Sunday, following an offensive led by opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that started on November 27. The fighters from these groups were joined by the Syrian people as they marched from Deraa, a region in the south of Syria which was, incidentally, also the birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring protests, to the Syrian capital of Damascus.
On December 8, 2024, the HTS and opposition forces systematically took control of Homs, home to the very Syrian military academy Hafez al-Assad attended in the late 1900s; Mezzeh Air Base, a key base used by the oppressive al-Assad regime for air raids and rocket attacks; and Umayyad Square, even as the Syrian military tried to bomb key bridges and deploy their specially trained “Red Crescent” military division to combat the uprising.
Ultimately, Bashar al-Assad fled the nation, and Damascus – along with the rest of Syria – was liberated from the 50-year long reign of the authoritarian al-Assads.
Aftermath of the liberation –
Following Bashar’s ousting, Syrians raced to prisons in droves in hopes of finding loved ones imprisoned by the al-Assad regime. Armed with a wide range of everyday items turned into weapons – in one case even including a bulldozer- they flooded the jails, searching for their friends and family, or any scrap of evidence that might hint at their whereabouts.
And while some did manage to succeed in their efforts and reunite with long-imprisoned loved ones, others weren’t so lucky in what they found.
Even worse, however, is the fact that thousands of individuals still remain missing and unaccounted, exacerbated by the sparse and neglected prison records, many of which were found on the floors of prisons along with various other detritus.
Nearly simultaneously, countless Syrians also seized al-Assad’s houses and palaces, marveling at the sheer opulence in which the al-Assads lived – especially in the face of the poor living conditions faced by many Syrians over the past few decades – as they discovered luxury cars and other goods, before they tore apart and burdened down the buildings.
But, missing prisoners and a broken government aren’t the only challenges Syrians face. Just two days after the fall of the al-Assad regime, on December 9th, Israel launched an extensive air strike on Syria, carrying out over 480 strikes which destroyed many of the nation’s stockpiles of weapons, as Netanyahu promised to “chang[e] the face of the Middle East”.
Now, Syrians face a unique challenge: rebuilding their government after a half century of authoritarian leadership, while simultaneously dealing with the tumultuous political climate surrounding them on all sides.
While, in and of itself, this would be a daunting challenge, Syrians must consider yet another factor: whatever action they take, whatever government they build will play a pivotal role in shaping the relations and potential for war between the rest of its Middle Eastern neighbors.
As Syria attempts to recover from both the fallout of this airstrike and the aftermath of Sunday’s 2 week-long offensive and decide how to write its future, it is imperative that we, as a world, come together to support the Syrian people as they attempt to navigate the complex web of challenges they face and rebuild a nation from the blood-soaked ashes that mark the reign of the al-Assads.
