New era in Syria as Bashar al-Assad is toppled by rebels

President Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s autocratic ruler, was ousted Sunday after a quarter century in power, toppled after an Islamist rebel offensive that hurtled through Syrian cities and towns, and finally Damascus, the capital and once-feared seat of Assad’s power, which fell with little sign of a fight. The Syrian leader, the scion of a family that ruled Syria for more than half a century, vanished in silence Sunday, abandoned by allies and friends. It fell to Russia, Assad’s longtime military benefactor, to announce his resignation and flight from Syria. Assad went to Moscow, Russia’s state news agency said.
If Assad’s exit was quiet, the gatherings to mark his ouster Sunday were cacophonous, erupting in Damascus and other Syrian towns with celebratory gunfire. Joyous rallies were held by Syrians in exile, in Istanbul and elsewhere. At the border between Lebanon and Syria, people sang, set off fireworks and burned banknotes bearing Assad’s face. “There was a nightmare and it’s gone,” said Mohammed al-Azzam, 37, from Hama, the second city to fall in the rout by the rebel forces led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). In darker but more poignant rituals, rebel fighters freed thousands of traumatized inmates from Syrian prisons, facilities whose names alone conjured horror, including Sednaya and the Syrian military’s Palestine Branch.
On Sunday morning, Syrian state television — which only hours earlier had been broadcasting false reports of army successes and assuring citizens that Assad was safe — abruptly switched to hosting rebels on air. “Syria has regained its freedom,” a news anchor said.
One resident of Damascus saw people “celebrating and shooting.” The joy, though, seemed tentative. “The streets are empty; no one is even walking,” said the resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was not clear yet whether it was safe to speak to reporters.
If there was ecstasy in Syria over Assad’s ouster, there was also anxiety over the nature of the rebel force that now held sway over the country. “We all have the windows and shutters closed,” the person said.The startling rebel success in toppling Syria’s leader has come amid efforts by the insurgents, known at times in the past for infighting, extremism and atrocities, to unify their disparate factions and project a responsible and caring image to skeptical Syrians.