When he saw them arrive at his farm, in the east of Damascusthe Syrian capital, Sarmada I knew problems were coming. It happened sometimes, not always, but when it happened, the fear was enormous for this young woman.
“They were cruel to us. They killed and took some goats to eat them, but they killed many others and left them lying around. They broke furniture, wood. They did it on purpose, to scare us,” recalls Sarmada, who refers to them: the soldiers. and militiamen loyal to the government of the Syrian president until this Sunday, Bashar al-Asad.
His regime, however, fell this Sunday, and with Assad in Moscow —exiled, following the path of millions of Syrian refugees who, precisely, fled their Army and bombings—, the regime’s soldiers have disappeared.
“When the soldiers came it was traumaticbut the strangest thing is that one got used to it, because we were not the only ones. It was normal, normality. They took turns in different places and with different neighbors. The one in my house is just one example of thousands. They forced us to remain silent. To endure their pressure, their thefts. If we complained, they took us to the police station,” this young woman explains over the phone. She hopes that everything will be different now, that the new ones who arrive now won’t do the same to them.
There are weekends, like this, that last decades; and the last, in Syriais one of them. This Sunday, with the fall of the Damascus regime, the rebel offensive launched just 12 days ago from the previously punished and remote region of Idlibon the border between Türkiye and Syria.
From there the radical Islamist militia started Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) —former subsidiary of Al Qaeda—which has led its leader, Abu Mohamed al Jolanito be recognized as a hero by the opposition and to become, currently, the main actor and interlocutor with the regime to negotiate the transfer of powers in the Arab country.
Faced with Assad’s shock, in fact, the Syrian Prime Minister, Mohamed al Jalali, who took office only three months ago, agreed this Monday after meeting with Al Jolani to hand over the keys to the country to the HTS civilian government in Idlib. known as the ‘National Salvation Government’.
This executive has been led, to date, by Mohamed al Bashirwho according to anonymous rebel sources will be the prime minister of the next Syrian transitional government, the first after the fall of Bashar al Assad. Bashir, a relatively unknown figure – Jolani was the real boss in Idleb – is a graduate of electrical engineering y islamic law. Before becoming prime minister in Idleb, the 41-year-old man was director of islamic education in the region, where under the command of HTS the ‘sharia’Islamic law.
Return to work
Although Damascus lives under strict curfew from four in the afternoon until five in the morning, the rebels have stated this Monday that during Tuesday it is planned that the banks and services of the Syrian capital reopen. Opponents have asked officials from the previous administration to also return to their positions.
“Now we have a lot of hope. Yes God Want, the nightmare will be over now… I can’t explain how I feel after these last few 13 years of darkness“, assures Sarmada.
There is, of course, one exception: the offices of the Home Office They have been emptied and looted. It is now the rebel militias that control the streets and security of the capital and the west of the country.
War… over?
In the east of the country, however, the story is different. There, without having participated in the rebel offensive and without relationship with the new masters of Damascus, the Syrian Kurdish YPG militias They control the vast majority of the territory east of the Euphrates River.
Türkiye, the great supplier and ally of the Syrian rebel groups, considers these YPG as terrorists for its links with the Kurdish-Turkish guerrillas of the PKKand now look for a second offensive against the Syrian Kurds to expel the YPG from the border with the Anatolian country. In the region it is estimated that they live around two million of Kurds.
This Monday, thus, the rebel militias commanded by Türkiye have taken the small town of Manbijuntil this Monday controlled by the YPG. The Syrian war, despite the fall of Assad, is not over.
