Syrian rebels enter Aleppo for first time in eight years during shock offensive

[essentialsaltes]

In post-Assad Damascus, a mix of joy and trepidation

In a statement Monday, Hayat Tahrir al Sham announced “a general amnesty for all military personnel conscripted under compulsory service,” adding that “their lives are safe” and proscribing any revenge assaults.

-

For a good number of the militants, many of whom hail from Syria’s rural regions, it was their first time entering the capital.

“It’s the capital of Syria, so of course it’s beautiful. It was ruled by a tyrant, but now we’ll build a new Syria,” said Abdul-Ilah Hmoud, a 24-year-old from the northwestern province of Idlib, which is ruled by Hayat Tahrir al Sham, the Islamist faction — and former Al-Qaeda affiliate — leading the rebel coalition.

“We’ll make it like a European country, where everyone has rights.”

--

Yet for Syria’s minority communities, the alternative now on offer, namely a government dominated by the ideology of the Islamist militants, leaves little room for optimism.

Jamil Yashou, the 38-year-old priest of the St. Teresa Chaldean Catholic Church in the capital’s Christian quarter ... was no fan of Assad: He had been picked up by one of the country’s notoriously strict intelligence services for an off-color remark about the president in a phone call with a friend. But he fears what follows — the chaos of a post-Saddam Iraq, or the aborted Islamist governance of post-Mubarak Egypt — may prove to be the most important legacy of Syria’s conflict.

“I was happy when I saw Assad go,” he said. “But I fear a constitution that will leave me a second-class citizen.”

 

[essentialsaltes]

In Syria’s former ‘slaughterhouse,’ a desperate hunt for the disappeared​

Families searching Sednaya prison feared that they would not learn the fate of their missing loved ones — and that so much of what happened there may never be known.

At points, Sednaya held as many as 20,000 prisoners, Amnesty International has found. [if you can believe that 'fake organization that hates Israel' according to some] Few made it out alive; land mines in the surrounding countryside were waiting for those who tried to escape.

Of the 145,000 Syrians detained through September 2019 during the course of the country’s civil war, nearly 90 percent were taken by the government, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. Of those, more than 80,000 vanished without a trace, with many believed to be have been held in Assad’s extensive network of prisons.

Husni Karmo, 60, ... had spent years asking for information about his four missing sons, and his questions had landed him in Sednaya. He was strung up on ropes and tortured, he said, and subjected to sexual assault.

He traveled from northern Idlib as soon as he heard the prison was opened, hoping finally for news of his sons, who he says were arrested for no other reason than the place of birth on their identification cards.

He knows that one of them is dead. He saw the face of 25-year-old Osama almost as soon as he opened what’s known as the Caesar photos— a cache of 53,000 images taken in Syria’s prisons and military hospitals and smuggled out by a defector. His teeth had been broken and his nose was bloodied, Karmo said, wiping away tears.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Man identifying himself as American Travis Timmerman found in Syria after being freed from prison​

Timmerman told CBS News senior foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer that he had been trying to make his own way out of the country after walking out of the prison where he'd been held for more than half of a year. He said he was detained upon entering Syria without permission seven months ago after spending a month in neigboring Lebanon.

Timmerman said two men armed with AK-47s broke his prison door down Monday with a hammer [to release him].

Timmerman said he had gone to Syria for Christian "spiritual purposes"

Timmerman was named as "Travis Pete Timmerman" on a missing person's bulletin published by Hungarian police in August, which said he had been last seen at a church in the country.

 

[Nithavela]

The Story Behind Rebels' Flag That May Soon Officially Symbolise Syria

Syrian rebels declared the fall of President Bashar al-Assad today, less than two weeks after a lightning offensive that ended his family's decades of rule.

www.ndtv.com

Syrian Rebels' Flag

On Sunday, as rebels announced on Syria's state television that the 50-year family dynasty was eliminated, the green-white-black-red opposition flags were seen across the country. The celebrations echoed in Germany, Turkey and Greece where jubilant crowds of thousands waved the Syrian opposition flags.


Supporters of the rebels entered the Syrian embassy in Athens raised the Syrian opposition flag from the rooftop. The police detained four people, however, left the flag flying, as per a Reuters report.

 

[Landon Caeli]

The Story Behind Rebels' Flag That May Soon Officially Symbolise Syria

Syrian rebels declared the fall of President Bashar al-Assad today, less than two weeks after a lightning offensive that ended his family's decades of rule.

www.ndtv.com

Looking at the picture of their new flag, I couldn't help but to notice how weird it is that there are no women present for these celebrations.

...There is no hope for the Muslim world.

 

[Nithavela]

Looking at the picture of their new flag, I couldn't help but to notice how weird it is that there are no women present for these celebrations.

View attachment 358585

...There is no hope for the Muslim world.

Besides the fact that there are at least 2 women in that picture, I have seen plenty of pictures of women celebrating with those flags, both with and without man in the same picture.

 

[Landon Caeli]

Besides the fact that there are at least 2 women in that picture, I have seen plenty of pictures of women celebrating with those flags, both with and without man in the same picture.

The reason why there are only two women surrounded by a sea of men standing on top of each other is because the two are likely being kept on a very tight leash. It is common knowledge that women are treated like garbage in Syria.

Women in Syria suffer every day from a long list of abuses, including: legal discrimination, violence, lack of access to healthcare, pressure to give up their property rights, and exclusion from political, social, and economic rights.

...In America, we call it exactly what it truly is, without all the sugar coating. It is Islamic savagery!

 

[Nithavela]

The reason why there are only two women surrounded by a sea of men standing on top of each other is because the two are likely being kept on a very tight leash. It is common knowledge that women are treated like garbage in Syria.

Women in Syria suffer every day from a long list of abuses, including: legal discrimination, violence, lack of access to healthcare, pressure to give up their property rights, and exclusion from political, social, and economic rights.

...In America, we call it exactly what it truly is, without all the surar coating. It is Islamic savagery

Have women been discriminated in Syria under Assad? Yes, but your allegation that women are nowhere to be seen at those celebrations is nothing but a lie.

 

[Landon Caeli]

Have women been discriminated in Syria under Assad? Yes, but your allegation that women are nowhere to be seen at those celebrations is nothing but a lie.

I haven't lied. I saw a picture, and commented on what I saw. If you think that women will be suddenly granted equal rights in that Islamic nation, after the fall of Asad, then I think you're being overly optimistic.

We'll see what happens after the celebrations are over.

 

[JosephZ]

I saw a picture, and commented on what I saw. If you think that women will be suddenly granted equal rights in that Islamic nation, after the fall of Asad, then I think you're being overly optimistic

That picture wasn't taken in Syria.

 

[Nithavela]

That picture wasn't taken in Syria.

Source?

 

[JosephZ]

Source?

Syrian residents in Turkey wave Syrian flags as they celebrate the end of the Baath rule in Syria after rebel fighters took control of Damascus
overnight, at the Fatih Mosque, in Istanbul, on December 8, 2024. - Islamist-led rebels declared that they have taken Damascus in a lightning
offensive on December 8, sending President Bashar al-Assad fleeing and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria. (Photo by Yasin AKGUL / AFP)

Hundreds of Syrians celebrated the fall of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad in joyous scenes on Sunday outside the Fatih Mosque in central İstanbul, one of the focal points for their 500,000-strong Syrian community in the Turkish city, Agence France-Presse reported.

Turkey has become home to millions of Syrians who fled since civil war erupted in their country in 2011.

Syrians in Turkey rejoice over Assad's fall - Turkish Minute

Hundreds of Syrians celebrated the fall of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad in joyous scenes on Sunday outside the Fatih Mosque in central İstanbul, one of the focal points for their 500,000-strong Syrian community in the Turkish city, Agence France-Presse repo

www.turkishminute.com

 

[wing2000]

QUTAYFAH, Syria, Dec 17 (Reuters) - An international war crimes prosecutor said on Tuesday that evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run "machinery of death" under toppled leader Bashar al-Assad in which he estimated more than 100,000 people were tortured and murdered since 2013.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/syrian-mass-graves-expose-machinery-death-under-assad-top-prosecutor-says-2024-12-17/

 

[essentialsaltes]

For Syria’s Christians, Christmas is a time to grapple with hope and fear​

Decorations at Bab Sharqi in Damascus. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Officers with the new Ministry of Interior arrive at Bab Touma in Damascus on Tuesday. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

By Christmas Eve, the capital’s streets were adorned with garlands, lights, and ornaments alongside the new flag. Passersby, many of them Muslim, stopped to take photos. In the courtyards of longtime restaurants, Christmas trees shone brightly as people shared meals and conversation.

On Monday, a Christmas tree was burned down in Hama. In a video, a local HTS official standing next to clergymen vowed to punish the perpetrators, whom he said were not Syrian, and that the tree would be replaced.

[Christians protested in the streets.]

Protests of dissent against the country’s leaders were met with punishing crackdowns under the Assad regime. For now, HTS has allowed them to go on uninterrupted.

“Now there is change, isn’t this freedom? Great, we have freedom, and everyone needs to have their freedom,” said al-Hannat. “We don’t just want to put up Christmas trees and not to be called minorities, we want all our rights.”

 

[essentialsaltes]

Syrian president signs deal with Kurds, grapples with sectarian killings​

Syria’s interim government on Monday reached a landmark deal with Kurdish-led authorities to bring the oil-rich northeast under its control, a major win for President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has said he wants to unify the nation but is now under scrutiny after a wave of sectarian killings roiled the country’s northwest over the weekend.

The agreement was signed in Damascus during a meeting between Sharaa and Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-majority militia backed by the United States. It recognizes Kurds, who make up about 10 percent of the population, as “an indigenous community of the Syrian state” and guarantees them full political and constitutional rights.

Over the weekend, hundreds of people were killed after clashes between largely Sunni government forces and a nascent insurgency spiraled into sectarian violence against Alawite communities in Tartus and Latakia, along the Syrian coast.

The fighting in Syria’s Alawite heartland erupted on Friday after a government convoy was ambushed in Beit Ana, a town in Latakia province.

In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Sharaa acknowledged that armed groups who once fought Assad descended on the coast and “many violations occurred.” The operation against former regime’s remnants “became an opportunity for revenge,” he said, adding that the killings threatened efforts to unify Syria.

Hundreds among the government forces were also killed in the fighting, Sharaa and human rights monitors said. He also appointed a committee, including Alawites, to investigate the killings.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Finding Austin Tice, a U.S. journalist and Washington Post contributor who has been missing, presumably in Syria, since 2012, is a top rebel priority, said an advocate who is well connected in Syria. “The Syrians owe him a debt forever.”

Per Wiki: Tice was one of the first American correspondents to witness Syrian-rebel confrontations.[13] His coverage was cited, along with efforts of additional reporters, as contributing to McClatchy winning a George Polk Award for war reporting for its coverage of Syria's civil war

Ex-Syrian commander claims missing US journalist Austin Tice was executed [on Assad's orders]​

The man accused of being responsible for holding the missing American journalist Austin Tice has claimed that ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered his execution, security sources have told the BBC.

Major General Bassam Al Hassan is a former commander in the Republican Guards who was part of President Assad's inner circle.

He was also the Chief of Staff of the National Defence Forces (NDF), the paramilitary group that a BBC investigation uncovered was responsible for holding Mr Tice after his abduction in 2012.

The discovery was made as part of an upcoming BBC Radio 4 podcast about the disappearance of Austin Tice.

Western intelligence sources familiar with the details of Al Hassan's claim that President Assad gave the order to kill Mr Tice are sceptical that he would directly give such an instruction, as he is known for having mechanisms for distancing himself from such actions.