Special edition: What's next for Syria

Summary

Global News Podcast: Special Edition – What’s Next for Syria Released on December 8, 2024 by BBC World Service

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Introduction

In this special edition of the Global News Podcast by the BBC World Service, host Valerie Sanderson delves into the seismic shifts unfolding in Syria. After over five decades of rule by President Bashar al Assad and his family, Islamist-led rebel forces have seized control of the capital, Damascus, marking a pivotal moment in Syria’s protracted civil conflict. This comprehensive summary captures the key developments, on-the-ground reports, expert analyses, and personal stories that illuminate the current state and future prospects of Syria.

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1. The Fall of the Assad Regime

Valerie Sanderson opens the episode by outlining the dramatic collapse of President Bashar al Assad’s regime. For more than 50 years, Assad maintained a tight grip on Syria through force and alliances with powerful regional backers like Russia and Iran. However, recent developments have seen Islamist rebels swiftly take control of Damascus with minimal resistance from Assad's forces.

Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al Jalil issued a video statement declaring readiness to facilitate a "smooth transfer of various government files" (01:10), signaling a potential transition of power. Concurrently, videos circulating on social media depict jubilant celebrations in Damascus, with symbols of the Assad dynasty being toppled, while reports emerge of previously detained prisoners being freed.

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2. On the Ground: Barbara Petasha’s Report

Reporter Barbara Petasha provides a vivid account of the situation in Damascus:

"We've reached Damascus, just coming into the city now, passed by quite a major army base... roads were very, very quiet... there's some traffic on the street... shops look like they are shut at this point" (04:33).

She describes an eerie calm interspersed with scenes of abandoned military equipment and uncertain civilian activity. The sight of the Iranian embassy in disarray underscores the significant shifts in regional alliances and the weakening of Assad's traditional supporters.

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3. Reactions and Analyses

a. Rania Kataf’s Perspective

Living in Damascus, Rania Kataf shares an emotionally charged firsthand account:

"For the first time we're feeling that we are actually free... Bashar Al Assad... he took away every single right and human can have from all of us... imagine being in a prison, but in an open air prison" (03:30).

Her testimony highlights the deep-seated oppression Syrians endured under Assad and the profound sense of liberation now permeating the capital.

b. Expert Analysis with Lise Doucette

Senior Correspondent Lise Doucette, with decades of experience covering Syria, provides a nuanced analysis:

"The real challenge now is when the celebrations subside is how do all these rebel groups control their own forces to ensure they don't run amok?" (08:53).

She emphasizes the fragmented nature of the rebel factions, noting that the Islamic militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) may not have the cohesive structure necessary to govern effectively. The potential for internal conflict and the difficulty in uniting diverse groups under a single governance framework pose significant challenges for Syria’s future stability.

c. Insights from Jeremy Bowen

International Editor Jeremy Bowen, reporting from eastern Turkey, reflects on the rapid unraveling of Assad’s regime:

"Nobody expected the collapse... there's real fears about what on earth might happen in Syria... the Assad family controlled Syria from 1970 until now" (10:19).

He underscores the strategic importance of Syria in the Middle East and the unpredictable regional repercussions that its instability could trigger, especially given Syria’s central position linking various geopolitical hotspots.

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4. International Perspectives

Daniel Shapiro, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, voices concerns over the regime's collapse:

"We call on all parties in Syria to protect civilians, particularly those from Syria's minority communities, to respect international humanitarian norms and to work to achieve a resolution through an inclusive political settlement" (17:50).

Shapiro emphasizes the necessity of safeguarding vulnerable populations and adhering to international laws amidst the power vacuum.

Middle East Analyst Sebastian Usher elaborates on the complexities facing Syria:

"President Assad has left, but what he's left behind is a country that had not been brought together, had not been united in any sense" (18:30).

Usher highlights the fractured state of Syrian society and the daunting task of unifying disparate groups under a stable governance model.

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5. Human Stories: Ahmet Helmi’s Testimony

Ahmet Helmi, a former detainee, shares his harrowing experience under Assad’s regime:

"I lost 40 kilos and I lost my hair in six months... My own mother couldn't recognize me among the faces" (25:33).

His poignant narrative underscores the brutal human rights abuses perpetrated by the Assad regime, including arbitrary detentions, torture, and the disappearance of thousands of Syrians.

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6. Background: Bashar al Assad’s Regime

Reporter Caroline Holly provides a historical overview of Bashar al Assad’s ascent to power and the subsequent oppression that fueled the civil war:

"Bashar Al Assad took power in the year 2000, inheriting a serious police state from his father... when an uprising against him began in 2011, he responded with tanks in the streets" (27:33).

She traces Assad’s initial promises of reform, the violent crackdown on peaceful protests, and the international community’s failure to effectively challenge his continued rule until recent years.

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7. Conclusion: Implications and Future Prospects

The fall of Assad marks a watershed moment for Syria, but the path forward remains fraught with uncertainty. The absence of a strong, unified opposition raises questions about governance and the potential for either stability or further fragmentation. The international community watches closely, recognizing that Syria’s future will have profound implications for regional security and humanitarian outcomes.

Valerie Sanderson concludes by emphasizing the need for continued coverage and analysis as Syria navigates this critical juncture, highlighting the importance of an inclusive political settlement to ensure lasting peace and prosperity for its people.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Mohammad Ghazi al Jalil (01:10): "Chosen by the Syrian people, we're ready... to cooperate with it, providing all possible facilities to ensure a smooth transfer of various government files."

• Rania Kataf (03:30): "For the first time we're feeling that we are actually free... imagine being in a prison, but in an open air prison."

• Lise Doucette (08:53): "The real challenge now is when the celebrations subside is how do all these rebel groups control their own forces to ensure they don't run amok?"

• Ahmet Helmi (25:33): "I lost 40 kilos and I lost my hair in six months... My own mother couldn't recognize me among the faces."

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Implications for the Future

The transformation in Syria presents both opportunities and challenges. Should the rebel factions manage to establish a cohesive and inclusive government, Syria could embark on a path of reconstruction and reconciliation. However, the risks of internal divisions, resurgence of extremist groups, and external interference remain significant obstacles that must be navigated with careful diplomacy and sustained international support.

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This summary encapsulates the critical narratives and analyses presented in the Global News Podcast’s special edition on Syria, providing a comprehensive overview for listeners and those seeking to understand the intricate dynamics shaping Syria’s future.

Transcript

[Jackie Leonard]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Rania Kataf]

Hello, Jackie Leonard here from the Global News Podcast. Did you know there is an easy way to get new episodes automatically? Whether it's the Global News Podcast or indeed any of your other favourite BBC World Service podcasts, just find the show on your podcast app and then just click Follow or Subscribe. And if you switch on notifications, you'll get a reminder too. It's that easy. Follow or subscribe and never miss an episode.

[O'Reilly Auto Parts]

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[Lise Doucette]

Oh, oh, oh.

[O'Reilly Auto Parts]

O'Reilly Auto Parts.

[Valerie Sanderson]

You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Valerie Sanderson with a special edition on Sunday 8th December, about the developing situation in Syria where Islamist rebels are now in control of the capital and the country. Syria's prime minister had this.

[O'Reilly Auto Parts]

Any leadership.

[Mohammad Ghazi al Jalil]

Chosen by the Syrian people, we're ready.

[O'Reilly Auto Parts]

To cooperate with it, providing all possible facilities to ensure a smooth transfer of various government files.

[Mahmoud Ali Hamad]

And they have seen Syria not as a country but as a hotel where people in it are actually just servants.

[Valerie Sanderson]

We'll get the latest from our correspondents on what this means for Syria, its people and its future. It has been an extraordinary few days in Syria, culminating in the fall of the House of Assad after more than 50 years as Islamist led rebel forces entered the capital, Damascus. President Bashar Al Assad's government forces appear to have offered little resistance. And now the Syrian Prime Minister, Mohammad Ghazi al Jalil, in a recorded video message, says he's to work on a transition of power.

[Mohammad Ghazi al Jalil]

Any leadership chosen by the Syrian people.

[Jackie Leonard]

Were ready to cooperate with it, providing.

[Mohammad Ghazi al Jalil]

All possible facilities to ensure a smooth.

[O'Reilly Auto Parts]

Transfer of various government files.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Videos from social media showed people celebrating on the streets of Damascus. President Bashar Al Assad is reported to have fled the country. And hundreds of videos posted overnight showed scenes of jubilation with statues of the Assad dynasty being toppled. The rebels say they've freed what they called unjustly detained prisoners. This unverified footage was posted online showing the moment apparently when the women's wing of a prison was unlocked with those inside allowed to go free. Bashar al Assad and his Ba'ath party had exerted a brutal rule over Syria. The country has been devastated by a Civil War since 2011, when he and his acolytes cracked down on mass pro democracy demonstrations. Millions fled and hundreds of thousands died, were gassed, tortured or shot. On his orders from the Syrian capital, Rania Kataf gave her reaction to the extraordinary developments.

[Rania Kataf]

I live in Damascus and I can tell you I have never felt this happy in my home like I have felt today. You never, you can never describe this feeling on a show. You have to be here. Because what we are experiencing as Syrians is for the first time we're feeling that we are actually free. And this is a feeling that cannot be described. We don't know how to describe what we own right now because it is something we've never had. Bashar Al Assad, not only is he a murderer, he took away the youth, he took away every opportunity, he took away all the resources, he took away every single right and human can have from all of us. All of us. So imagine being in a prison, but in an open air prison.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Rania Kataf the rebels say a curfew will come into place at 13 hours GMT and will last until early Monday morning. Our reporter Barbara Petasha arrived with the rebel forces in Damascus.

[Barbara Petasha]

We've reached Damascus, just coming into the city now, passed by quite a major army base. Fujkar Rabia is the name of the army base and outside of it we saw men coming out and then walking down the road without uniform. And our Syrian guide said this has been going on. The soldiers are taking off their uniforms and just walking away. And in fact we have passed on the motorway. We could see abandoned or discarded clothing from soldiers, army equipment, also tanks, military cars, empty and left behind a few people clambering over them. But mostly the roads were very, very quiet coming in. Now that we're just driving into Damascus, I can see there is some traffic on the street. Again, not that much, very quiet, some people on the street as well. But I don't really get a sense of any kind of focus of activity. Shops look like they are shut at this point and we are just heading down a main street now, just having crossed into Syria, into the country. We passed another military base where our Syrian guide said people were going in and taking things, taking equipment, because there was nobody stopping them from doing so. We're just passing the Iranian embassy now. There's a picture of the Lebanese leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by the Israelis recently. On the outside part of it is ripped down.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Our chief international correspondent Lise Doucette has been reporting on Syria for decades and gave me her response to the news.

[Lise Doucette]

Well, it's extraordinary, first of all, to hear Barbara's report as she goes intocrossing from Lebanon into the capital. It's a road we've taken so many times before and it's always been crisscrossed by checkpoints with really quite forcefully trying to impose order in Syria, of course the Syrian army. And she talked about the Iranian embassy. It's in Meze well to do neighborhood which is many, many embassies there with their high walls. And the biggest embassy of all was the Iranian one with the Iranians and Hezbollah ally keeping President Assad in power. And now everything has been turned upside down. We, as you heard from Rania, there's celebration there. People can't believe that finally the 50 year rule of the Assad family is over. And I have to say, having been to Syria so many times, every time I went felt the force of an oppressive state power and how its tentacles were in every part of life. Syrians too afraid to say much except for that moment, that extraordinary moment with the peaceful protests of 2011 when Syrians rose up and said we have lost our fear. Calling at that point not for an end to the regime, calling for more democracy. And when President Assad dug in, refusing over these past 14 years not to give even an inch to the democratic opposition, much less to the armed groups. Of course, this certainly is one of the major, is the major reason for his demise, his stubborn and brutal hold on power. We had a statement from the head of the most powerful Islamist group, Hayat Al Sham Mohammad Jelani, who's now using his own name rather than his nom de guerre, his war name, to say that they have liberated Damascus. But I'm in the Qatari capital Doha, where there are just coincidentally a lot of Syrian observers here, including foreign ministers from across the region watching closely. Their assessment is that it is not the HTS that has taken power in the capital, Damascus. It was another group of rebels from the south, composed many of them of a former group known as the Free Syrian army, which worked with countries like Britain and the United States in the first years of the uprising, working with local groups who had arms within the capital. And so the real challenge now is when the celebrations subside is how do all these rebel groups control their own forces to ensure they don't run amok? And also how do they work together because different groups now control different parts of Syria.

[Valerie Sanderson]

And we also heard there from the Syrian prime minister saying he's ready to support continuity of governance. I suppose the big question, like you're saying, is how will that work?

[Lise Doucette]

It's over. It's really over. It's really, you know, here in, here again in Doha, all of the Arab foreign ministers who rushed in here, the Iranians and the Russians who were the key backer who kept President Assad in power, the Turkish foreign minister. The country which does have some sway over the rebels. In the early hours of the morning, they called for a peaceful transition, for there to be discussions on an inclusive government. But there has been so much brutality, so many people have suffered, so many people were tortured to death, disappeared in the black hole of Syrian prisons. It's very hard at this moment to see there being any space for what's left of President Assad's order, an order which refused to give an inch to give any space to any of the opposition. It's really hard to imagine that now, but there is a real fear that there could be what happened in Iraq, a complete collapse where the army melts away and there's no force to take over. People have been through this before. They want to avoid the worst.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Our international editor Jeremy Bowen is in eastern Turkey and he's been speaking to Laura Kuensberg.

[O'Reilly Auto Parts]

What's happened is absolutely astonishing. Nobody expected the collapse. I mean, I finished work last night in the early hours of the morning and at that point I just heard that Homs had fallen to the rebels. I woke up about five hours later to find Damascus had fallen to the rebels and that Assad had disappeared. I think all bets are off. Nobody knows. I think there are real fears about what on earth might happen in Syria because it's a place where there are. Well, you know, the end of any dictatorship is often followed by terrible bouts of bloodletting and revenge. And let's hope something like that doesn't happen in Syria. But the Assad family controlled Syria from 1970 until now. That's more than half a century. So there is an awful lot to unravel. I think no one knows which way this is going to go. Will hts the group who've been, who started this lightning offensive and causing the collapse of the regime, will they be able to keep a lid on things? Will they be able to stop different groups fighting each other, going after remnants of the regime? I mean, there are all kinds of scenarios that we could discuss at the moment. And just one more thing, Syria is right at the center of the Middle East. It's really one of the most strategically situated places. So anything that happens in Syria has knock on effects elsewhere.

[Jackie Leonard]

And Jeremy, it's been such a turbulent.

[Rania Kataf]

Few months and you know, it's so valuable for us all on Sunday MORNING to get your insights. But in terms of the possible implications, you know, if you're watching at home this morning and thinking this just looks like more chaos and more confusion in a very dangerous part of the world, why should you take attention? Why should we heed what's going on?

[O'Reilly Auto Parts]

Because this is something different. There was, there's been a protracted war lasting many years since 2011. It's been in sort of somewhat frozen state the last few years, but trying to overthrow the Assad regime. It did not succeed. It pulled in the wolf. The phrase I used to describe, I used to use when talking about it when reporting out of Syria about 10 years ago was it was, it had become really a mini world war because the Russians were involved, the Iranians were involved, the Americans were involved. They were bombing. Now they have troops in the north. The Turks control part of the north. There are remnants of Al Qaeda, Islamic State, I mean, you name it, they're here. And it's con. And there are links through Syria to different sectarian groups. It's also from the point of view of Iran now this is a massive blow to them losing Assad because their entire already battered, so called axis of resistance, which relied upon clients and allies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, has already taken a massive pounding because, particularly because of what Israel has done to Hezbollah in Lebanon, but also because Israel has been attacking Iran itself. Now the Iranians will have lost their link to, to Lebanon. So from their point of view, this is there are reports that their embassy is being trashed in Damascus. I can't confirm that. So for them this is a huge defeat as well. It's essentially an absolute upending of the regional order. The balance of power anyway in the region has been in flux. So, you know, we're going to hear an awful lot out of Syria in the next month or two, believe you me.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Well, in Syria itself, there's been an air of celebration. Mahmoud Ali Hamad is with BBC Arabic and he's from the Syrian and has been speaking to people there.

[Mahmoud Ali Hamad]

You couldn't say anything today on this program to dampen the celebratory mood that the Syrian people are living basically, because what's happening now in Syria, I mean, in the memory, the collective memory of the Syrian people, there hasn't been an important moment that would make them share, you know, one destination just for change, you know, to see that this regime that has kept ruling the country evidently by sheer fear because the army didn't stand its ground. So that's what I'm getting from people. And it's really hard to process their sense of relief combined of course, with fear from the future. I mean, it's a natural human instinct. When you have been constrained by this political system for so long, of course you can. It's only natural to feel that way. And as far as the whole Islamization of the Syrian people, I think if the countries, the sponsors, the patrons of the war that has been raging in Syria, if they decide not to have a sectarian war, there will not be a sectarian war in Syria, because we have. If they have been attacking major cities, the first act they've done so far when entering cities is to free to go to the central prison of that city and free political prisoners. That's an issue that all Syrians from any political background or persuasion agree on, that this regime, being a sectarian regime, cannot allow you to have the right to imprison children. Today we've seen footages from Saydnaya. We've been sent them by those people actually storming the prisoners where you could see children no older than three years old, toddlers. It was very hard to watch the depth of the agony that this regime was causing the Syrians. Collectively, even he was hurting. This regime was hurting its own people in so many ways that people outside Syria, non Syrians, didn't understand. They thought the Alawites were beneficiaries to this arrangements of political control, but they were not. Not all of them, but the clique that surrounded the Assad family were basically party to this. They wanted it to continue for as long as they can. But once they realized that this is not happening for them anymore, they choose to fled. Because they've seen Syria not as a country, but as a hotel where people in it are actually just servants.

[Valerie Sanderson]

This is a special edition of the Global News Podcast on the situation unfolding in Syria still to come.

[Ahmet Helmi]

I lost 40 kilos and I lost my hair in six months. My own mother couldn't recognize me.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Among the faces we hear about the realities of political oppression in the country under the Assad regime.

[Rania Kataf]

Hello, Jackie Leonard here from the Global News Podcast. Did you know there is an easy way to get new episodes automatically? Whether it's the Global News Podcast or indeed any of your other favourite BBC World Service podcasts. Just find the show on your podcast app and then just click Follow or Subscribe. And if you switch on notifications, you'll get a reminder too. It's that easy. Follow or subscribe and never miss an episode.

[Valerie Sanderson]

The big question is, what happens next in Syria? A US Defense official says no one should mourn the collapse of Bashar al Assad's regime and urged respect for international rules. Daniel Shapiro, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle east, emphasized the need to protect civilians in the wake of the regime's fall.

[Rania Kataf]

We call on all parties in Syria to protect civilians, particularly those from Syria's minority communities, to respect international humanitarian norms and to work to achieve a resolution through an inclusive political settlement consistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2254.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Our Middle east analyst, Sebastian Usher. Tell me more.

[Jackie Leonard]

I think what we've seen in the past 10 days is what seemed impossible has now happened. But looking back on that, that may actually be the easy bit. The fact that the Syrian government forces evaporated and there was no final hardcore defense of President Assad.

[Valerie Sanderson]

And why did they melt away?

[Jackie Leonard]

I mean, the government forces were known to be incapable of keeping President Assad in power by themselves. And there was no sense that they'd got any stronger really over the years. So unless they'd been the backing from outside and also the militias and the hardcore around present, Assad had shown themselves willing to fight to the last. Without that, there wasn't really much. It felt like slicing through butter, really, I think, for the rebels as they came down from the north and then up from the south and from the east. But as I say, that almost looks like the easy bit now because they didn't face any real opposition. And President Assad, it seems, has gone. Now the real difficulty, as we're hearing from leases from Syrians themselves inside and outside the country, is President Assad has left, but what he's left behind is a country that had not been brought together, had not been united in any sense. It's a divided country. The part that President Assad had under his control of the major cities, the 60% or so, that's the first and major concern. What happens there, that's where the power vacuum is. Down in the south, there are groups which have already started to take control. In a sense, there was almost light kind of government control there in Dera, in Sweden, those cities, that may not be a huge issue. Over in the east, you have the Kurds to have essentially been running a semi autonomous area, almost a third of a country. Up in the north you have the Turks hold sway both directly and also through proxy militias on the ground. So as I say, the immediate concern will be how this vital rump of the country can be sustained and then how the other forces can meld together. There's talk of it being a Rebel coalition. I think that's optimistic. I think what we're hearing from Lees in these reports that, you know, it's for southern rebels and once in the east, who took over Damascus. That's probably true, but it wouldn't have happened without the drive in any sense from the north and from hts. And they're the ones who spearheaded it. They're the ones who are going to have the first and made say at the moment.

[Valerie Sanderson]

And look at all the outside interests. Syria relied, didn't it, on Russia and Iran for support. So that seemed to go away. Have the conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon changed everything, do you think?

[Jackie Leonard]

Well, they changed that. They changed the ability, the readiness. I mean, I think in a sense those powers must have looked around to see if the others were still there. And I think it was probably seeing that they weren't, but then decided then we're not going to do this alone. I think Russia was probably the last. They were using their air power against the rebels at certain points, but never to the degree we saw before. And then it eventually ended. The Iranian ability, through its militias, its military advisors had been seriously, seriously weakened and diminished very much through Israeli attacks and strikes, which have been intensified. And also Israel, its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, that had a major effect too. So, I mean, though Syrians and Syria itself, I'm quite sure are no friends of the, of Israel and the Israeli government, in a sense, they owe a little bit of freedom that they are sensing at the moment to what Israel did. Not so much against President Assad. I think Israel probably preferred President Assad to remain there and not a potential jihadist threat, but the way that it weakened the forces that had kept him in power.

[Valerie Sanderson]

So it's very difficult to predict what will happen next. But let's remind ourselves of the main group behind the fall of President Assad. The rebels, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, or HTS, were set up in 2012, originally under a different name, Al Nusra Front, and they pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. The following year, in 2016, Al Nusra broke ties with Al Qaeda and took on their new name. But the United nations, the European Union, the United States and other countries have continued to designate HTS as a terrorist organization. Our security correspondent Frank Gardner told us more about the rebels.

[Mohammad Ghazi al Jalil]

The early signs are quite encouraging that there could be an orderly transition of power because the leader of the main rebel group, HDS Abu Mohammed al Jelani, he has said, we are going to respect minorities. There's not going to be a Great big bloodletting of vengeance and so on. But he is only one person at the head of a very large, sprawling coalition of rebel groups. And there are some pretty hardcore jihadists in amongst them. Let's not forget that HTS is still a prescribed terrorist organization, prescribed by the UN and by many governments. It's going to have to prove itself in the coming days, weeks and months that it is absolutely true to its word and has left its terrorist roots behind. Because people will be thinking about what happened in Afghanistan when the Taliban seized the capital, Kabul, and the whole country and the international community disappeared. Taliban spokespeople were going on television saying, nothing to fear, don't worry, we're going to respect women's rights. We're not like we were in the past. And they're exactly like they were in the past. It's been an absolute basket case for human rights and women's rights. So there are any number of ways in which Syria could now go down a very dark path. It could go the way of Libya, with rival factions, armed groups descending into sort of tribal and religious friction. But so far it's looking quite promising. The west is largely staying out of it. It's going to be for Syria's own people to sort this one out with the backing, hopefully, of the United nations and hopefully without too much meddling from outside countries. It's always very difficult where you've got rebel groups that have been in opposition for years and years and have been operating in a very small, tightly controlled area. In the case of HTs, they've just been in Idlib. They've been confined up to the far northwest of the country. They don't have any experience of governing non Sunni Muslims and a wider cross spectrum of people, because Syria is a patchwork of Kurds, of Christians, of Sunni Muslims, of Shia Muslims. And I think perhaps one of the biggest threats is friction between the Alawite minority from which Bashar Al Assad's dynasty comes. They are Shia. They're based in the northwest of the country, to the south of Idlib. There could be friction between them and the Sunni militants. There is a risk if Syria starts to spiral, if Giuliani and the rest of his rebel group, if they don't establish a smooth transition of power very quickly and move to elections and basically calm the place down. There is absolutely the risk that ISIS and Al Qaeda could become resurgent and form new bases and start planning international terror attacks from Syria.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Thousands of Syrians were imprisoned in Bashar Al Assad's network of Jails known for their harsh conditions and their use of torture. Many people, including peaceful protesters, were disappeared and not heard from for decades. Ahmet Helmi is one of them. He was detained and tortured under the regime and is now a human rights advocate.

[Ahmet Helmi]

I can't even start to describe how I feel. Like the rollercoaster of emotion, that moment of freedom, you see it on the people's face. Like I can't even stop myself from crying. I have been there. I have been. I spent three years in prison waiting for that moment when they opened the doors and it didn't happen. Like I would wish that I was freed that way, even though I was released seven years ago. But I've never felt as free as today. I will tell you a little bit about torture in prison, but in an indirect way. So I was disappeared by the Syrian regime for my peaceful and nonviolent activism. I disappeared. My mom knew nothing about me. Six months later I called her. They took me to the state prison where I had a right of visitation for six months. She didn't know that I was alive. She didn't know where I was. And she was waiting for me to open the door of the house every morning and going to sleep crying every single night. When she came to the prison, she was scanning the faces of the detainees, of my friends. She couldn't even recognize me because I lost 40 kilos and I lost my hair in six months. My own mother couldn't recognize me among the faces.

[Valerie Sanderson]

Ahmed Helmi. So who is Bashar al Assad? The man from a political dynasty who trained as an eye doctor here in London and went on to reshape Syria. Caroline Holly has this report.

[Caroline Holly]

Bashar Al Assad took power in the year 2000, inheriting serious police state from his father, Hafez. The new young president, just 34 at the time, promised reform. And after his inauguration, there was a brief period of greater political openness. But the old family way of ruling soon reasserted itself. Power was to have been handed down to Bashar's elder brother Basil. But when he was killed in a car crash, it was the quieter, somewhat awkward Bashar who was next in line. He'd been training as an eye doctor in London when he was called back to Syria to prepare for taking over the presidency. With his British born wife Asma by his side, President Assad at first presented a new image of Syria to the world. The west responded. There was even an audience with the queen. But the change that so many Syrians hoped for at home failed to materialize. And when an uprising against him began in 2011, he responded with tanks in the streets. As accounts of atrocities multiplied, Bashar Al Assad denied they were taking place, refusing to take responsibility.

[Mohammad Ghazi al Jalil]

We don't kill our people. No government in the world kill its people unless it's led by crazy person. For me as president, I became president because of the public support. It's impossible for anyone in this state.

[Caroline Holly]

To give order to kill whoever it was that gave the actual orders. Bashar Al Assad headed a regime that killed too many of its own people to even count. With barrel bombs as well as bullets, and also with chemical weapons that are internationally banned. This was the aftermath of an attack with sarin gas on an opposition held suburb of the capital in 2013. Hundreds of people were killed. The west repeatedly said that Bashar Al Assad must go. But however sickening the violence, there was no stomach to really take on his regime. He repeatedly said he was merely fighting terrorists.

[Mohammad Ghazi al Jalil]

When you shoot, you aim. And when you shoot, when you aim, you aim at terrorists in order to protect civilians. Again, if you talk about casualty, that's war. You cannot have war without casualty.

[Caroline Holly]

There were more chemical attacks and many, many more casualties. But back in 2015, Russia had stepped in to turn the tide of the war in Bashar Al Assad's favor. It was Russian airstrikes and support from Iran and Hezbollah that helped defeat the rebels in Aleppo and elsewhere and led to this moment in 2023, after years of isolation, President Assad at an Arab League summit, his regional rehabilitation a symbol of his victory at the time, as he was in Saudi Arabia. The rebels were confined to the northwest of Syria. But then came this major offensive by the rebels who headed first for Aleppo, Syria's second city, a huge prize that they took over with ease. They went on to capture more and more territory from the Assad regime, weakened because the support it had been able to rely on was no longer there. Now he's gone, leaving a country deeply scarred by his brutal rule.

[Valerie Sanderson]

And that's it from us for now. But we'll have more on this in the Global News podcast, which is back at the usual time tomorrow. This edition was mixed by Masoud Ibrahim Kyle and the producer was Stephanie Prentice. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time. Goodbye.

[Rania Kataf]

Hello. Jackie Leonard here from the Global News Podcast. Did you know there is an easy way to get new episodes automatically? Whether it's the Global News Podcast or indeed any of your other favourite BBC World Service podcasts, just find the show on your podcast app, and then just click Follow or Subscribe. And if you switch on notifications, you'll get a reminder, too. It's that easy. Follow or subscribe and never miss an episode.