Jubilant Syrians flocked to Umayyad Square in central Damascus this morning to celebrate the fall of Bashar al-Assad, after a rebel-imposed nighttime curfew was lifted, AFP reporters said.
Ousted President Assad left Damascus for Moscow yesterday, Sunday, after a spectacular offensive by Islamist rebels, in a historic turning point that ended half a century of unchallenged rule by his family faction.
A large number of rebel fighters gathered in Umayyad Square, while Syrians who wanted to celebrate in their vehicles the fall of Assad went to the place early this morning, said an AFP journalist.
"It's indescribable, we didn't think this nightmare would end, we were reborn," enthuses Reem Ramadan, 49, an employee at the Ministry of Finance, who was at the scene.
"For 55 years we were afraid to speak, even at home, we used to say that the walls have ears. We have the impression that we are living a dream," she told AFP.
From the square, smoke could be seen rising from a neighboring district in which there are buildings of the security services, which had been set on fire the day before, according to the AFP journalist.
Earlier, the city was almost deserted when the curfew came in, which had been imposed until 05.00:04.00 (local time, XNUMX:XNUMX Greece time), according to another AFP journalist.
On November 27, a rebel coalition led by Abu Muhammad al-Jolani's radical Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) also launched an attack from its stronghold in Idlib.
In 10 days, the rebels captured large areas and the major cities of Aleppo, Hama, Daraa and Homs, before entering the capital.
It is the most spectacular attack since the start of the civil war that broke out in 2011 after a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests that left more than 500.000 people dead.
