On 8 December 2024, after more than five decades of the al-Assad clan’s rule, Syria’s history was turned upside down in just a handful of days. Since the offensive by anti-government forces at the end of November, the rebel advance has been dazzling. One by one, towns whose names resonate in the collective consciousness, such as Aleppo, Hama and Homs, have fallen into the hands of the armed opposition groups, followed by the fall of Damascus. With the collapse of the regime, the whereabouts of Bashar al-Assad and his family remain at the heart of interrogations, although it was soon confirmed that Russia had granted him political asylum.
The Syrian government implemented a policy of repression that turned into open conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood, which became the main opposition force to Hafez al-Assad after he came to power in the late 1970s. From 1979 to 1982, the regime confronted its fighting vanguard. This conflict was marked by a number of emblematic events, such as the Tadmor prison massacre in 1980 and the destruction of the town of Hama in 1982. The election in 2001 of Bashar al-Assad, son of the previous president, saw the birth of the Damascus Spring and hopes of reform. But in the autumn of the same year, the authorities cracked down on the opposition movement, imprisoning its leaders and killing more than 3,500 people. Ten years later, the ‘Arab Spring’ inspired a series of peaceful demonstrations. Its deadly repression by the Syrian security apparatus triggered a civil war that has left the country on fire and the economy in ruins.
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