‘Wonderful sight’
A day before the meetings in Jordan, Syrians had celebrated what they called the “Friday of victory”, with fireworks heralding the fall of the Assad dynasty.
Celebrations continued into the night on the first Friday – the Muslim day of rest and prayer – since Assad was ousted.
Umayyad Square in Damascus was jammed with vehicles, people and waving flags as fireworks shot into the air, AFPTV footage showed.
Exhilarated crowds chanted, “The Syrian people is one!”
In the southern city of Sweida, the heartland of Syria’s Druze minority, Bayan al-Hinnawi, 77, never believed he would live to see such a day.
“It’s a wonderful sight. Nobody could have imagined this could happen”, said Hinnawi, who spent 17 years in prison.
Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and is designated a “terrorist” organisation by many Western governments.
But the group has sought to moderate its rhetoric, and the interim government insists the rights of all Syrians will be protected, as will the rule of law.
The European Union was seeking “to establish contacts” with the new rulers soon, an EU official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Inside much of the country, the focus turned towards unravelling the secrets of Assad’s rule, particularly the network of detention centres and suspected torture sites.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it documented more than 35,000 disappearances during Assad’s rule, with the actual number likely far higher.
“We just want a hint of where they were,” Abu Mohammed told AFP as he searched for news of three missing relatives at the Mazzeh airbase in Damascus.
While Syrians celebrate the end of Assad’s brutal rule, they face a struggle for necessities in a country ravaged by war, sanctions and runaway inflation.
On Friday, the EU announced the launch of an “air bridge” operation to deliver an initial 50 tonnes of health supplies via neighbouring Turkey.
