\u2018Syria freed!\u2019
\n DAMASCUS
\nThousands of Syrians converged on a landmark Damascus mosque for Friday prayers, waving opposition flags and chanting \u2014 a sight unimaginable just days ago before rebels ousted president Bashar Assad.
\nAt the capital\u2019s famed Umayyad Mosque, men, women and children gathered to celebrate on the first Friday prayers since Assad\u2019s ouster, later streaming into the city streets and squares.
\nThe scenes were reminiscent of the early days of the 2011 uprising, when pro-democracy protesters in Syrian cities would take to the streets after Friday prayers \u2014 but never in Damascus, long an Assad clan stronghold.
\n\u201cWe are gathering because we\u2019re happy Syria has been freed, we\u2019re happy to have been liberated from the prison in which we lived,\u201d said Nour Thi Al-Ghina, 38.
\n\u201cThis is the first time we have converged in such big numbers and the first time we are seeing such an event,\u201d she said, beaming with joy.
\n\u201cWe never expected this to happen.\u201d
\nIn 2011, Assad\u2019s crackdown on peaceful protesters triggered a 13-year civil war that tore Syria apart, killing more than half a million people and displacing millions more.
\nExhilarated crowds chanted \u201cOne, one, one, the Syrian people is one!\u201d on Friday.
\nSome held the Syrian independence flag, used by the opposition since the uprising began.
\nDozens of street vendors around the mosque were selling the three-star flags \u2014 which none would dare to raise in government-held areas during Assad\u2019s iron-fisted rule.
\nDozens of pictures of people who were disappeared or detained in Assad\u2019s prisons hung on the mosque\u2019s outer walls, the phone numbers of relatives inscribed on the images.
\nAt the core of the system Assad inherited from his father Hafez was a brutal complex of prisons and detention centers used to eliminate dissent by jailing those suspected of stepping away from the ruling Baath party line.
\nWar monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in 2022 that more than 100,000 people had died in the prisons since 2011.
\nEarlier Friday, the leader of the Islamist rebels that took power, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani \u2014 who now uses his real name Ahmed Al-Sharaa \u2014 called on people to take to the streets to celebrate \u201cthe victory of the revolution.\u201d
\nLast month, rebel forces led by his Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group (HTS) launched a lightning offensive, seizing Damascus and ousting Assad in less than two weeks.
\nOmar Al-Khaled, 23, said he had rushed from HTS\u2019s northwestern stronghold of Idlib, cut off from government areas for years, to see the capital for the first time in his life.
\n\u201cIt was my dream to come to Damascus,\u201d the tailor said.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t describe my feelings. Our morale is very high and we hope that Syria will head toward a better future,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cPeople were stifled… but now the doors have opened to us.\u201d
\nOn Thursday, the interim government vowed to institute the \u201crule of law\u201d after years of abuses under Assad.
\nAmani Zanhur, a 42-year-old professor of computer engineering, said many of her students had disappeared in Assad\u2019s prisons and that she was overjoyed to be attending the prayers in the new Syria.
\n\u201cThere can be nothing worse than what was. We cannot fear the situation,\u201d she told AFP, expressing support for a state based on Islamic teachings.
\nThousands flocked to the nearby Umayyad Square, raising a huge rebel flag on its landmark sword monument and chanting.
\n\u201cLet\u2019s not discuss details that might separate us now and focus only on what brings us together: our hatred for Bashar Assad,\u201d said Amina Maarawi, 42, an Islamic preacher wearing a white hijab.
\nMohammed Al-Saad, 32, was overjoyed. The HTS political cadre in a smart jacket had come with colleagues from Idlib province to help set up the new government.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve been waiting 13 years for this,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve come to get work started.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2018Syria freed!\u2019 DAMASCUS Thousands of Syrians converged on a landmark Damascus mosque for Friday prayers, waving opposition flags and chanting \u2014 a sight unimaginable just days ago before rebels ousted president Bashar Assad. At the capital\u2019s famed Umayyad Mosque, men, women and children gathered to celebrate on the first Friday prayers since Assad\u2019s ouster, later […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-449464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n