media’s Justin Salhani compares Damascus on the day after al-Assad’s fall with one year later.
Damascus, Syria – On the morning of December 5, 2025, a taxi drove me across the Lebanon-Syria border. This time was different from my first trip across, in the early hours of December 9, 2024, just a day after Bashar al-Assad fled Syria for Moscow.
On that day, Syrian Army military vehicles were abandoned on the side of the highway to Damascus. Also abandoned, scattered along the highway’s shoulders, were the uniforms of the men who had once driven them.
A year later, they’re all gone. So, too, are the defaced portraits of Bashar and his father Hafez, who ruled the country from 1971 until last year. And gone is a sign I’d photographed a year earlier that read “Assad’s Syria welcomes you”.
I was back in Damascus to cover the first anniversary of the fall of the regime. A year later, people return to Umayyad Square to celebrate.
This time, armed men are organising the crowds instead of firing their rifles into the air. The muddied SUVs that transported anti-Assad forces into Damascus have been replaced by new security forces vehicles, emblazoned with the new national emblem adopted by Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government.
A lot can change in a year. Immediately after the fall, Syrians had a five-decade weight removed from their chests. It had pressed down on their ribs and organs and robbed them of feelings of agency.
For years, many Syrians – even in the diaspora – avoided giving their real names or having their photos taken out of fear of repercussions for themselves or loved ones back in Syria.
After al-Assad’s fall, many Syrians were eager to express the suppressed thoughts they’d long burrowed away.
We finished speaking, and I began talking to another student. Then, Moataz approached me and asked me to please not include his family name in the report.
Another of his friends refused to be interviewed. Nothing was wrong, they said, they just felt more comfortable that way.
Standing next to me was a Canadian colleague. When Moataz’s friend heard he was from Canada, he told him that Syria was good to visit for a week or two, but that it’s better to live in Canada.
‘May God protect the government’
Most in the square had only ever known one family’s rule. Many, under the age of 25, had only known one man’s rule. Exorcising the trauma and demons, especially those of the years of the uprising and violent suppression, will understandably take time. So will improving the country and its infrastructure.
Syrian shop owners I spoke to in the al-Salhiye and al-Hamadiyeh souqs told me that they no longer feared security forces would raid their shops, but that business had largely still not improved. Hopes are high that the lifting of United States sanctions, including the recent repeal of the Caesar Act, might kick-start the economy. But for now, many are living day-to-day or off remittances.
There, we found tens of thousands of people looking for any sign, whisper or remnant of their loved ones who had been disappeared in the nefarious Syrian prison network built by the Assad regime over decades. On our way down from the prison, people arriving asked us if there were any prisoners left inside. They did not yet know that all the remaining prisoners had been liberated and that rumours of an underground holding cell were proof of the depths of creative depravity the regime was capable of.
That regime is gone. And nobody I spoke to in Damascus wants al-Assad back. That fact alone has made a world of difference to millions of Syrians. However, discussions with shop owners, servers at cafes, a former hotel employee, former prisoners, researchers, students, engineers, taxi drivers and members of the diaspora considering returning home, also highlighted that it will not be enough to rebuild the country.
The World Bank estimates reconstruction in Syria needs $216bn. Dozens of areas still lie in ashes and rubble. The economy has yet to take off, and the pledges of financial and political support from international and regional allies have not fully materialised yet.
A year on from al-Assad’s fall, some streets are being repaved, gunmen in mismatched fatigues who once roamed the city streets have been replaced by men in matching black uniforms with state insignia. An official sheen has been laid over Damascus. Many locals may match that sheen with their own expressions of joy, but underneath, many are still struggling.
Syria is still in a post-war phase.
While locals said electricity and infrastructure are improving, walking through unlit streets or alleys is still not uncommon. While visiting a friend in the Muhajreen neighbourhood, he looked at the clock. “The electricity hasn’t come yet today,” he said. “We’ve been getting two hours on and four hours off.”
Of course, few people in Damascus miss the days of al-Assad. His mere absence has opened up the possibility of return for thousands of Syrians.
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