(7 Mar 2025)
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Damascus, Syria – 7 March 2025
1. Various of Syrian people attending first Friday prayer of Ramadan
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ayman Haroush, preacher in the Umayyad Mosque:
"For the first time in my life, I feel that this country is my country and I came to live on my land. We were living as strangers."
3. Various of Syrian people attending first Friday prayer of Ramadan
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Amer Ghadban, preacher in the Umayyad Mosque:
"Today is my first day of prayer in the Umayyad Mosque, on the first Friday of Ramadan, in a country where the Assad regime fell without the features and methods of the Assad regime in a new country that is gathering itself again and carrying a lot of hope."
5. Various of security personal outside Umayyad Mosque
6. Tilt-down of Ummayad Mosque
STORYLINE:
Syrians attended the first Friday prayers of Ramadan at the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus – the first Ramadan for many Syrians spent without the Assad dynasty ruling the country in over half a century.
The faithful lined up in rows to listen to the Friday sermon and kneel in prayer.
Ramadan is seen as a time of religious reflection and worship, charity, and community.
During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn until sunset as a sign of humility, submission to God and sympathy for the poor and hungry.
President Bashar Assad was ousted in a lightning insurgency in December led by the country’s new Islamist de facto rulers, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Assad’s downfall brought initial joy and hope among Syrians, but the vast destruction following over a decade of war, economic turmoil that has plunged an estimated 90% of its population into poverty, and uncertainty over whether the country’s security will find stability anytime soon has simmered down that initial optimism.
The widespread poverty in Syria comes as the new interim government has urged the international community to lift sanctions to allow reconstruction and make the country’s battered economy viable again.
Concerns grow about the security situation in the country following clashes near Latakia that erupted on Thursday night.
A war monitor said that clashes between Syrian security forces and gunmen loyal to former President Bashar Assad have left more than 70 people dead and the area outside government control.
The clashes are the worst since Assad was removed from power in early December by insurgent groups led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
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