(15 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Damascus, Syria – 15 March 2025
1. Various of Syrians celebrating in Umayyad Square in Damascus with revolution flags and banners
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Lamyaa Al Doueish, participant:
“Today, by the grace of God, we have come to express our joy in victory. This is the first year, after 14 years, that God has blessed us with victory, so we have come to share this joy with the national army and all the provinces. We want to tell them that we are all one people and one community. God created us all, and we have no sectarianism among us. We all rejoice in victory and stand together as one, as a united people and a single community.”
3. Various of participants dancing to revolutionary and traditional songs
STORYLINE:
Thousands of people poured into streets and public squares in Syria Saturday to mark 14 years since the country’s conflict began, the first without Bashar Assad in power.
From the capital Damascus, to the country’s largest city of Aleppo in the north, to Idlib from where the offensive was launched late last year to end the Assad family’s five-decade rule, men, women and children waved Syrian flags and chanted in celebration.
"15/3/2025 same date but we are now victorious," read a poster carried by a man at Damascus’ Umayyad Square, as helicopter gunships flew overhead dropping flowers on the gathering.
The helicopters were, in the past, used by forces loyal to Assad. to drop barrel bombs on areas held by his opponents.
"Today, helicopters are gifting you hope instead of pain, peace instead of fear," read a paper in Arabic, tied to a flower that was dropped over Umayyad Square.
Yaman Al Ali, who took part in the gathering, said she came to celebrate the victory of "the revolution" that she backed since 2011.
"My feeling, of course, is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly great. First, because we have overthrown Bashar Assad. Of course, we are demanding his execution, not just his overthrow," she said.
“Today, by the grace of God, we have come to express our joy in victory," said another participant, Lamyaa Al Doueish.
"This is the first year, after 14 years, that God has blessed us with victory," she added.
Syria’s conflict began as one of the popular uprisings against Arab dictators in the 2011 Arab Spring, before Assad’s crushing of what had been largely peaceful protests turned the conflict violent.
Since then half a million people have been killed and more than 5 million left the country as refugees.
In November, insurgent groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, began a ground offensive which captured the country’s four largest cities within days.
On Dec. 8, gunmen opposed to Assad marched into his seat of power in Damascus, marking the end of the family’s 54-year rule that was considered one of the worst police states in the region.
The ousted president fled to Russia.
Since Assad’s fall, the country’s new authorities, led by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, have been facing obstacles while trying to improve conditions.
The anniversary this year came days after clashes between fighters loyal to Assad and forces of the country’s new Islamist rulers, which sparked the worst violence Syria has seen since Assad’s fall.
The clashes led to a wave of revenge attacks by Sunni gunmen against members of the minority Alawite sect to which the Assad family belongs.
After Assad’s fall, the vast majority of Syrians still live in poverty and Syrian officials have been calling on Western countries to lift sanctions imposed on the country more than a decade ago.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/5d6e7b13e22946dfb16a9fa46d89bb08
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in March 20, 2025, 6:05 pm.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
