Syria Marks 1 Year Since Fall of Assad

Syria marked the first anniversary of the toppling of former President Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8, following decades of Ba’athist rule and years of civil war.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa told worshipers following dawn prayers at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus that his government would continue to work on post-war reconstruction, including the restoration of state institutions across the country, according to Syrian state-owned news agency SANA. Sharaa said Syrians would face future challenges together and called for national unity.

The Syrian leader and his government ministers attended a military parade on the Mezzeh Highway in Damascus to mark the anniversary, according to the news agency. SANA also reported that Syrians had gathered at Umayyad Square in the center of the capital to celebrate.

In 2024, Syrian insurgents led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), headed by Sharaa, seized Damascus and declared the end of more than 50 years of the Assad regime and Ba’athist rule in Syria. The ousting followed 13 years of civil war that was triggered by the 2011 Arab Spring and a series of pro-democracy protests and uprisings. Assad fled to Moscow.

Then-U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed the fall of the regime.

“This regime brutalized, tortured, and killed literally hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians,” Biden said. “A fall of the regime is a fundamental act of justice.”

The former U.S. president pledged to support Syria with humanitarian aid. In the following months, the United States and other global leaders lifted sanctions, pledged investment, and discussed reconstruction efforts for the country.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham

HTS began as Al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaeda, the Islamist terrorist group founded by Osama bin Laden. The group was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 2018 but was removed from the list this year.

In December 2024, the United States dropped a $10 million counter-terror bounty against Sharaa, who was previously known as Abu Muhammad al-Golani and Muhammad al-Julani. The decision coincided with a U.S. diplomatic visit to Syria on Dec. 20, 2024.

A now-deleted bounty notice against Sharaa notes his role in founding Al-Nusra Front and leading the group through its reorganization into HTS. The bounty notice further stated that the group had taken part in kidnappings and killings in Syria over the years, including the 2015 slayings of 20 Druze villagers in Idlib Governorate.

Since assuming the presidency, Sharaa has visited—and received the endorsement of—several regional states, including Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.

In May, he was recognized by U.S. President Donald Trump when the two leaders met in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

As president, Sharaa has repeatedly pledged to protect Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities and promote democratic and inclusive governance.

Trump–Sharaa Meeting

On Nov. 10, Trump welcomed Sharaa to the White House, days after the United States and the U.N. lifted terrorism-related sanctions on the Syrian leader.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Nov. 4 that the meeting between the president and Sharaa is part of Trump’s efforts to meet “anyone around the world in the pursuit of peace.”

Days before the meeting, Trump said Syria had made “a lot of progress.”

“I think he’s doing a very good job. It’s a tough neighborhood, and he’s a tough guy, but I got along with him very well,” he said.

Following the meeting, Syria agreed to join the U.S.-led coalition to defeat the ISIS terrorist group.

Syrian Information Minister Hamza al-Mustafa said on Nov. 10 that Syria has signed “a political cooperation declaration” with the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS—a coalition signed by 89 other partners to combat ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and globally—confirming its commitment to efforts to combat terrorism and support regional stability.

“The agreement is political and until now contains no military components,” Mustafa said in a post on X.

A senior U.S. administration official also confirmed to The Epoch Times that Syria would join the international coalition.

In an interview with Fox News that aired on Nov. 10, al-Sharaa said Syria has entered “a new era” in its relations with the United States after the fall of the Assad regime, emphasizing Damascus’s intention to establish itself as a geopolitical partner.

“The goal is for Syria to no longer be seen as a security threat but as a geopolitical ally and a country where the U.S. can invest significantly, especially in gas extraction,” he said, according to a translation from SANA.

Emel Akan, Evgenia Filimianova, Aldgra Fredly, and Adam Morrow contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in one instance. The Epoch Times regrets the error.