From World Radio, this is Double Take. I'm Les Silvers.

On December 8th, 2024, the Islamist rebel group Hayyat Tahir al-Sham, known as HTS, overthrew the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Syrians celebrated in the streets.

The Assad family had ruled Syria through force and fear for more than 50 years.

This AP video clip shows Syrian rebels walking in and out of the Assad presidential palace carrying

appliances.

They stepped past a poster lying on the ground of Bashar al-Assad.

Before Assad's downfall, Syria was one of the most chaotic countries in the world. The Assad regime's

power was based in western Syria. But in northeast Syria, Arabs, Turks, Kurds, Russians, Americans,

and Iranians carried on a simmering conflict amidst the remnants of ISIS.

Since Assad has fallen, it will very likely remain one of the most chaotic countries in the world.

The leader of the coalition group that spearheaded the rebellion seemed in control initially.

He's former al-Qaeda and ISIS, Abu Mohammed al-Jalani. He has told Western media that he

is left behind the Islamic extremism of his younger days. But in late December, Assad loyalists

struck back at HTS, killing 14 fighters in an ambush, and the religious and ethnic lines

that divided the country during Assad's regime still exist.

Now that they lack a common enemy, analysts worried that a power vacuum in Syria will heighten tension in the Middle East

and leave Christians and other religious minorities in Syria's danger.

Experts believe the big losers, after the Assad family, were Iran and Russia. Both had

supported Assad and both lost some influence in the region. But in eastern and northern Syria,

things aren't really that much different. It's still chaotic and dangerous. World correspondent,

Caleb Weldy, is here to tell us what it's like in that part of

...