The sea change toward tenuous hope in Syria over the last two weeks has been tempered

with a grim accounting of the last 14 years of war, not to mention the more than half

a century of authoritarian rule under the Assad family.

We have two teams there now.

We'll have more reporting from around the country in the coming days.

Tonight, I'm joined by special correspondent

Leila Mulana Allen from Damascus. Leila, Western journalists have largely been banned from

entering regime-held Syria for years now, but you did manage to get in undercover last year.

What has changed now? And what has the mood been like in Damascus over these last couple of days?

Amna, it's like night and day. I can't tell you what it's like to walk the streets here

and have people freely running up to you saying, take my picture. Let me tell you what I think.

Previously working here, for those of us who've been reporting on Syria, was always about fear,

secrecy, constantly looking over your shoulder for the Mujavarat, the secret police,

terrified about keeping your contact safe, those people who were brave enough to speak out,

and of course, most people didn't. That mood is so different now, people so keen to share their views.

And of course, what's so clear is that

so many people who said they supported the Assad regime very clearly didn't, the number of people

out on the streets now, telling the stories of the horrific experiences they've endured, not just

during Bashar al-Assad's regime, but his father as well. And there's so much joy about that. Coming into Damascus,

the streets were full of people holding their children in the air, celebrating with HTS fighters,

beeping their horns, holding the revolutionary free Syria flag, saying Syria is for everyone.

This country is free. Now, we're already seeing a lot of moves towards trying to reintegrate

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