Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest in this interview recorded on the 20th of January has every reason to feel that

2025 will be a year of momentous challenge and opportunity.

Muaz Mustafa is a Syrian-American who left Damascus for a new life in the United States as a child, but who has

dedicated much of his adult life to the campaign for freedom in his native land. When pro-democracy

street protests erupted in Syria in 2011, to be greeted with violent repression by the Assad regime,

Mustafa founded the Syrian emergency task force.

He lobbied lawmakers in Washington and pleaded with successive administrations to confront the regime's

ruthless use of torture, mass murder and deployment of banned chemical weapons.

Until just a couple of months ago,

Assad appeared able to outlast his opponents with Russian and Iranian backing. But then everything

changed. Rebel forces swooped down from their northern strongholds. The regime's forces

crumbled and Assad fled to Moscow.

Mustafa rushed to Syria in part in search of his own uncle who'd been missing for a decade,

in part to help Syrians begin the overwhelming task of seeking accountability and justice

for some of the worst crimes against humanity seen since World War II.

Syria's new rulers, once regarded as jihadist extremists, have pledged to safeguard the rights of all Syrians.

But the internal and external challenges are enormous.

Is there any reason to believe a free,

unified Syria can emerge from the traumatized shell of a country left by the Assades? Well,

Mojaston, joins me now from New York. Welcome to Hard Talk. Now, you've had roughly six

weeks to take in what has happened to your native land.

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