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Hello and welcome to NewsAv from the BBC World Service.

We're coming to you live from London.

I'm James Menendez.

And we're going to begin today in Syria, because it is a year since what seemed like an immovable force in the Middle East,

the iron grip of the Assad dynasty, suddenly buckled in the face of a lightning advance by rebels.

Rebels that have been trying to dislodge the regime for well over a decade without success.

A civil war that costs the lives of hundreds of thousands of people

force millions into exile and left much of Syria in ruins. Then on December the 8th,

2024, the rebel spearheaded by an offshoot of al-Qaeda, Hayat Tarir al-Sham,

surged into the capital Damascus, seizing government buildings and state television to make this

declaration.

By the grace of God, the city of Damascus has been liberated and the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has been

deposed. All the oppressed detainees have been released from the regime's

jails. The liberation of Damascus Operation Room urges the Mujahideen and the citizens to protect

all the assets of the free Syrian state. Long-lived Syria, free and proud.

Bashar al-Assad, whose family first seized power more than half a century earlier,

had already fled the country into exile in Russia, a key ally of the regime.

And with his departure, the tools of state power and repression,

including the country's feared intelligence service, melted away.

This is what one woman in Damascus, Rania Kataf, told NewsHour that same day.

We all feel like we've been underwater, literally, for 13 years, and we just took a breath.

...