4.2 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2024
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Rebel forces have seized control of Syria, leaving the country's President Bashar al-Assad scrambling to flee his homeland. There is jubilation on the streets of Damascus at the toppling of a despot who committed such grievous atrocities against his own people. But this is a move that will make leaders across the world nervous. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group now in control of Syria, was set up as an affiliate of al-Qaeda and is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK, the US and many other countries. And with Russia and Iran losing a vital regional ally in Assad - how determined are they to shape Syria's future?
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0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
0:08.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
0:15.8 | The sound of celebration is ringing out across Syrian cities |
0:26.7 | because suddenly, extraordinarily suddenly, a 24-year regime, that of President Assad, has come to an end. |
0:37.2 | Right now, Syrian State TV is broadcasting |
0:40.7 | just a single still image. And it reads, The Great Revolution has triumphed and the Assad |
0:46.7 | regime has fallen. History. |
0:49.7 | It is extraordinary. There is celebration, as Lewis was saying. But we've been here before in the |
0:57.1 | Middle East. We have been here before in Iraq, in Libya, and other countries where it feels like |
1:05.2 | something new is being born, but it's very uncertain what the shape of that future will be. Welcome to the |
1:15.4 | newsagents. The newsagents. It's John. It's Lewis. And it is 20 past 12, midday on Sunday in London, and it has been eye-watering the pace of change |
1:31.7 | this past 24 hours, 12 hours if you like, where the Assad regime, which seemed solid for 13 years |
1:41.2 | of civil war has collapsed in a breathtaking 10 days, with no resistance being offered, |
1:48.8 | and the only gunfire being heard on the streets of Damascus today is that of guns being fired |
1:56.0 | into the air in celebration, that the brutal, brutal regime of the Assad family, which, you know, Bashar al-Assad |
2:05.9 | was 25 years, his father before that, has ruled the country with a grip of iron for over |
2:13.9 | half a century. It is extraordinary. I mean, this is why we're doing this show, special Sunday show, |
2:19.0 | is because these events are genuinely momentous and historic. |
2:23.4 | And it does seem weird. |
2:24.9 | And I can understand, you know, if you're listening to this, |
2:27.1 | and you know a little bit about Syria and the civil war that's happened since 2011, |
2:30.6 | or if you don't know anything, |
... |
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