As Syria emerges from decades of dictatorship, Syrians in the Assad family's ancestral home of Latakia province are both overjoyed and anxious.

Assad and his family are Alaoy, an offshoot of Shia Islam, and the people of his former region fear the new Sunni-controlled government will target them, both for their religious affiliation,

as well as the region's historic support for the regime.

Leila Malana Allen reports now from Kardaha, the Assad's hometown in Latakia, and now a crumbling

vestige of the regime.

Empty shoes and fallen pedestals, as Syria reels and rebuilds from the rapid fall of the family who ruled this country with an iron fist for half a century.

In Latakia, the homeland of the Assad's Alawi sect, the enormous statue of former president, Hafez al-Assad that sternly watched over this central junction for decades, has been cut off at the ankles.

Children shriek in delight at the heady, unfamiliar feeling of freedom on the streets, while their cautious elders wait nervously for what comes next.

As Bashar al-Assad's tightly controlled empire unravels,

we're visiting the very heart of it, Kerdaha, the Assad's family village.

Thrown open, the heavy iron gates of the family home.

Like their properties across the country, there are signs it was hastily abandoned.

But the house isn't empty. This is the once palatial garden of the house where Bashar al-Assad was born, and now people

have realised he's not coming back, but they're making use of what the house has to give in terms of firewood.

A bitter winter is already underway. In every room, locals have come to strip away whatever can be burned.

The window frames, shutters, kitchen cupboards, ripped to pieces and piled into a waiting taxi.

A young boy watches as his father and uncle hack branches off the leafy trees in the ruins of the garden.

This place has the air of martial law about it. Neighbours watch on curiously from the street

as the now useless web of security cameras sits idle. Down the road, the once illustrious tomb of

Bashar's father is now a symbol of the rebel advance.

As they took Latakia, cheering rebel fighters set the tomb ablaze, graffiting the names of their

brigades across the walls, and by the entrance a message, damning Hafez al-Assad, el Mazeeravel

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