At Damascus’ worldwide airport, the brand new head of safety — one of many rebels who marched throughout Syria to the capital — arrived together with his group. The few upkeep staff who confirmed up for work huddled round Maj Hamza al-Ahmed, wanting to be taught what is going to occur subsequent.

They rapidly unloaded all of the complaints they’d been too afraid to precise through the rule of President Bashar Assad, which now, inconceivably, is over.

They informed the bearded fighter they had been denied promotions and perks in favor of pro-Assad favorites, and that bosses threatened them with jail for working too slowly. They warned of hardcore Assad supporters amongst airport workers, able to return at any time when the ability reopens.

As Al-Ahmed tried to reassure them, Osama Najm, an engineer, introduced: “That is the primary time we discuss.”

This was the primary week of Syria’s transformation after Assad’s sudden fall.

Rebels, immediately in cost, met a inhabitants bursting with feelings: pleasure at new freedoms; grief over years of repression; and hopes, expectations and worries in regards to the future. Some had been overwhelmed to the purpose of tears.

The transition has been surprisingly clean. Stories of reprisals, revenge killings and sectarian violence have been minimal. Looting and destruction have been rapidly contained, rebel fighters disciplined. On Saturday, individuals went about their lives as traditional within the capital, Damascus. Solely a single van of fighters was seen.

There are one million methods it may go fallacious.

The nation is damaged and remoted after 5 a long time of Assad household rule. Households have been torn aside by conflict, former prisoners are traumatized by the brutalities they suffered, tens of hundreds of detainees stay lacking. The economic system is wrecked, poverty is widespread, inflation and unemployment are excessive. Corruption seeps by each day life.

However on this second of flux, many are able to really feel out the best way forward.

On the airport, al-Ahmed informed the staffers: “The brand new path can have challenges, however that’s the reason we have now stated Syria is for all and all of us should cooperate.”

The rebels have up to now stated all the best issues, Najm stated. “However we is not going to be silent about something fallacious once more.”

Idlib involves Damascus

At a torched police station, photos of Assad had been torn down and recordsdata destroyed after insurgents entered town Dec. 8. All Assad-era police and safety personnel have vanished.

On Saturday, the constructing was staffed by 10 males serving within the police power of the rebels’ de facto “salvation authorities,” which for years ruled the insurgent enclave of Idlib in Syria’s northwest.

The insurgent policemen watch over the station, coping with stories of petty thefts and avenue scuffles. One girl complains that her neighbors sabotaged her energy provide. A policeman tells her to attend for courts to start out working once more.

“It should take a yr to unravel issues” he mumbled.

The rebels sought to convey order in Damascus by replicating the construction of its governance in Idlib. However there’s a downside of scale. One of many policemen estimates the variety of insurgent police at solely round 4,000; half are primarily based in Idlib and the remainder are tasked with sustaining safety in Damascus and elsewhere. Some consultants estimate the insurgents’ whole preventing power at round 20,000.

Proper now, the fighters and the general public are studying about one another.

The fighters drive massive SUVs and newer fashions of autos which might be out of attain for many residents in Damascus, the place they value 10 instances as a lot due to customized duties and bribes. The fighters carry Turkish lira, lengthy forbidden in government-held areas, somewhat than the plunging Syrian pound.

Many of the bearded fighters hail from conservative, provincial areas. Many are hardline Islamists.

The primary rebel power, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has renounced its al-Qaida previous, and its leaders are working to reassure Syria’s non secular and ethnic communities that the long run will probably be pluralist and tolerant.

However many Syrians stay suspicious. Some fighters sport ribbons with Islamist slogans on their uniforms. and never all of them belong to HTS, essentially the most organized group.

“The individuals we see on the streets, they don’t characterize us,” stated Hani Zia, a Damascus resident from the southern metropolis of Daraa, the place the 2011 anti-Assad rebellion started. He was involved by stories of assaults on minorities and revenge killings.

“We needs to be fearful,” he stated, including that he worries some insurgents really feel superior to different Syrians due to their years of preventing. “With all due respect to those that sacrificed, all of us sacrificed.”

Nonetheless, concern just isn’t prevalent in Damascus, the place many insist they are going to not let themselves be oppressed.

Some eating places have resumed overtly serving alcohol, others extra discretely to check the temper.

At a sidewalk café within the historic Outdated Metropolis’s Christian quarter, males had been ingesting beer when a fighter patrol handed by. The boys turned to one another, unsure, however the fighters did nothing. When a person waving a gun harassed a liquor retailer elsewhere within the Outdated Metropolis, the insurgent police arrested him, one policeman stated.

Salem Hajjo, a theater instructor who participated within the 2011 protests, stated he does not agree with the rebels’ Islamist views, however is impressed at their expertise in operating their very own affairs. And he expects to have a voice within the new Syria.

“We now have by no means been this relaxed,” he stated. “The concern is gone. The remaining is as much as us.”

The fighters make a concerted effort to reassure

On the night time after Assad’s fall, gunmen roamed the streets, celebrating victory with deafening gunfire. Some safety company buildings had been torched. Individuals ransacked the airport’s obligation free, smashing all of the bottles of liquor. The rebels blamed a few of this on fleeing authorities loyalists.

The general public stayed indoors, peeking out on the newcomers. Retailers shut down.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham moved to impose order, ordering a nighttime curfew for 3 days. It banned celebratory gunfire and moved fighters to guard properties.

After a day, individuals started to emerge.

For tens of hundreds, their first vacation spot was Assad’s prisons, notably Saydnaya on the capital’s outskirts, to seek for family members who disappeared years in the past. Few have discovered any traces.

It was wrenching but in addition unifying. Rebels, a few of them additionally looking, mingled with family members of the lacking at midnight halls of prisons that every one had feared for years.

Throughout celebrations on the street, gunmen invited kids to hop up on their armored autos. Insurgents posed for photographs with girls, some with their hair uncovered. Professional-revolution songs blared from automobiles. All of the sudden retailers and partitions in every single place are plastered with revolutionary flags and posters of activists killed by Assad’s state.

TV stations didn’t miss a beat, flipping from praising Assad to taking part in revolutionary songs. State media aired the flurry of declarations issued by the brand new insurgent-led transitional authorities.

The brand new administration known as on individuals to return to work and urged Syrian refugees around the globe to return to assist rebuild. It introduced plans to rehabilitate and vet the safety forces to forestall the return of “these with blood on their arms.” Fighters reassured airport staffers — a lot of them authorities loyalists — that their houses gained’t be attacked, one worker stated.

However Syria’s woes are removed from being resolved.

Whereas produce costs plunged after Assad’s fall, as a result of retailers not wanted to pay hefty customs charges and bribes, gasoline distribution was badly disrupted, jacking up transportation prices and inflicting widespread and prolonged blackouts.

Officers say they need to reopen the airport as quickly as potential and this week upkeep crews inspected a handful of planes on the tarmac. Cleaners eliminated trash, wrecked furnishings and merchandise.

One cleaner, who recognized himself solely as Murad, stated he earns the equal of $15 a month and has six kids to feed, together with one with a incapacity. He desires of getting a cell phone.

“We want a very long time to wash this up,” he stated.

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Related Press author Ghaith Alsayed contributed.