The dramatic and historic scenes popping out of Syria this week are a reminder of the horrors that nation has been by means of within the final a number of many years. We had been there for some key moments in latest historical past:
June 2000
The funeral of Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad. His “departure” was far more stately and calm than his son’s retreat this previous week. For some 30 years, he had dominated Syria with an iron grip. Stabilizing a politically raucous nation however in a brutal means. Stamping out Islamist rebels and people caught within the crossfire within the city of Hama (which as we speak’s rebels breezed by means of on their liberating path), killing as many as 40,000 folks there.  Â
Greg Palkot reporting on the funeral of Hafez al-Assad. (Fox Information)
SYRIAN DICTATOR BASHAR ASSAD FLEES INTO EXILE AS ISLAMIST REBELS CONQUER COUNTRYÂ
The state funeral (together with in attendance then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright) we watched was properly stage-managed proper down to 1 mourner telling us, on cue, “All of the folks liked him.” I famous within the on-camera near my story, “His legacy will dwell on . . . for higher or for worse.” This week, it was for worse. His mausoleum and grave had been destroyed and burned by rebels in his hometown.
June 2012
Simply eleven years later got here the rebellion. Another outbranching of the Arab Spring revolts in 2011 that had sprung up throughout the Mideast. Bashar Al-Assad within the crosshairs. His regime had gone from utilizing police to place down peaceable protesters to utilizing the army to bomb insurgent hold-outs. Locking up and torturing the so-called enemy.
We went there in 2012, one of many solely Western media groups there on the time. We noticed the battered city of Homs, one other city the present rebels made it by means of with little resistance. My on-camera line as we watched Syrian army air strikes and artillery blasts in opposition to the guts of that metropolis: “You’re a rustic at conflict with itself.” Â
Greg Palkot reporting from Homs, Syria. (Fox Information)
We walked the battered streets the place American journalist for the London Occasions Marie Colvin had been killed earlier that 12 months. We dodged our personal air strikes close to a medical clinic. Was “shaken down” at a authorities militia checkpoint. Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski’s digicam was briefly taken away. And we noticed lethal violence throughout the area, one blast focusing on a state TV station . . . one other at a busy intersection within the coronary heart of Damascus.
September 2013
Greg Palkot in an unique interview with then President of Syria Bashar al-Assad in 2013. (Fox Information)
Questions on this tumult which we put to Bashar al-Assad himself in an unique interview we performed for Fox Information together with former Congressman Dennis Kucinich the next 12 months. We spoke on the enormous palace that has now been overrun by rebels and curious civilians (though we had been advised off-the document he stayed more often than not in an residence in Damascus).  Â
FALL OF SYRIA’S BASHAR ASSAD IS STRATEGIC BLOW TO IRAN AND RUSSIA, EXPERTS SAYÂ
We had been amazed on the mild-mannered demeanor of the person main this bloodthirsty regime. He admitted to us publicly that he had chemical weapons however nonetheless claimed he hadn’t used them. (The regime was answerable for a chemical weapon assault the month earlier than, which left over a thousand lifeless.)
He additionally claimed that the general public grassroots protest, which had changed into a civil conflict, was now run “80-90% by Al-Qaeda.” We disputed that determine and requested if the rising revolt was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The tougher the federal government hit, the extra unhealthy guys had been attracted. And we requested Assad whether or not he shared the frustration of many who he would possibly’ve made a greater flip for Syria after his father’s passing. “I’m nonetheless a reformer,” he dead-panned. Because the rumble of insurgent gunfire was heard past the palace’s thick partitions.
October 2014
Greg Palkot reporting on the Syria-Turkey border in 2014. (Fox Information)
One 12 months later, we had been on the Syria-Turkey border when the revolt actually did get out of hand. We watched because the comparatively new, however very harmful, ISIS terror group duked it out with native Kurdish militia on the bottom and U.S. air strikes hitting targets within the important city of Kobani. Massive towering smoke from bomb blasts minute after minute. The eventual victory by the Kurds and the U.S. known as a turning level within the battle in opposition to ISIS. By that point, the conflict had develop into a globalized battle with ISIS – and sure, Al-Qaeda and different jihadi teams piled into Syria to seize as a lot of the nation as they might get. The Assad regime was solely saved (for some time) by Russia, Iran and its proxy militia Hezbollah doing a lot of the combating. When the three allies had been weakened and/or distracted by their very own wars, the rebels pounced, liberated the nation and toppled the Assad regime.
December 2024
Syrians collect at Umayyad Sq. to rejoice the collapse of 61 years of Ba’ath Celebration rule in Damascus, Syria, on December 9, 2024. (Murat Sengul/Anadolu by way of Getty Photographs)
This week we bought in contact with one among our vital contacts in Syria throughout these occasions. He wrote, in an e-mail, some fairly salient phrases: “It’s a unprecedented second . . . up to now so good.” The folks of Syria are exulting over the top of a dictatorship. They’re returning to properties they’d been compelled out of by combating. They search feverishly, generally with pleasure, or with desperation, in prisons the place their fellow residents had been incarcerated and tortured. A half million folks have been killed within the final 13 years. Thousands and thousands are injured and displaced. The economic system is a catastrophe.
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However my good friend additionally went on to put in writing, “I’m a bit cautious about what might come . . . and fill the vacuum.” The HTS group which led this rebellion had former ties with Al-Qaeda and remains to be on the U.S. terror listing. Its chief, Ahmad al-Sharar, additionally identified by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, was a dyed-in-the-wool jihadist and has solely in recent times remodeled. He and the group, up to now, have been speaking a superb line. Nonetheless, there are a lot of factions, spiritual sects, and splinter teams who will all must work collectively if a brand new free Syria is to be realized. A tall order. For the proud folks of the nation who we’ve come to know through the years, it’s completely price a strive.
