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With al-Assad Gone, Syrians in Homs Assess the Destruction

The ancient city, an early stronghold of opposition to Bashar al-Assad’s oppressive regime, was ravaged by a government crackdown. New York Times correspondents in Homs spoke to people who were reacting to his fall with smiles and tears.

The rubble of a cemetery inside the destroyed neighborhood of Baba Amr, an area of Homs that was heavily bombarded and besieged by the Assad regime’s military for years.

With al-Assad Gone, Syrians in Homs Assess the Destruction

The ancient city, an early stronghold of opposition to Bashar al-Assad’s oppressive regime, was ravaged by a government crackdown. New York Times correspondents in Homs spoke to people who were reacting to his fall with smiles and tears.

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By Carlotta Gall

Photographs and Video by David Guttenfelder

Reporters for The New York Times spent several days in Homs, Syria, after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad.

Members of the family ducked under an empty doorway and stepped over the rubble from their home.

“It’s shocking, really shocking,” said Abdulrahman Alama, 37, as he stared at the damaged building. A refugee in Lebanon for 13 years since the start of Syria’s civil war, he had returned to Homs and was visiting the family home with his sister and another relative just a week after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. Any joy was tempered by the sight.

“I don’t want to send a photo to my father because it is too shocking,” he said.

Days after the lightning-fast rebel offensive that ousted Mr. al-Assad, Syrians are going back home by the thousands, among them refugees, the internally displaced and detainees emerging from prisons. And residents are shaking off the terror of living under dictatorship.

In Homs, people were reacting with both smiles and tears, thanking God and frequently cursing their former president.

ImageA man in a dark winter jacket stands with his head down in front of dried brush and a pile of rubble near damaged buildings.
Abdulrahman Alama outside his destroyed home in the Baba Amr neighborhood after returning to Syria from exile in Lebanon.
Image
Rebel fighters checking an overturned tank left after soldiers from the Assad fought advancing rebels from the north on the outskirts of Homs.

Much of Syria was devastated by Mr. al-Assad’s brutal fight to suppress a popular uprising and hold on to power. Homs, an ancient city in central Syria where protesters were the first to take up weapons in 2011 against his oppression, became a center of resistance.

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