Meet the soldiers hunting down senior Assad regime leaders who terrorised Syria
By the standards of other cities I have been in or visited shortly after a revolution, Damascus seems on the face of it relatively calm.
More often than not, I’d expect masked gunmen to be deployed on every corner, patrolling the streets in groups, or whizzing around on battered trucks, with heavy machine guns at the ready and rocket-propelled grenades strapped to roofs or on the backs of fighters.
But that isn’t the case in Damascus.
There are checkpoints in and out of the city but generally speaking, the militia groups that supported Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), which led the takeover of Syria, are keeping a low profile.
Indeed, many have now become part of the newly formed General Security force, and they’re all dressed in matching black uniforms and fatigues.
I’m often asked what Damascus is like now that Bashar al Assad’s regime is gone.
Destroyed Damascus suburbs
First, I have to admit that apart from a couple of brief visits to Damascus before 2011, once the uprising began, I was either in the west or north of the country with the demonstrators and later the rebel forces – far from the capital.
I was also among a small group of journalists on a wanted list by the regime, so travel to government-controlled areas was a non-starter.
The new Syrian flag in Damascus
So for me, my visits to Damascus are part discovery, and part depressing confirmation of what I had expected to see, especially the vast suburban areas reduced to rubble by Assad’s security forces with the aid of the Russian military.
My impression is of a city looking to the future but still suffering from its recent bloody history.
Its people are trying to move on, but many remain in the midst of the ruins, and rebuilding remains a distant hope.
Listen: Inside the fall of Assad
‘Syrians have every right to see justice served’
From the Umayyad Square in Damascus, we jumped onto the back of a pick-up truck full of General Security soldiers and sped away through busy traffic and towards a road leading to a hilltop that overlooks the city.
We passed the sprawling presidential palace, built by the Assads, but now under the management of the self-proclaimed “Salvation Government”.
Abdulrahman Dabbagh, head of security in Damascus
We were meeting the man in charge of security here in the capital, Abdulrahman Dabbagh, a youthful cousin of the country’s new president Ahmed al Sharaa.
He told me that to move forward, Syria must also hunt down the senior leaders of the Syrian regime who terrorised the entire population.
“Syrians have every right to see justice served for those who caused them harm during the reign of this now-defunct regime,” Mr Dabbagh said.
“By nature, every human finds comfort in witnessing accountability, justice, and the rightful reclaiming of what was taken.”
I asked him if it is difficult tracking down those responsible.
“There are assessments, research, and round-the-clock work being done to locate these criminals,” he explained.
“It’s not always about taking direct action against every person we identify, though, we wait for official orders to arrest certain figures.”
‘The torture was endless’
Barely a family in this country was untouched by the regime and its relentless programme of detentions and torture in jails.
Bariya, 63, was detained for 100 days. Her crime? She was accused of cooking food for demonstrators and spying on regime checkpoints in the city of Homs.
Stuart Ramsay with 63-year-old Bariya who was detained for 100 days
Inside her prison, she says torture was the norm, and the memories of the cries of the men still haunt her.
“It would begin as soon as the sun went down. The torture was endless. My husband was not spared – I recognised his cries. They tormented him,” she told me.
Inside an empty prison in Damascus
“One of the inmates called out to him, shouting that his family was here, the warders heard her, came straight for him, they dragged him away and beat him in the corridor.”
“They tortured him relentlessly, with no regard for his age – he was born in 1955,” she sobbed.
A legacy of pain and death
Bariya is still so afraid of the Assad regime, she won’t show her face or allow us to use her last name.
She was arrested at the height of the anti-Assad protests, along with multiple members of her family. Seven of them died in detention: her husband, one of her sons, two of her brothers, her nephew, a cousin, and the son of her brother-in-law.
To this day she has no idea what happened.
The legacy of the Assad tyranny is pain and death, and this ancient country’s recent history is still raw for so many.
Consigning it to the history books is going to take some time.
World
Trump criticises Putin after potentially ‘historic’ meeting with Zelenskyy before Pope’s funeral
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Follow live updates: 200,000 mourn at Vatican
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish armed forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening.
“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is testing the readiness of our air defence systems,” they said in a post on X.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
Leaning forward hands together in their laps, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy stare at each other in one photo.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.
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