Paragliders and roaring chants in Damascus mark one year since Assad regime's collapse

Thousands of people flooded the streets of Damascus early on Monday to celebrate the first anniversary of the fall of the former Assad regime.

Umayyad Square was packed with families, children and young people waving the new Syrian flag and repeating revolutionary chants amid a heavy security presence. Over the cheering crowd, as speakers blasted the famed “rise your head, you’re the free Syria” song, a dozen paragliders paraded in the skies, their parachutes adorned with Syrian flags.

Across the country, hundreds of thousands are expected to take part in the commemorations. In the capital, the morning began with a military parade from Mazzeh to Umayyad Square in Damascus, featuring helicopters and heavy armour.

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“I’m here today because we are Syrians. My life has completely changed since last year, it’s like life and death,” engineer Faysal Younes, 47, told The National. “It would have been impossible at the time of Al Assad, impossible to see such joy on people’s faces. We all wanted to leave Syria because Assad made it impossible to build a life here. But now we want to stay and start anew.”

“It's like we're breathing freedom now”, said Hanan Al Wawi, from the battered town of Muadamiyat al-Sham, on the outskirts of Damascus. “We're here to remember that oppression has ended,” she added.

A cheering crowd stretched for several kilometres along the road, lining the route as Syrian forces paraded past them. On the ground, soldiers marched on foot, rode on horses, motorbikes, and drove brand-new tanks and vehicles mounted with rocket launchers.

The parade concluded in Umayyad Square, where helicopters swept low over thousands of spectators waving Syrian flags and cheering them on.

Alaa Al Qaderi, a former detainee of Assad's prisons, said the military parade showcased the victory of a years-long struggle. “We finally won," he said.

The toppling of the Assad regime a year ago caused a major geopolitical transformation. Syrians who went to sleep on December 7, 2024, woke up in a different country. Seemingly overnight, five decades of Assad family rule collapsed.

“A year ago, we would never have done this interview. I had a friend who disappeared after taking a picture with foreign journalists,” Mr Younes added.

For Mr Al Qaderi, the fall of the regime also means that a brighter future is now possible. “I have two sons; they would have been forced to enlist in the army under the previous regime, but now their future is theirs,” he said.

Last year, rebel factions swept into Damascus as former president Bashar Al Assad fled the country. Within hours, an interim authority announced itself as the new government. At its helm was Ahmad Al Shara, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al Jawlani, leader of the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham rebel group that led the decisive offensive.

Wearing military fatigues, Mr Al Shara on Monday marked the first anniversary of what he called Syria’s liberation by attending dawn prayers at the Umayyad Mosque, pledging to rebuild a “strong and just” nation. “Safeguarding this victory and building upon it is today the greatest responsibility placed on all Syrians,” he told worshippers.

Biggest tests

Syria sits somewhere between possibility and paralysis. The country is seeking reconstruction and potential economic recovery, buoyed by growing international engagement.

Yet it remains deeply fractured. Israel now occupies an additional 600 square kilometres of Syrian territory beyond the 1974 disengagement line, the Druze-majority province of Sweida continues to resist the government’s authority and negotiations remain stalled between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the north-east.

Despite those challenges, the mood across Syria, and especially Damascus, has been euphoric for days. The city has been overwhelmed by crowds chanting, honking car horns and setting off fireworks. Anniversary banners hang from billboards across the capital.

“We’re celebrating the most important day of our lives. After 50 years of oppression and violence, we’re finally free,” said Assia, 26, a mechanic. “It was an awful regime and I would never have imagined that one day we’d be able to celebrate its end.”

Since taking power, the government has grappled with economic, political and social challenges. But mistrust among minority communities remains one of Mr Al Shara’s biggest tests. “Under the slogan of freedom, they want to force the celebration of swapping an oppressive regime with an even more oppressive regime,” Ghazal Ghazal, head of the Islamic Alawite Council in Syria and Abroad, said in a video message posted on Facebook on Saturday.

In his anniversary speech, Mr Al Shara recalled his first foreign trip after the takeover. It was a visit to Saudi Arabia, where he performed Umrah and received a fragment of the Kaaba’s covering as a gift from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with Mr Al Shara saying the cloth piece was installed in the Umayyad Mosque.

He vowed that reconstruction would extend “from north to south and east to west”, and said his government aimed to build institutions that ensure justice and protect vulnerable groups. He closed by calling for “unity and stability” as Syria enters its second year after the former regime’s downfall, state media reported.