Celebrations in Umayyad Square, Damascus, Syria, December 31, 2024 (Anwar Amro/AFP)

UPDATES: Syria Leader al-Sharaa: Constitution in 3 Years, Elections in 4

UPDATE 1112 GMT:

Iran’s Supreme Leader has implicitly called on young people in Syria to rebel against the new Government.

In a ceremony in Tehran on Wednesday, Khamenei framed Syria’s liberation as a US and Israeli operation and commanded:

Do not be deceived by this false show; those who are strutting around today will one day be trampled under the feet of the faithful. Those who have encroached on the land of the Syrian people will one day be forced to retreat in the face of the power of Syria’s youth.

UPDATE 1033 GMT:

Writing for Syria Direct, Natacha Danon profiles the protest movement in largely-Druze Suwayda Province in southern Syria, celebrating the fall of the Assad regime but cautiously watching the new Government.

For years, residents of Suwayda challenged local regime officials, protesting repression and seeking political and economic space.

See also Renewed Protests v. Assad Regime in Suwayda in Southern Syria

Al-Nawbani, the first woman on the executive organizing committee, says that with the fall of Assad, “we breathed in the oxygen of victory — the oxygen of Suwayda we breathed was different”.

Post-liberation, the movement has set up a political committee, a media committee, and a legal committee “to protect state institutions, such as schools, banks, and hospitals”, says Samer Salloum, another member of the executive committee.

Discussions are underway for the formation of local councils to govern the province. On Tuesday, Mohsina al-Mahaythawi was appointed as provincial governor, the first woman in Syria’s history to hold such a post.

On December 29, the transitional government in Damascus sent the Justice Minister to Suwayda to discuss the future of the province.

The leader of the Syrian Druze community, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, has called for a “decentralized system” while “preventing the country’s division.”

Leaders of the protest movement also reject secession. Al-Nawbani says:

The future of Suwayda is Syria’s future, they are not separate nor do we accept secession. Most people in Suwayda speak this way….Sunnis are our brothers and Alawites are our brothers.

Salloum adds, “Suwayda’s future is to be part of mother Syria. We believe in the unity of the Syrian land and people.”

He is wary of the Islamist faction Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the leading group in the government: “Our fears from HTS are the imposition of authority and lack of participation in government, or in the ministerial formation.”

HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who heads Syria’s General Command, met community officials, including the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, to assure respect and protection.

Civil society activist Hisham al-Jawhari summarizes, “All the messages are reassuring, but we are in a state of caution. We can’t take them at their word in the initial phases.”

UPDATE 0915 GMT:

Israel has taken responsibility for a commando raid against an Iranian missile manufacturing site inside Syria on September 8.

The Israeli Air Force confirmed that its Shaldag unit raided the Scientific Studies and Research Center in Masyaf in Hama Province. The special forces demolished an underground facility used by Iranian forces to manufacture precision missiles for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The Israel Defense Forces monitored the Center, which researched and developed conventional and chemical weapons for the Assad regime, for more than five years. It recurrently carried out airstrikes on the facility, but had been unable to target the underground infrastructure established by the Iranians.

In the September raid, IAF commandos rappelled from helicopters to killing the few guards at the entrance to the site, before going underground to the missile manufacturing facility. The troops laid explosives inside the underground facility, removed intelligence materials and documents, and escaped after just over an hour.

The site and its equipment were blown up.

Israeli warplanes masked the operation by striking targets in the surrounding area, including roads to the facility, reportedly killing at least 14 people and wounding 43.

Israeli officials said they informed the US before the operation, and met no resistance from the White House.

UPDATE 0825 GMT:

Syrian activist Jamal al-Omar returns home after 13 years:

And Razan Saffour of the Kawaakibi Foundation posts:

UPDATE, JAN 2:

Syria’s senior ministers, in their first foreign visit after liberation from the Assad regime, are in Saudi Arabia.

Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani posted on social media:

I have just arrived in the sisterly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, accompanied by the Minister of Defence Murhaf Abu Qasra and the Head of the General Intelligence Service Anas Khattab.

Through this first visit in the history of Free Syria, we aspire to open a new, bright page in Syrian-Saudi relations that befits the long shared history between the two countries.

The delegation was greeted by Saudi Arabia’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Waleed bin Abdulkarim El Khereiji, at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.

In an interview on Sunday with Saudi outlet Al Arabiya, the leader of Syria’s General Command, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said Saudi Arabia “will certainly have a large role in Syria’s future” with “a big investment opportunity for all neighboring countries”.

Al-Shaibani followed on Wednesday with a lengthy interview with Al Jazeera English. He spoke about Syria’s reconstruction and the need to lift international sanctions that had been imposed on the Assad regime, and he said Syria’s liberation had defused tensions in the region.

UPDATE 1549 GMT:

An image of the meeting of Ahmed al-Sharaa, head of Syria’s General Command, with Christian leaders on Tuesday:

UPDATE 1529 GMT:

Saudi Arabia has delivered 28 tons of medical, relief and shelter aid to Damascus International Airport.

ORIGINAL ENTRY, JAN 1: Syrians have celebrated the New Year, free of the Assad regime and its deadly oppression for the first time since 1971.

In Umayyad Square in Damascus, crowds flew the flags of the new Syria amid fireworks and celebratory gunshots from Mount Qasioun.

“Long live Syria, Assad has fallen,” children shouted.

Layane el Hijazi, 22, an agricultural engineering student, said:

We did not expect such a miracle to happen, today the Syrians have found their smile again.

We were able to obtain our rights, we can now talk. I am letting off steam these last three weeks and tonight by bringing out everything I had buried.

“The Joy Is Double Now”

Soldiers provided security for the festivities, as the revolutionary song “Lift your head, you are a free Syrian”, by Assala Nasri, played.

Imane Zeidane, 46, a cartoonist, came to Umayyad Square with her husband and their daughter.

Whatever happens, it will be better than before. I am starting the new year with serenity and optimism….

The joy is double now — you come down to celebrate the new year with your heart, and celebrate the hope it carries.

Taxi driver Qassem al-Qassem, 34, explained, “Every year, we aged suddenly by 10 year. But with the fall of regime, all our fears have dissipated. Now I have a lot of hope, but all we want now is peace.”

Havan Mohammad, a Kurdish student from the northeast studying pharmacy in Damascus, added, “I hope that Syria in 2025 will be non-denominational, pluralist, for everyone, without exception.”