One year after Assad's fall, Syria sits on a knife edge

After decades of brutal rule the country is free, but sectarian conflict, reconstruction costs and sanctions make the future unclear

- 

For more than half a century, the Assad family held such a vampire grip on Syria that it felt as if Bashar al-Assad's survival was inevitable.

Thirteen years of civil war, the regime's slaughter of its people, the mesmerising eruption of armed factions born from it and the quagmire of international interference all felt so relentless, so hopeless, so bloody, that it appeared unending.

This was despite the extraordinary signs of the Assad regime's impending collapse: in early December 2024, rebels led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda militant turned opposition leader, were advancing across major cities. There were reports of army units evaporating, and there was deafening silence from Assad's international allies such as Russia.

Even with all this, what happened one year ago today still felt unthinkable.

A confusing alliance of rebel groups stormed the capital. Political prisoners were filmed pouring out of the Saydnaya “slaughterhouse” prison.

Assad himself fled to Moscow before even his speechwriter - reportedly left behind to draft a defiant address he never delivered - knew of it.

A paper empire crumpled and the world inhaled.

One year on, however, and it feels as though we are all still holding our breath.

After the bloody aftermaths of the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, and Omar al-Bashir in Sudan, the signs were worrying.

Transitions after so much violence, after dictators spend decades concentrating absolute power in structures entirely reliant on them, can trigger bloodier and more authoritarian aftermaths.

Absolute breakdown in Syria, a divided nation long exploited by foreign powers and by international and domestic armed factions prowling their fiefdoms, was a very real prospect.