On the road to Damascus

Assad's fall and the rise of Islamists in Syria is a momentous event for West Asia

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The Arab Spring found its moment in Syria a decade and a half after it had bloomed (and died) on Sunday when the Baathist regime fell and President Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus with his family to Moscow, where they were granted asylum. And whether it is really a spring is to be tested—the rebels who control Damascus now are aligned to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist outfit of radicals. They have been fighting the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war that ravaged the West Asian country from 2011 onwards.