On December 8, 2024, a coalition of rebel forces led by HTS and its leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani captured Damascus, forcing Bashar al-Assad to flee and bringing an end to thirteen years of civil war and more than half a century of Assad family rule.
In the following days the clashes with remaining pro-government forces continued on the city’s outskirts, while Israeli airstrikes targeted military infrastructure. Harrowing evidence of the regime’s brutality emerged: prison records, mass graves, and the opening of the notorious Sednaya prison to citizens searching for their missing relatives. Jubilant crowds poured into public squares, and the Umayyad Mosque held Friday prayers for the first time in years, marking a symbolic return to civic and religious life.
Yet sectarian tensions, sporadic fighting, and regional interventions continue to threaten the fragile new order.
The following photographs were taken over the two weeks following the fall of the regime, between Damascus and Homs, and document Sednaya prison, the destroyed district of Ghouta, Friday prayers at the Umayyad Mosque, the morgue, the Counterterrorism Court, and the Ministry of Justice.