More than half a century of brutal rule by the Assad clan came to a sudden end on Sunday, after a lightning rebel offensive led by Abu Mohammed al-Jolani’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) swept across the country and took the capital.

Ousted president Bashar al-Assad fled Syria, closing an era in which suspected dissidents were jailed or killed, and capping nearly 14 years of war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

“I would like to congratulate the great Syrian people on the victory of the blessed revolution and I call on them to go to the streets to express their joy,” Jolani said on Telegram.

Jolani, who is now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, is set to attend Friday prayers at Damascus’s landmark Umayyad Mosque.

During the early days of Syria’s uprising in 2011, protesters would often gather after noon prayers on Fridays, the Muslim day of prayer and rest.

Assad’s overthrow has allowed Syrians to flood to prisons, hospitals and morgues in search of long-disappeared loved ones, hoping for a miracle, or at least closure.

“I turned the world upside down looking,” Abu Mohammed told AFP as he searched for news of three missing relatives at the Mazzeh airbase in Damascus.

“But I didn’t find anything at all. We just want a hint of where they were, one percent.”

Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and designated a terrorist organisation by many Western governments, who now face the challenge of how to approach the country’s new transitional leadership.

The group has sought to moderate its rhetoric, and the interim government insists the rights of all Syrians will be protected.

The spokesman for the newly installed government, Obaida Arnaout, told AFP that the country’s constitution and parliament would be suspended during a three-month transition.

“A judicial and human rights committee will be established to examine the constitution and then introduce amendments,” he said, pledging that the “rule of law” would be instituted.

– Desperate searches –

Leaders of the Group of Seven countries, who will meet virtually at 1430 GMT on Friday, said they were ready to support the transition to an “inclusive and non-sectarian” government in Syria.

They called for the protection of human rights, including those of women and minorities, while emphasising “the importance of holding the Assad regime accountable for its crimes”.

Inside much of Syria, the focus for now is on unravelling the secrets of Assad’s rule, and particularly the network of detention centres and suspected torture sites scattered across areas previously under government control.

Syria’s leadership said it is willing to cooperate with Washington in the search for US citizens who disappeared under Assad’s rule, including US journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted in 2012.

Another American, Travis Timmerman, has already been located alive and Blinken said Washington was working to bring him home.

The search for other missing detainees has ended more painfully, with hundreds of Syrians gathering Thursday to bury outspoken activist Mazen al-Hamada.

In exile in the Netherlands, he publicly testified on the torture he was subjected to in Syrian prison.

He later returned to Syria and was detained. His body was among more than 30 found in a Damascus hospital morgue this week.

– Israel ready to stay in buffer zone –

Assad was propped up by Russia — where a senior Russian official told US media he has fled — as well as Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.

The rebels launched their offensive on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took effect in the Israel-Hezbollah war, which saw Israel inflict staggering losses on Assad’s Lebanese ally.

Both Israel and Turkey, which backs some of the rebels who ousted Assad, have since carried out strikes inside Syria.

Speaking on Thursday in Jordan, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed the importance of “not sparking any additional conflicts” after mentioning both Israeli and Turkish military activity in Syria.

Washington hopes to ensure that Syria is not “used as a base for terrorism” and does not pose “a threat to its neighbours”, added Blinken, whose country has hundreds of troops in Syria as part of a coalition against Islamic State group jihadists.

In Ankara on Friday, Blinken told Turkey it was “imperative” to work against a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria.

Hours after Assad’s ouster, Israel sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone that us supposed to separate Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, in a move the UN said violated a 1974 armistice.

In the face of widespread international criticism over the move, Israel says it seized the buffer zone to defend itself.

Israeli troops have been ordered to “prepare to remain” in the buffer zone throughout the winter, Defence Minister Israel Katz’s office said on Friday.

The Israeli military has also carried hundreds of air and naval strikes against Syrian military assets, targeting everything from chemical weapons stores to air defences to prevent them from falling into rebel hands.

The fall of Assad has prompted some of the millions of Syrians who fled abroad to return home.

On Friday morning, around 60 people were waiting at Turkey’s Oncupinar border crossing, anxious to reach Syria.

In the southern city of Sweida, the heartland of Syria’s Druze minority where anti-government demonstrations have been held for more than a year, hundreds took to the streets on Friday, singing and clapping in jubiliation.

“Our joy is indescribable,” said Haitham Hudeifa, 54. “Every province is celebrating this great victory.”

bur-dl/kir

© Agence France-Presse