Mohammad Marwan has been struggling to rebuild his life after being released from Syria's Saydnaya prison a year ago. Arrested in 2018 for fleeing military service, he endured beatings, electric shocks, and severe hunger. Since his release, he has received treatment for tuberculosis and attended therapy sessions to overcome the effects of his ordeal. His story reflects Syria's broader struggle to heal after the fall of the Assad regime. The country faces ongoing challenges, including sectarian violence, economic instability and tensions with Kurdish-led forces. On Monday, thousands of Syrians took to the streets to celebrate the anniversary of the regime's fall.

Syria's new security forces checked IDs and searched cars in the central city of Homs a day after protests by members of the Alawite minority erupted in gunfire and stirred fears that the country's fragile peace could break down. A tense calm prevailed Thursday after checkpoints were set up throughout the country's third-largest city, which has a mixed population of Sunni and Shia Muslims, Alawites and Christians. The security forces are controlled by the former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led the charge that unseated former President Bashar Assad.

Thousands of Syrians have celebrated in Umayyad Square, the largest in Damascus, after the first Muslim Friday prayers following the ouster of President Bashar Assad. The leader of the insurgency that toppled Assad, Ahmad al-Sharaa, appeared in a video message in which he congratulated "the great Syrian people for the victory of the blessed revolution." Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in the Turkish capital of Ankara that there was "broad agreement" between Turkey and the United States on what they would like to see in Syria. The top U.S. diplomat also called for an "inclusive and non-sectarian" interim government.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has raised the number of fatalities in Turkey from the magnitude 7.8 earthquake to 43,556. The combined death toll in Turkey and Syria now stands at 47,244. In northwestern Syria, the local civil defense known locally as The White Helmets, said that thousands of children and tens of thousands of families have taken shelter in cars and tents "fearing they would face a repeat of the earthquake." In government-held Syria, a first plane from Bahrain loaded with aid landed in Damascus.