Enes Canli
03 January 2025•Update: 05 January 2025
DAMASCUS
Once a bustling hub on the outskirts of Syria’s capital, Damascus, the al-Asali neighborhood has been reduced to rubble by the ousted Assad regime, which used heavy machinery to demolish the remaining buildings.
Only a few miles from the city center, the devastation inflicted by the Assad regime and its forces around Damascus is immediately apparent.
Since the end of the clashes in 2017, locals say displaced residents have been barred from returning to their homes.
Unlike other areas, the once-thriving al-Asali neighborhood, which was once lined with multi-story buildings, has now been reduced to a massive stretch of rubble. Among the ruins, two damaged but still-standing mosques—Huzayfa and Omar Masoud—serve as stark reminders that not all destruction was caused by the war.
In 2022, residents say regime forces from the so-called 4th Division, led by Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher al-Assad and tasked with overseeing the neighborhood, used bulldozers to demolish all remaining structures.
Many believe the regime planned to convert the area into a security and military campus.
‘Displaced or buried’
Mohammed Nazih Hanifa, a 62-year-old former resident of al-Asali, pays frequent visits to the ruins of his four-story home and nearby shop, both of which were destroyed.
The house, completed in 2011, was built with high-quality materials, he told Anadolu.
He once cultivated strawberries, figs, and olives on the surrounding land.
The Syrian man said people of various religions, languages, and sects lived together in the neighborhood, but now everyone has been "displaced or buried."
Pointing to the surrounding rubble, Hanifa emphasized that the destruction was carried out solely out of “spite and revenge.”
He recalled returning to his home in 2017, only to face threats from regime forces. A commander pointed to a crater left by a barrel bomb outside his house and said, “If you don’t leave, I’ll bury you here.”
Hanifa said regime forces looted his home before destroying it.
Drawing a parallel to the Nakba—Arabic for “catastrophe”—which refers to the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948, Hanifa said Syrians have faced similar hardships.
“We’ve experienced Nakba,” Hanifa said. “Can you imagine having the key to your house but knowing it’s in ruins?”
“We were thrown into the streets, shattered. We have no home, yet we still have our land, though we were forcibly displaced. Still, with the new administration, we can now return to our land. In the past, the land was ours, but it was seized. Now, we can come back to it.”
Hanifa and his family now live in rented accommodations, struggling to make ends meet. He said that if the landlord evicts them, they will have nowhere to go.
Despite the loss, Hanifa remains determined. Next week, he plans to start cultivating his barren land again.
New administration takes charge
Assad, Syria’s regime leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia after anti-regime groups took control of Damascus on Dec. 8, ending the Baath Party’s rule, which had been in power since 1963.
The takeover came after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham fighters captured key cities in a lightning offensive that lasted less than two weeks.
A transitional administration led by Ahmed al-Sharaa has now taken charge.
* Writing by Seda Sevencan
