Dramatic and Historical scenes emerging from Syria This week is a reminder of the horrors the country has gone through in the past several decades. We've been there for some important moments in recent history:
June 2000
The funeral of Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad. His “departure” was more luxurious and quiet than his son’s retreat last week. He ruled Syria for 30 years with an iron fist. Stabilizing a politically turbulent country, but in a brutal way. He crushed the Islamist rebels and those caught in the crossfire in the city of Hama (which the rebels today crossed on their way to liberation), killing up to 40,000 people there.
Greg Balcott talks about Hafez al-Assad's funeral. (Fox News)
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad flees into exile as Islamist rebels invade nation
The state funeral (including the presence of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright) that we witnessed was so well conducted that one mourner immediately told us: “Everyone loved him.” “His legacy will live on…for better or for worse,” I noted in the camera close-up of my story. This week, it was for the worse. His shrine and grave were destroyed and burned by rebels in his hometown.
June 2012
Only eleven years later came the uprising. Another extension of the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 that spread across the Middle East. Bashar al-Assad Within range. His regime has shifted from using the police to suppress peaceful protesters to using the army to bomb rebel strongholds. Imprisonment and torture of the so-called enemy.
We went there in 2012, and it was one of the only Western media teams there at the time. We saw the ruined city of Homs, another town that the current rebels had succeeded in penetrating with little resistance. My words to the camera as we watched the Syrian military airstrikes and artillery shelling against the heart of that city were: “You are looking at a country at war with itself.”
Greg Balcott reports from Homs, Syria. (Fox News)
We walked the devastated streets where American journalist for The Times of London, Marie Colvin, was murdered earlier that year. We dodged our air strikes near a medical clinic. He was “shaken” at a government militia checkpoint. Photographer Pierre Zakrzewski's camera was briefly taken away. We witnessed deadly violence across the region, with one explosion targeting a government television station. . . Another was at a busy intersection in the heart of Damascus.
September 2013
Greg Balcott in an exclusive interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2013. (Fox News)
We asked questions about this uproar to Bashar al-Assad himself in an exclusive interview we conducted with Fox News with former officials Congressman Dennis Kucinich The following year. We spoke in the huge palace now overrun by rebels and curious civilians (although we were told off the record that he was staying most of the time in an apartment in Damascus).
Experts say that the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria represents a strategic blow to Iran and Russia
We were amazed by the gentle behavior of the man who leads this bloodthirsty regime. He openly admitted to us that he had chemical weapons, but claimed that he did not use them. (The regime had been responsible for a chemical weapons attack the previous month, which left more than a thousand dead.)
He also claimed that the popular protest, which turned into a civil war, was now run by “80-90% of Al-Qaeda.” We questioned this number and wondered whether the growing revolution was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The harder the government blows, the more the bad guys will be attracted. We asked Assad whether he shared the disappointment of many that he could have delivered a better turnaround for Syria after his father's death. “I'm still a reformer,” he said angrily. While rebel gunfire was heard behind the thick palace walls.
October 2014
Greg Balcott reports on the Syrian-Turkish border in 2014. (Fox News)
One year later, we were on the Syrian-Turkish border when the revolution got out of control. We have watched the relatively new, but very dangerous, terrorist group ISIS overcome local Kurdish militias on the ground and US airstrikes hit targets in the important city of Kobani. Huge smoke rising from bomb explosions minute after minute. The final victory for the Kurds and the United States marked a turning point Fighting against ISIS. By then, the war had become a global conflict with ISIS — and yes, Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups had rallied in Syria to seize as much of the country as possible. The Assad regime was saved (for a while) only by Russia, Iran, and their Hezbollah militia, which did most of the fighting. When the three allies were weakened and/or distracted by their own wars, the rebels swooped in, liberated the country and toppled the Assad regime.
December 2024
Syrians gather in Umayyad Square to celebrate the collapse of 61 years of Baath Party rule in Damascus, Syria, on December 9, 2024. (Murat Singul/Anadolu via Getty Images)
This week we reached out to an important contact of ours in Syria during those times. He wrote some memorable words in an email: “It's an extraordinary moment… so far so good.” The Syrian people rejoice in the end of dictatorship. They are returning to their homes that they were forced to leave because of the fighting. They search frantically, sometimes happily, or desperately, in the prisons where their compatriots have been imprisoned and tortured. Half a million people have been killed in the past 13 years. Millions of wounded and displaced. The economy is a disaster.
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But my friend also kept writing: “I'm a little wary of what might come…and to fill the void.” The Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham group, which led this uprising, had previous ties with Al-Qaeda and is still listed on the US terrorist list. Its leader, Ahmed al-Sharar, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Julani, was an established jihadist who has only changed in recent years. He and the group, so far, have been speaking well. However, there remain many factions, religious sects and splinter groups who will all have to work together if we are to achieve a new, free Syria. Tall order. For the proud country people we've come to know over the years, it's totally worth a try.
