Lying in bed recovering after his latest surgery, Ayman Ali retells the story of Syria’s revolution through his wounds. His right eye, lost in an attack on a rebel observation post he was manning in 2012, is covered by yellow medical tape. Propped against the wall is a cane he uses to walk, after a rocket attack in 2014 left him with a limp.

For 14 years, Ali dreamed of freedom and of justice. A year after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad, he has his freedom but not his justice. The man he was dreaming of holding accountable – a member of his extended family who was a part of an Assad militia – had already fled the country by the time Ali returned to his home in Damascus.

People carry Mazen Hamada to be buried after his body was found in 2024 in the Sednaya prison in Damascus after the fall of the Assad regime. Photograph: David Lombeida

A year ago on Monday, the 53-year-long rule of the Assad family was ended after a stunning 11-day rebel offensive that took Syria and the world by surprise.

The toppling of Assad ended a ruinous 14-year-long civil war that had left 620,000 people dead and banished the fearsome security apparatus that gave the country its moniker as the “kingdom of silence”.

Assad and his family were granted asylum in Moscow in December 2024 and recent reports suggest they are living in quiet exile under Russian protection.

Syrians have flocked to the capital in their tens of thousands before the anniversary, but lurking behind the celebrations are painful questions about the country’s future.

“We know who committed massacres against us – they’re still present in our homes. But to file a complaint you need evidence, and who has that?” says Ali, who now works in digital media.

A member of the Syrian security forces stands guard as people shop at a popular market in central Homs before Eid al-Adha in June. Photograph: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images

Lack of evidence did not spare Riham Hamouyeh. Late last October, attackers vaulted the garden wall of her home in Homs, central Syria, and hurled a grenade inside, killing her in front of her two young children. The 32-year-old Alawite schoolteacher had faced frequent harassment since her husband, a former mechanic in Assad’s army, was arrested two months earlier.

“None of us are comfortable, we’re all exhausted. My wife has collapsed, she won’t open the door any more,” said Hamouyeh’s father-in-law, Mohammed Issa Hameidoosh, 63, as he swept broken glass from her home, chunks of the floor still missing where the grenade fell.

Hamouyeh’s death was one in a series of targeted killings of former regime officers and members of the Alawite sect, to which Assad belonged. The killings now occur on a near-daily basis in the multi-sectarian city of Homs, despite a general amnesty issued by the new authorities for former regime figures not accused of having blood on their hands.

Rubble in the Karm al-Zaytun neighbourhood in HomsThe Karm al-Zaytun neighbourhood in Homs, central Syria, was the scene of several massacres during Syria’s civil war. The neighbourhood’s original inhabitants were largely displaced by the fighting and returned to find their homes in ruins

A year after the fall of Assad, Syria’s new rulers have successfully reintegrated the country into the global community, far exceeding expectations of even the country’s most enthusiastic advocates.

But inside Syria, tensions continue to simmer. With a transitional justice process moving too slowly for its victims, old grievances are surfacing in new cycles of violence, threatening fragile efforts to rebuild the state.

The deftness of Syria’s new president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s diplomatic charm offensive has been stunning, especially coming from a former jihadi leader: forging a relationship with Donald Trump, easing US sanctions on Syria and becoming a fixture at international conferences.

Donald Trump received Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House on 10 November. Photograph: Balkis Press/ABACA/Shutterstock

Scenes of Sharaa meeting Trump and Syria’s return to the global stage have filled many Syrians with pride. “Even if I don’t like him, it feels good to see Syria in the White House,” one Alawite activist said while watching footage of Trump spraying Sharaa with perfume in the Oval Office in November.

For the global community, a pro-western strongman in Damascus is a breath of fresh air. After 14 years of civil war that flooded the Middle East and Europe with drugs, created the world’s largest displacement crisis since the second world war and allowed Islamic State to establish a caliphate, the world has been eager to unite behind the new Syrian president.

Sharaa gained power in part by capitalising on a weakened Iranian axis after Israel’s assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon prevented Tehran from saving its Syrian client, Assad. Sharaa has since managed to keep Iranian elements from re-establishing themselves in Syria, much to the delight of western capitals.

But at home, stalled transitional justice is fuelling renewed violence and deepening the country’s divides.

People in the city of Qamishli gather for a protest against a wave of sectarian violence targeting Syria’s Alawite minority, in March 2025. Photograph: Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images

Four days of massacres perpetrated by government forces and other armed factions against mostly Alawite civilians on Syria’s coast in March and continued killings have left the religious minority feeling besieged.

Another massacre in July in which members of government security forces and tribal elements killed Druze civilians in the southern province of Sweida further put the country’s religious and ethnic minorities on edge.

Since the massacres, Sweida has been virtually sealed off from the rest of the country. The province’s people have hardened their positions against Damascus and rallied around the hardline Druze leader Hikmat al-Hijri, who demands autonomy.

One Druze resident of Sweida, 33-year-old Bahaa, was initially suspicious but open to the country’s new leadership. But after the July massacres, the former government employee now carries a gun and refuses to leave Sweida.

Black smoke billows near Sweida, where military units were deployed after sectarian clashes, in July 2025. Photograph: Getty Images

The Syrian government has launched a council for civil peace and a body to oversee transitional justice in the country. The tasks ahead of them are momentous: untangling ownership of appropriated property and establishing justice for crimes committed during the civil war while maintaining social cohesion.

In mid-November, Syrian authorities carried out a public trial of Assad loyalists and members of the new security forces accused of violence during the March coastal massacres. Hooded and shackled figures were trotted out in front of cameras as justice officials boasted of the first trial of security officials in modern Syria’s history.

People follow the proceedings of the first trial of more than a dozen suspects linked to massacres that left hundreds dead in Syria’s Alawite coastal heartland. Photograph: Bakr Alkasem/AFP/Getty Images

“The court is sovereign and independent,” said the presiding judge, Zakaria Baccour, though its decision was postponed for a second session in December.

Authorities have also carried out small, local initiatives aimed at giving victims a measure of peace of mind. Hassan al-Abdallah, 56, a resident of the Karm al-Zaytun neighbourhood in Homs, recounted how 14 of his neighbours were slaughtered by Assad loyalists in 2012.

Hassan al-Abdallah and his family warm themselves by a fireHassan al-Abdallah and his family warm themselves by the fire in the ruins of the Karm al-Zaytun neighbourhood in Homs. The area was picked clean by Assad-linked militias during the civil war.

In July, security forces arrested one of the men responsible for the massacre, Hassan Dawa, and brought him back to the site of the crime. There they had him re-enact the killings and confess why he had committed the crime while Abdallah and others watched.

“We felt like we wanted to kill him but the security didn’t let us. I felt much better after that, I felt some relief,” Abdallah said.

Former personnel from the Assad regime or militias get temporary IDs in a reconciliation centre where a portrait of Bashar al-Assad is used as a doormat. Photograph: David Lombeida/The Guardian

He sat with 11 members of his extended family in front of a barrel fire – they were crammed into a single room while they worked to repair their homes. The entire neighbourhood had been levelled by Assad militias who stripped buildings of copper, pipes and masonry to sell for scrap.

“The shabi**ha [pro-Assad militia men], the ones that did this, were from that neighbourhood over there,” Abdallah said, pointing to an intact housing block 100 metres away. “The shabiha are still there, but there are good people living there too.”

Activists say the government has failed to outline a national strategy for transitional justice. The bodies dedicated to pursuing accountability remain underfunded. If the slow pace of transitional justice is maintained, the activists warn, the brief window to deliver justice will close.

“After all these months, the state is strengthening, external relations are improving, things are calming,” said Alaa Ibrahim, a civilian activist in Homs who works on social cohesion. “But now we’re a year into the liberation, if assassinations keep happening every day, where will that leave us?”

Soldiers conduct checks during a temporary curfew in Homs after a double killing last month. Photograph: Abobaker Alsaka/Anadolu/Getty Images

The question of justice is now inseparable, many Syrians say, from a broader debate over the shape of the new, post-Assad Syrian state.

Syria’s new social contract is still being written and the actions of Syria’s new authorities are beginning to define the values that will govern the relationship between a population and a state that for the last half-century has ruled through fear.

There is no question that Syrians are enjoying a newfound freedom that would have been impossible to imagine a year earlier. “A year ago, people wouldn’t dare complain about the price of a kilo of onions. Now they are calling for ministers to resign,” Ayman Ali quipped.

But civil society activists warn there is little mention of democracy in the new Syria, a key demand of revolutionaries over the last 14 years. Syria’s new constitution vests vast powers in the presidency while an “election” for the country’s parliament was held without a popular vote. Instead, committees appointed candidates for two-thirds of the legislative body and the president appointed the remaining third.

Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, centre, prepares to sign a temporary constitution in Damascus, March 2025. Photograph: Omar Albam/AP

Activists complain of the new political affairs bureau, an opaque institution that has taken over the old Ba’ath party buildings throughout the country and appears to function as a new political security apparatus.

One lawyer who runs social cohesion workshops said officials sat in on meetings and asked to approve their curriculum before a permit was given for their organisation to operate.

Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian writer who is close to Syria’s president, said: “There are some institutions which give you an indication that they are trying to build a more authoritarian system.

“They don’t allow political parties to operate. No one can organise any political meetings without taking permission from the bureau [of political affairs].”

Syrians celebrate the first anniversary of the ousting of the Assad regime in Damascus in the early hours of Saturday. Photograph: Ghaith Alsayed/AP

Back in Damascus, Ali lies back in his recovery bed, taking stock of the new Syria that he fought to build. The fact that Syria is stable a year after the cessation of 14 years of civil war feels like “a miracle”, he says, even if he has not got the justice he once dreamed of.

But the shadow of Assad’s crimes still looms large over Ali and over Syria, as the lure of revenge threatens the country’s suddenly bright future.

“If every person took justice into their own hands, the country would collapse,” he said, his remaining eye fixed steadily ahead. “We’ve spent 14 years exhausted, displaced. Either we throw that away or we build a state.”