There were two scenes from Syria last night screened by the BBC and Channel 4 News that should give the Panglossian optimists hailing the birth of a ‘new Syria’ a pause for thought.
In one, filmed at the Assad family mausoleum in Qardaha, near the port of Latakia, armed members of the Islamist HTS who now control most of the country were joyfully burning the coffins of Hafez al-Assad, the ruthless dictator who ruled Syria from 1970 until his death in 2000, and that of his elder son and heir apparent Bassil, whose death in a car crash in 1994 opened the way for the second Assad son Bashar’s rise to power.
Assurances that HTS has turned over a new leaf should be taken with a healthy pinch of salt
In the second scene, filmed in Damascus, the BBC’s veteran Middle East correspondent, Jeremy Bowen, seemed to smile as he rushed along the street with a baying mob to witness the lynching of a notorious Assad regime henchman and killer.
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