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00:00Just yesterday, the United States announced states revoking the foreign terrorist organization designation of Hayat Tahril al-Sham.
00:08The group, known as HTS, was once linked to al-Qaeda and toppled Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad late last year.
00:15In May, the U.S. president announced the lifting of sanctions on the country.
00:19Donald Trump even met with Syria's new leader, Ahmed al-Shara, the former head of HTS.
00:24To discuss the situation in Syria today, we can bring in France 24's Wasim Nasser, who was recently in the country.
00:30Wasim, great to see you.
00:31Let's start off with Aleppo.
00:33This is a multicultural city, heavily destroyed during the war.
00:37What's it like now?
00:38Well, actually, when you go, you take the road, since I went from Turkey towards Aleppo, you notice the road which was closed until lately.
00:49So here's the map of the areas that I visited.
00:51But first, let's see the videos that I shot from the border till the town of Aleppo.
00:58And you see, for example, that many villages that were deserted by their inhabitants are seeing their own people coming back.
01:07And this is, for example, one of the towns on the road to Aleppo and to the neighborhood of Rashidin.
01:14And you see this destruction, but you also see that people are trying to reconstruct, you see, reconstruction in the middle of a rubble in this area.
01:23And I went, I crossed through two villages, through Shia villages, Nubbal and Zahra, and I noticed that there is a huge security disposal for them, like protecting them.
01:34And what's particular about Aleppo, as you said, many communities in Aleppo, is that the new authorities are succeeding in protecting the minorities better than dealing with the problems amongst the majority, the Sunni majorities.
01:47Those are the silos of Aleppo. Why? Because some people of the Sunni majority were with the regime till the Battle of Aleppo.
01:55And when the Battle of Aleppo occurred, there was a crew, a group called Lewa al-Baqir, a Sunni group, meaning, but loyal to the regime,
02:02that took in the HHS commandos in his own area and also turned the tide against the regime.
02:11And today, those people are thinking that they are not being rewarded as they should.
02:16So the friction inside the Sunni community between those who were with the regime or engaged the regime is much more important in the area of Aleppo than with other minorities.
02:26And also, you have the exception of the two neighborhoods that are still held by the YPG, meaning the Kurdish factions,
02:31because I saw that even if there's, like, common checkpoints on the entrances of those neighborhoods, inside the neighborhood is still the YPG, which makes the rules.
02:40Now, Manbij, the city, is east of Aleppo. It was under Kurdish control until the regime fell. What is happening there?
02:49Well, actually, I got access to Manbij. The security situation is very, very critical.
02:54And here we see on the road to Manbij, this is the town of Tadef.
02:58Also, inhabitants are coming back to Tadef, which is notable because it was deserted when it was under Kurdish control.
03:04And all the way to Manbij, and we're going to see on other footage, there are fortifications made by the YPG, meaning tunnels here on both sides of the roads.
03:14And also, like, military fortifications, we're going to see after this, in order to shoot at anyone who takes this road.
03:22So this road was closed. And here is what I'm talking about.
03:25And when the regime fell, actually, rebel factions entered the city. The city was looted.
03:31But there was a security vacuum during four months, you know.
03:35And those are also tunnels that I filmed, but tunnels big enough to where you can get a car inside of it.
03:42So those are tunnels made by the YPG in order to protect, to defend, actually, their position in this town,
03:48knowing that this town, the Manbij town, was a stronghold of the Islamic State and then a stronghold of the YPG.
03:54So this is to be taken into consideration.
03:56And when you see that, when you see the level of destruction and of fortification, sorry, in this town,
04:05you understand what could be pending in other areas.
04:07So here is, in the middle of a neighborhood, in the town, you see tunnels that are dug by the YPG,
04:13which are filled today by inhabitants with anything just to fill the tunnel.
04:18And I also got to visit, this is the military hospital of Manbij, which was the headquarters of the Islamic State,
04:24then the headquarters of the YPG.
04:26And you will see that the tunnel is inside of the hospital.
04:29We're going to see it in a while.
04:32So here it is.
04:34The guy is, like, showing the tunnel, which is, like, closed.
04:37And then we're going to see another tunnel, which is behind the door, actually.
04:41And I got first access to this site.
04:46Nobody got access to this site before, not any journalists.
04:49And here we go inside the hospital.
04:51And here, as you can see, behind the door, another tunnel.
04:55So the area was really fortified.
04:57And actually, those who dug those tunnels were the Arab inhabitants.
05:00So when the tide changed, they showed the rebels where the tunnels were.
05:04And the YPG fighters, the Kurdish fighters, were stuck inside of them.
05:08And Manbij has a big problem, which can be seen also in its private university.
05:13I have footage of the private university, also headquarters of the Islamic State,
05:17then of the YPG, totally destroyed.
05:20But I knew that the owner of this university is trying also to reconstruct.
05:26And here, as you can see, he started to take off the rubble in this spot.
05:33Now, you also traveled to the capital, Damascus, but you went through Homs.
05:37I went through Homs.
05:38It's also a mix of communities.
05:42There, Homs has a big problem.
05:44We know for sure, for example, that almost 60 Alawite women were kidnapped in the last months.
05:50We know that there are assassinations on daily basis.
05:54And I got to understand that whenever there is like a huge social media campaigns,
06:02meaning we found this guy, he used to work for the regime, etc., etc., they were killed later.
06:06So the new authorities are trying, for example, there was a commemoration of the Hula massacre in 2012 done by the Assad militias.
06:14So they went and they captured, they caught everybody who was involved.
06:18It's a way also to judge them, but also a way to prevent avenging and killing, random killings of those people.
06:26I also, this is Homs, you see, as you can see, it is also very much destroyed.
06:30And I went to Damascus, when I arrived to Damascus, it was the day where the church of Marlias was attacked by a suicide bomber.
06:38And we're going to see the footage.
06:40Here's the church from inside, like burned.
06:43And in a while you see the hole in the ground.
06:45You'll understand how big was the, actually, the explosion and the explosive that was worn by the suicide bomber.
06:54So here's the hole in the ground, and we know that there were many casualties.
07:00And actually, there was a big misunderstanding around this happening, and it went exactly the way the Islamic State would have wanted it to go,
07:09meaning when some representatives of the government came to talk to the priest and they told him anything will be compensated.
07:16It's an Arab way to say, no worry, things will go better.
07:19So the priest responded, you as Muslims make 20 kids, we make two kids.
07:24And it was really seen as sectarian by the Muslim majority, saying we liberated the country, and this is how you are thanking us.
07:32And it was really a moment of tension on all levels, because nobody knew exactly how to tackle the situation.
07:41Interesting.
07:42Now, next, let's talk about Palmyra, because this is, of course, a city which was taken by ISIS twice.
07:51It's famous for those Roman ruins, we remember.
07:53It was transformed into a military facility for both the Russians and the Iranians as well.
07:58Exactly.
07:59Exactly.
07:59And we're going to see how we went into, actually, Palmyra.
08:02We go through the Badia, the desert area.
08:06The Islamic State is still present on both sides.
08:09Because this footage is to show you that the burned cars, the burned trucks on both sides, tires on both sides, and the road, which is really in a bad, bad, bad situation.
08:20And actually, this is the, we'll go next to the Dumar military airport.
08:25And then I got footage from the Badia.
08:27We stopped for a while.
08:28You can see a burned tank.
08:29I don't know if it was burned when fighting was occurring with the Islamic State or during the latest fightings.
08:37This is what I'm talking about, 45 degrees in this desert.
08:40I also filmed the train, the rails of the train, because it's a very rich area, actually.
08:45There's mines of phosphate in this area.
08:47And it's an economic hub of resources for the Syrian state.
08:52So it's a dangerous area, but also it's an area full with resources.
08:57And then the desert, in the middle of the desert, you see the palmyra of Palmyra.
09:02You know, the trees, the palm trees, here they are.
09:05And it is like something like a mirage coming out of the desert.
09:09And then you see the archaeological town of Palmyra.
09:12We got footage also of it.
09:13And eventually I saw, actually, a bus with United Nations employees checking the site.
09:19It's a beautiful site.
09:20It's a beautiful site.
09:22And it's well-preserved regarding it was bombed by the Russians and the Baal Shmai Temple was destroyed by ISIS.
09:30But still, the site is very much well-preserved.
09:33But the problem is with the town of Tadmur.
09:36The name of Palmyra is Tadmur in Arabic.
09:39And here is the town, which, as you said, was transformed into military barracks.
09:42And for the people of this area, Palmyra and Tadmur is also the prison of Tadmur.
09:48Because there's a notorious prison there, like the prison of Said Naya.
09:51And we think that maybe the regime did it on purpose.
09:54Like on archaeological and religious sites like Said Naya, Christian religious sites,
09:59there was prisons, notorious prisons.
10:01Meaning he was making people who visited those areas like accomplices of what was happening on those sites.
10:10Now, finally, Deir Ezzor was ravaged during the war.
10:15And you were one of the first foreign journalists to gain access to it.
10:19Yes, exactly.
10:20I got to have access to Deir Ezzor, the town of Deir Ezzor.
10:23What is stunning on the way is the number of trucks, the number of Iraqi trucks on their way to Damascus and to other areas in Syria.
10:31This is Iraqi help, actually.
10:32Iraq is helping the new government to settle.
10:36And what I saw also is like a cemetery of tanks.
10:40Maybe we'll see the footage.
10:41And it shows you how hard were the battles, actually, in this area.
10:47And anyways, let's go into Deir Ezzor and we'll see the destruction inside the town of Deir Ezzor.
10:53We are talking about the town destroyed more than 90%.
10:56Inhabitants today are 154,000.
11:0011,000 came back.
11:02And here you see, among the rubble, people are trying to fix their apartments, as you can see.
11:08And in a way, to have an apartment is very costly today in Deir Ezzor.
11:15Because a small part of the town still can be inhabited.
11:18The government is getting electricity back.
11:21And I saw mosques which are on the ground.
11:24We have footage of mosques on the ground.
11:26That we can see.
11:28This is one of the biggest mosques in Deir Ezzor.
11:31And at the same time, churches are also on the ground.
11:34So you have a mix between destroyed churches and destroyed mosques in this town.
11:39Knowing that the governor appointed by Damascus, his wife is Armenian, meaning Christian.
11:44And her family is Christian.
11:46And I want to show you the bridges, which are all destroyed in Deir Ezzor.
11:52The area had seven bridges.
11:54One of the bridges is known as the French Bridge, which was constructed by France in the 1920s.
12:01Maybe we'll get to see the bridges.
12:02And here is the bridge of rubble, which is the only functioning bridge between the areas held today by the government and the areas held by the YPG.
12:12And we are going to see how people cross the river on barks, like trucks.
12:17Here you go.
12:18They cross.
12:19This is the only way to make heavy crossings between the two sides of the river.
12:24And I got to know, for example, that people who are handling this are also not happy with bridges being repaired.
12:32Because it's resources, it's income for them.
12:35Yeah.
12:35And I got to spend some time also on the river to get to see footage because people are still trying to live.
12:41And here cafes are open.
12:44You can see people and you'll see music and how life is coming back to the Euphrates.
12:49As you remember, this area witnessed huge fightings between the Islamic states, Shia militias coming all the way from Pakistan, the Syrian army, the bombing of the coalition, the bombing of the Russians.
13:01But still, people are trying to come back.
13:04And rebuild.
13:05And people are trying to rebuild despite all the poverty and despite all the security problems, at least to get to their resort.
13:12At least to get to their resort.
13:13And this is the final image that you would like to show you.
13:19A floating cafe.
13:27Thank you, Wasim, for ending on that glimmer of hope there.
13:31I mean, as you took us through all the spots you visited, a lot of destruction, a lot of devastation, a lot of poverty.
13:37But there's hope.
13:39There's hope.
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