Damascus, Syria - December 05, 2024 Syria's capital Damascus entered its first night since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government with a mix of joy, chaos and much uncertainty. At five in the afternoon (local time) a curfew came into effect, decreed by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, Levant Liberation Organisation), which led the advance of the insurgent groups in the last week and which this weekend took over the country's capital. The measure seeks to avoid anarchy in the capital of a state that for 53 years had been ruled with an iron fist by the Assad family and that since 2011 had been immersed in a civil war that had caused the destruction of a large part of the country.