HOUSE OF HORRORS

Inside Bashar al-Assad's infamous Sednaya prison, also referred to as a "human slaughterhouse"

- ANAGHA SUBHASH NAIR

I LOOKED OUT of the window as my car slowly rolled out of Lebanon through the gates of the Masnaa border crossing. We were greeted by unmanned Syrian checkposts, and stared down at ripped off posters of a face that once instilled fear within these borders and beyond.

I live in Beirut, yet was always daunted by the idea of travelling to Syria, despite it being just a couple of hours away. The first reason was the paperwork; the second was a question to myself: should I be funding the dictatorial Bashar al-Assad's government. When I found out that foreign journalists were slowly considering travelling to Syria, I booked a seat on one of the first sets of taxis.

In less than two weeks, rebel groups in Syria had ended the country's 13-year civil war in a shock overthrow of the country's longstanding president. Headed by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of the main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), they first took over Aleppo, in the country's northwest, then advanced south, taking over key cities Hama, Homs, and then finally Damascus.

Since Russia's 2015 entry into Syria's civil war, Assad had enjoyed the country's diplomatic and military support, as well as that of Iran, and Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah. However, potentially due to the war in Ukraine and the fragile Israel-Lebanon ceasefire deal, none of these groups could-or wouldsupport the cornered Assad. Closed in on by different groups in Damascus, Assad fled to Russia, which says it granted him asylum on "humanitarian" grounds. The move marked an abrupt end to over half a century of the Assad family rule.