Syrian rebel fighters have destroyed the tomb of late president Hafez al-Assad, father of ousted president Bashar, in the family’s hometown.
Videos verified by the BBC showed armed men chanting as they walked around the burning mausoleum in Qardaha, in the north-west of the coastal Latakia region.
The rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS, swept across Syria in a lightning offensive that toppled the Assad dynasty’s 54-year rule. Bashar al-Assad has fled to Russia where he and his family have been given asylum.
Statues and posters of the late president Hafez and his son Bashar have been pulled down across the country to cheers from Syrians celebrating the end of their rule.
In 2011, Bashar al-Assad brutally crushed a peaceful pro-democracy uprising, sparking a devastating civil war in which more than half a million people have been killed and 12 million others forced to flee their homes.
Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria ruthlessly from 1971 until his death in 2000, when power was handed to his son.
He was born and raised in a family of Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam and a religious minority in Syria, whose main centre of population is in Latakia province near the Mediterranean coast close to the border with Turkey.
Many Alawites – who make up about 10% of the country’s population – were staunch supporters of the Assads during their long stay in power.
Some of them now fear that they may be targeted by the victorious rebels.
On Monday, a rebel delegation with members of HTS and another Sunni Muslim group, the Free Syrian Army, met Qardaha elders and received their support, according to Reuters news agency.
The rebel delegation signed a document, which Reuters reported emphasised Syria’s religious and cultural diversity.
HTS and allied rebel factions seized control of the Syrian capital Damascus on Sunday after years of civil war.
