Dawn slowly breaks over Damascus, filtering through old buildings and balconies adorned with garlands of blackened wires. The city awakens to the whine of generators and the aroma of freshly baked bread from ovens that have been running at half capacity for some time. One year after the fall of Bashar al-AssadThe country lives trapped in a kind of limbo. There is neither war nor peace. Neither total ruin nor recovery. There is only a suspended territory where certainties dissolve as soon as they are uttered.

For months, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's daily life in Moscow has been a mystery. The dictator fled his country on December 8, 2024, as the rebels entered Damascus and put an end to more than fifty years of the Assad family dynasty in power. Within hours, it was learned that Vladimir Putin had granted him political asylum, but since then no one has seen him or heard anything. Until now, an investigation by the German newspaperThe Timehas shed some light on the new life of this autocrat accused of crimes against his people.

Fear can still be felt on the Syrian coast, which is mostly inhabited by members of the Alawite minority. A brutal attack took place here. outbreak of sectarian violence last March. Although the incidents began with coordinated attacks by an opposition militia against loyalist forces in Damascus, most of the victims were civilians killed in the ensuing revenge. They all professed the Alawite faith, which split from Shiism ten centuries ago and to which theformer dictator Bashar al Assad. So, the Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, created a commission of inquiry into the massacres, which presented its findings at the end of July amid great expectation.