Thousands of Syrians have gathered in the capital Damascus to celebrate one year since the fall of Bashar al-Assad. A military parade will mark the end of a dynasty that brought decades of oppression and war to the Syrian people.
As the chapter closes on Yasser Abu Shabab, 32, the “Popular Forces” militia leader who appeared in Rafah during the war and was widely viewed as a collaborator with Israel, Ghassan al-Duhaini has been named his successor.
Soon after Abu Shabab was killed last Thursday, reportedly during a family dispute mediation, al-Duhaini, who was said to be injured in the same altercation, appeared in a video online dressed in military fatigues and walking among masked fighters under his command.
But who is Ghassan al-Duhaini? Has he just appeared, or was he there all along? Here’s what we know:
Palestinian media sources say al-Duhaini, 39, has long been the group’s de facto leader, despite being officially the second-in-command.
They argue that his experience and age made him the operational head, while Abu Shabab, the figure publicly recruited by Israel, served as the face of the militia.
Al-Duhaini was born on October 3, 1987, in Rafah, southern Gaza. He belongs to the Tarabin Bedouin tribe, one of the largest Palestinian tribes that extends regionally and to which Abu Shabab belonged.
He was a former officer in the Palestinian Authority security forces, where he held the rank of first lieutenant.
Then he later joined Jaysh al-Islam, a Gaza-based armed faction with ideological ties to ISIL (ISIS).
The militia announced al-Duhaini as its new commander on its official Facebook page on Friday.
Al-Duhaini pledged to continue the group’s operations against Hamas.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, comments later reported by The Times of Israel on Saturday, al-Duhaini insisted he had no fear of Hamas.
“Why would I fear Hamas when I am fighting Hamas? I fight them, arrest their people, seize their equipment … in the name of the people and the free,” he said.
On Friday, the militia published a promotional video on an affiliated Facebook page showing al-Duhaini inspecting a formation of armed fighters.
He told Channel 12 that the footage was intended to demonstrate that the group “remains operational” despite the death of its leader.
“His absence is painful, but it will not stop the war on terrorism,” he declared.
Hamas lists al-Duhaini among its most wanted figures, accusing him of collaborating with Israel, looting aid, and gathering intelligence on tunnel routes and military sites.
Little information is available on why he left the security forces.
Al-Duhaini has been increasingly active on social media, recently appearing prominently in a video showing the militia capturing and interrogating several Hamas members from a tunnel in Rafah.
Abu Shabab’s group claimed the detentions were conducted “in accordance with the applicable security directive and in coordination with the international coalition”.
He also appeared in a social media post beside what appeared to be several bodies, the caption saying they were Hamas men who had been “eliminated” as part of the group’s “counterterrorism” operations.
Hamas has attempted to assassinate al-Duhaini twice, killing his brother in one operation and narrowly missing al-Duhaini in another, when a booby-trapped house east of Rafah was detonated.
A Hamas source said al-Duhaini survived the blast “by sheer luck”, while four members of the attacking unit were killed and others wounded.
The Popular Forces militia first came to prominence in 2024 under the leadership of Abu Shabab. It has an estimated 100 to 300 fighters who operate only metres from Israeli military sites, moving with their weapons under direct Israeli oversight.
The militia is primarily based in eastern Rafah, near the Karem Abu Salem crossing, the only entry point through which Israel currently permits humanitarian aid into Gaza.
A second unit is in western Rafah, near the notorious US-Israeli GHF aid distribution point, where hundreds of Palestinians have been shot as they sought aid.
Security sources told Al Jazeera Arabic that the Israeli army oversaw the arming of Abu Shabab and that he leads “criminal gangs specialising in intercepting aid convoys coming from the [Karem Abu Salem] crossing in southern Gaza and firing on civilians”.
Israeli newspaper Maariv reported in June that Israel’s intelligence agency, Shin Bet, was behind the recruitment of Abu Shabab’s gang, its chief Ronen Bar advising Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to enlist and arm the group.
The so-called “pilot project” involved supplying the militia a limited and monitored number of rifles and handguns, the paper said.
Shin Bet’s idea, Maariv continued, was to use the gang to test whether it could impose a form of “alternative governance” to Hamas in a small, contained area of Rafah.
Still, some Israeli security officials, it added, do not view the group as a credible replacement for Hamas.
Abu Shabab’s name later appeared in an internal United Nations memo in late 2024 that identified him as a central figure behind the systematic and large-scale looting of humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
Japan has summoned China’s ambassador over an incident in which Chinese military aircraft allegedly twice locked fire-control radar onto Japanese fighter jets, as tensions between the two countries surge.
The move by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday was to protest against what it called the dangerous and “extremely regrettable” behaviour of the Chinese J-15 fighter jets over international waters southeast of Okinawa’s main island the previous day.
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It said China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier fighter jets aimed radar beams at Japanese aircraft scrambled to shadow the vessel – claims denied by the Chinese embassy.
Illuminating aircraft with radar signals a potential attack that could force targeted planes to take evasive measures, making it among the most threatening actions a military aircraft can take.
The summoning of Ambassador Wu Jianghao came amid deeply strained relations between Beijing and Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said last month that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan – suggesting that Tokyo would intervene militarily.
The comments by Takaichi, who entered office in October, have enraged Beijing and led to a furious diplomatic dispute.
Beijing has summoned the Japanese ambassador, written to the United Nations, urged citizens to avoid travelling to Japan and renewed a ban on Japanese seafood imports, while cultural events involving Japanese performers and movies have also been hit.
The incident over the weekend provided a setting for the latest flashpoint in the tensions.
Both countries have traded quarrelsome accusations, with the Chinese Navy saying on Sunday that the scrambled Japanese F-15s had repeatedly approached its training area and endangered flight safety, while Japan’s chief government spokesman Minoru Kihara insisted on Monday that those claims were unfounded.
Japan’s military said about 100 take-offs and landings had been conducted from the aircraft carrier as it sailed east into the Pacific Ocean past the Okinawa Islands over the weekend.
Japan would “respond calmly but firmly and continue to monitor the movements of Chinese forces in the waters around our country”, Kihara said, rejecting China’s claim that Japanese aircraft had obstructed safe flight operations.
For its part, the Chinese embassy denied Tokyo’s claims, saying in a statement that “China solemnly demands that Japan stop smearing and slandering, strictly restrain its frontline actions, and prevent similar incidents from happening again.”
Japan hosts the largest foreign deployment of the United States military, including thousands of US Marines stationed in Okinawa.
A prominent Sudanese doctor’s group has accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of raping at least 19 women as they fled the city of el-Fasher in Darfur.
The Sudan Doctors Network said in a statement on Sunday that it documented the rapes among women who had fled to the town of al-Dabba in the neighbouring Northern State.
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Two of the women were pregnant, the group said.
“The Sudan Doctors Network strongly condemns the gang rape being perpetrated by the RSF against women escaping the horrors of El-Fasher, affirming that it constitutes a direct targeting of women in a blatant violation of all international laws that criminalise the use of women’s bodies as a weapon of oppression,” the group wrote on X.
Sudan Doctors Network: We have documented 19 cases of rape committed by the Rapid Support Forces, including two pregnant women, at Al-Afad Camp in Al-Dabba
The Sudan Doctors Network team at Al-Afad Camp in Al-Dabba has documented the rape of 19 women while they were fleeing from… pic.twitter.com/u5qWp4bdSD
Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary RSF. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 12 million, according to the United Nations. It has also left some 30 million in need of humanitarian aid.
The RSF took the city of el-Fasher, the capital of the state of North Darfur, in October after an 18-month campaign of siege and starvation. The city was the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the region.
Survivors who fled the city in the subsequent days recounted mass killings, rape, pillaging and other atrocities, prompting an international outcry.
Amnesty International has accused the RSF of “war crimes”, while the UN Human Rights Council has ordered an investigation into the abuses in el-Fasher. Officials who visited Darfur and spoke to survivors described the region as an “absolute horror show” and a “crime scene”.
Mohammed Elsheikh, a spokesperson for the Sudan Doctors Network, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that he was “100 percent sure” that sexual violence committed by RSF fighters is far more widespread than reported.
“Because most of the communities look at it as a stigma, most of the raped women tend not to disclose this information,” he said.
Elsheikh said the network had also documented 23 cases of rape among women who fled el-Fasher for the nearby town of Tawila.
“Unfortunately, the age of these raped victims varies from 15 years to 23 years old,” he said.
In its statement, the Sudan Doctors Network urged the international community to take urgent action to protect Sudanese women and girls.
It also called for “serious pressure on RSF leaders to immediately stop these assaults, respect international humanitarian law, and secure safe corridors for women and children”.
The latest accusations came amid a growing outcry over another RSF attack on a pre-school in the state of South Kordofan that local officials said killed at least 116 people. Some 46 of the victims were children, according to the officials.
On Sunday, Justice Minister Abdullah Dirife said Khartoum was willing to pursue political talks aimed at ending the conflict, but insisted that any settlement must “ensure there is no presence for ‘terrorist’ militias in both the political and military arenas”.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, he said the rebels “need to agree to give their weapons in specific areas and leave all these cities, and the police should take over”.
Dirife also called for putting a stop to the “transfer of weapons and the infiltration of mercenaries into Sudan” and claimed that fighters and arms were entering from regions including South America, Chad and the UAE.
The RSF currently holds all five states of Darfur, while the Sudanese army retains control of most of the remaining 13 states, including Khartoum.
Dirife also accused the RSF of repeatedly breaking past commitments to adhere to regional and global mediation initiatives.
“The last initiative we signed was the Jeddah Declaration. However, this militia didn’t commit to what we agreed on,” he said in Doha.
The Jeddah Declaration – brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia in May 2023 – was meant to protect civilians and lay the groundwork for humanitarian access. Several ceasefires followed, but both sides were accused of violating them, prompting the mediators to suspend talks.
The UN has meanwhile formally declared famine in el-Fasher and Kaduguli in South Kordofan and warned of the risk of a hunger crisis in 20 additional areas across the Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan regions.
The World Food Programme’s Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told Al Jazeera on Sunday that the agency was providing aid to five million people, including two million in areas that are difficult to reach, but warned that assistance has fallen far short of needs.
Video shows crowds in Gaza celebrating after Palestine qualified for the Arab Cup quarter-finals. Palestinians waved flags, chanted songs and gathered around screens in a rare moment of joy amid the ongoing devastation.
December 8 marks one year since the al-Assad dynasty, which lasted 54 years, was removed from power by a rebel offensive.
The 14-year-long war led to one of the world’s largest migration crises, with some 6.8 million Syrians, about a third of the population, fleeing the country at the war’s peak in 2021, seeking refuge wherever they could find it.
More than half of these refugees, about 3.74 million, settled in neighbouring Turkiye, while 840,000 found refuge in Lebanon and 672,000 in Jordan.
The animation below shows the number of Syrian refugees who fled from 2011 to 2025, highlighting the top 10 countries that hosted them.
Now, as Syria is entering a new chapter, millions of refugees and members of the diaspora are weighing the decision to return home and rebuild their lives.
Khalid al-Shatta, a 41-year-old management administration professional from Damascus, decided to return to Syria after fleeing the country in September 2012.
Al-Shatta, along with his wife and one-year-old son, first fled to Jordan by car before flying to Turkiye, which became their temporary home.
Al-Shatta recalls the anticipation surrounding al-Assad’s fall. On the night it happened, he said, everyone stayed up to watch the news.
“The moment Syria was liberated, we made our decision,” he told Al Jazeera. “My family and I came to the conclusion that we have to return to Syria, and be part of its future,” he explained.
Al-Shatta describes returning to Syria for the first time in 13 years and feeling “like I have never left Syria before, with one difference, the feeling of belonging to this country, to this nation, this land”.
Al-Shatta and his family are among the more than 782,000 Syrians documented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) who have returned to Syria from other countries over the past year.
Of those who have arrived from abroad, 170,000 have returned to Aleppo, 134,000 to Homs and 124,000 to rural Damascus.
Since returning to Damascus, al-Shatta has opened his own business, focused on power solutions. However, he says many returnees are struggling to find work with suitable salaries.
“Syria is not cheap [to live] compared with the average salaries; there are job opportunities, yet the salaries are challenging,” he says.
He explains how the quality of life varies greatly for Syria’s population, which now stands at 26.9 million. “Some families are living on $150 to $200 per month, while others live on $1,500 to $2,000, and some earn even more,” he explains.
Despite the rise in returns, limited job opportunities and high living costs continue to undermine long-term resettling. Housing remains unaffordable for many, leaving returnees in damaged homes or expensive rental units.
According to the IOM, while 69 percent of Syrians still own their property, 19 percent are renting, 11 percent are being hosted for free, and 1 percent are squatting.
In the days following the fall of al-Assad, several European countries – including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom – announced plans to pause asylum applications from Syrians.
The freeze applied to both new applications and those already in process, leaving many Syrians in limbo about whether they would be accepted, rejected or deported.
As of mid-2025, total asylum applications across the EU+ – European Union countries plus Norway and Switzerland – fell by 23 percent compared with the first half of 2024.
The decline was driven mainly by a steep drop in Syrian applications. Syrians lodged about 25,000 applications in the first half of 2025, a two-thirds decrease from a year earlier.
For the first time in more than a decade, Syrians are no longer the largest nationality group seeking asylum in Europe.
On December 3, the EU issued updated guidance for Syrian asylum applicants, saying opponents of al-Assad and military service evaders “are no longer at risk of persecution”.
Between 2012 and June 2025, EU+ states granted refugee status to approximately 705,000 Syrian applicants, according to the European asylum agency.
In addition to the 782,000 Syrians returning from abroad, the IOM has documented nearly 1.8 million internally displaced Syrians returning to their towns over the past year.
This brings the total number of Syrian refugees and IDPs who have returned home over the past year to 2.6 million. Of those internally displaced, 471,000 have returned to Aleppo, nearly 460,000 to Idlib, and 314,000 to Hama.
Talal Nader al-Abdo, 42, from Maaret al-Numan in southern Idlib, was one of the internally displaced Syrians who returned home from a tent where he and his family had been living.
“I was one of the victims of [Bashar al-Assad’s] brutality,” al-Abdo told Al Jazeera.
His family had been internally displaced multiple times, first from Maaret al-Numan, then to Ariha, then to Idlib, and finally to the border camps Kafr Jalis and Harbanoush of northern Syria, where al-Abdo recalls the harsh days they spent in the extreme cold and intense heat.
“When the regime fell, I knew that relief had come, the bombing had ended, and the time was near for us to return to our homes, even though they were destroyed and demolished. We would return and rebuild them,” al-Abdo added.
Throughout the war, al-Abdo, together with his wife, three sons, daughter, and elderly mother, stayed in northwestern Syria “because we had great faith that one day God would grant us relief and we would return home”.
![Bullet holes deface a mural depicting the toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in Adra town on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus on December 25, 2024. [Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/AFP__20241225__36RF84L__v2__HighRes__SyriaConflict-1765092018.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
Despite many returning home, there are still more than six million Syrians who remain internally displaced, according to the IOM.
The largest share of those are living in rural Damascus (1.99 million), followed by Aleppo (1.33 million) and Idlib (993,000).
