Assad regime

Explosions occurred in Damascus during French President Macron's visit to Syria. Macron is the first EU leader to travel to Syria since the fall of the Assad regime.

Syria’s president Sharaa has appointed a new parliament tasked with replacing legislation from the Assad regime and addressing a backlog of bills.

The fall of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024, the 2025 decision by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to dissolve and engage in talks with the Turkish government, and the 2026 U.S.-Israeli war with Iran have significantly impacted Kurdish autonomy and regional stability. Experts assess the implications for Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran.

In post-Assad Syria, displaced people in the northwest remain in makeshift shelters due to destroyed villages and delayed reconstruction. Declining global humanitarian aid, particularly from the US, has worsened living conditions, with hospitals at risk of closing.

Syria faces a severe missing persons crisis, with estimates of 130,000 to 300,000 individuals disappeared since 2011. The fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 has enabled search efforts on Syrian soil and the establishment of the Syrian National Commission on Missing Persons (NCMP) in May 2025 to address the issue.

A Syrian rights commission is preparing a case against Fadi Saqr, a former commander of the National Defence Forces (NDF) militia, for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Damascus. Saqr is accused of mass killings and forcible disappearances of civilians in the Tadamon neighborhood.

A former senior Syrian regime official, Atef Najib, appeared before a Damascus court in a trial viewed as a potential first step toward addressing crimes against victims of the Assad regime.

Six siblings were forcibly disappeared in 2013 by the Assad regime and have been confirmed dead by their family.