More than a decade had passed since Ahmed al-Sharaa squeezed into the narrow lift that went up to his parents’ 10th-floor apartment. The Soviet-style block hadn’t changed much since he last saw it. It still overlooked a series of identical concrete buildings and the weed-ridden patches that separated them. The hallways were the same shade of greying white they had been when he was a boy, although they were showing signs of wear after years of civil strife and economic crisis.

Sharaa had arrived in Damascus a few hours earlier, a conqueror leading a rebel army into a capital already overrun by his allies. Forces loyal to Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad had melted in the face of their advance, leaving Sharaa to bloodlessly waltz into power on a bitingly cold Sunday morning in December 2024.

Financial Times