DAMASCUS, Syria — As Syrians mark the first anniversary of toppling Bashar al-Assad’s regime, they are also marking another major shift: the U.S. is on the verge of removing economic sanctions that have constrained the country for years.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to repeal sanctions tied to the 2019 Caesar Act, enacted amid growing evidence of killings and torture by the Assad government. The Syrian Foreign Ministry called the move a “pivotal moment” that will restore opportunities long denied the Syrian people. The U.S. Senate is expected to approve the repeal next week.
Lifting the measures would open the way for billions in infrastructure and humanitarian spending that had been hampered by countries’ compliance with U.S. financial restrictions. It is also expected to be a major boost for local businesses. “After the removal of these sanctions, we will be able to deal with Visa and Mastercard,” says Yasser Homsi, owner of Sham Services, a Syrian travel company. Homsi has registered his company in the U.K. but still must route money to Syria through a third country because direct transfers to Syrian accounts remain banned.
The anniversary of Assad’s ouster by opposition fighters on Dec. 8, 2024, came with days of celebrations: fireworks, flags and blaring horns. At the main mosque in Damascus’s Midan district, worshippers left dawn prayers shortly after the moment many mark as the time Assad departed Damascus under Russian protection. Assad and his wife Asma remain in exile in Russia.
Worshippers at the mosque chanted “Allahu akbar!” and women ululated in traditional celebration. The metal fence around the mosque was covered with hundreds of photographs of Syrians killed during Assad’s crackdown on the 2011–2012 uprising — mostly young men but also children. Neighborhood resident Lutifa Muyadin, pausing to view the images, said, “Every day since the criminal regime is gone, we have joy and freedom,” and thanked those who gave their lives to topple Assad. She also thanked the United States for moving to lift sanctions: “Trump stood with us. We thank him and the administration and all the people who love us.”
Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaida fighter who has renounced the group’s ideology, addressed the nation, pledging to honor the trust of the people. “So let our motto be ‘honesty,’ and our pledge be construction,” he said.
Syrian-American activist Mouaz Moustafa, founder of the Syria Emergency Task Force, walked the streets amid celebrations and played a video he recorded of a restaurant cleaner dancing with a mop as colleagues clapped. “The pure joy that everyone sees here is just an expression of how much evil they lived under,” he said, likening Assad’s fall to the Berlin Wall’s collapse: “It’s really, really rare that good defeats evil.”
The conflict that ousted Assad followed years of repression, killing and corruption. Iran and Russia intervened to help the regime suppress uprisings in a civil war that lasted 13 years. The United Nations estimates at least half a million people were killed, and hundreds of thousands remain missing, many believed buried in mass graves still being uncovered. At one site a few miles from Damascus, more than 20 sunken indentations mark individual graves; Moustafa says about 20,000 bodies may lie there.
While most Syrians now enjoy far greater freedoms than under Assad, some feel more vulnerable. New security forces include former militants accused of revenge attacks on Alawite and Druze minorities. A June suicide bombing at a church, claimed by a militant Sunni group, has heightened fears among Christians.
Still, signs of economic life and possibility are emerging. New electric taxis now ply Damascus streets in a country that until a year ago could not import new cars. 77 Auto, the company importing them from China, has a showroom and is installing charging stations around the city. Afraa Sharif, the company’s CEO, says lifting sanctions would allow vehicles’ software to be activated using Syrian registrations rather than creating registrations abroad.
Sharif recalled how, under the former regime, simply holding up a U.S. dollar could have been dangerous. “We did not dare even to use the dollar symbol in accounting,” she said. Despite widespread poverty, many remain hopeful. Bilal Falaha, who works in a second-hand clothing shop earning about $5 a day and whose family home was destroyed in the war, said he was optimistic about Syria’s future. “Things will get better but people have to work hand in hand with the state,” he said.