Goodbye
That’s all our coverage for now – but we’ll be back tomorrow with all the latest updates.
Before we go, here’s a quick reminder of what’s happened today:
US ‘in contact’ with rebel group
The US secretary of state met officials from the Arab Contact Group and Turkey in Jordan to discuss the situation in Syria.
Speaking after the summit, Antony Blinken confirmed the US had been in touch with the rebel group HTS that ousted Bashar al Assad just under a week ago.
Russia ‘pulling back its military’
Inside Syria, officials reported that Russia had started pulling back its military from the front lines in the north of the country.
The future of Russia’s military bases – the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia and the Tartus naval facility – have been thrown into question following the toppling of the Assad regime last week.
But the sources, who spoke to the Reuters news agency on the condition of anonymity, said Russia was not pulling out of its two main bases and currently had no intention of doing so.
Sky News reports from outside Russian base
Our chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay visited an area near the Hmeimim airbase, where he saw jets fly overhead, and soldiers drop down into gun turrets as his team approached.
You can read his full report below…
‘Unjustified’ Israeli attacks on Syria ‘terrorising civilians’
Syria’s civil defence condemned the ongoing Israeli attacks on its territory.
Israel’s military has conducted hundreds of strikes across Syria since the fall of the Assad regime, claiming to have destroyed military sites and stopped weapons stockpiles from falling into the hands of extremists.
Its troops have also occupied land on the border between Syria, Lebanon and a UN demilitarised buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
The White Helmets humanitarian organisation said Israel’s strikes were “terrorising civilians” and “constitute a flagrant violation of all international laws”.
In pictures: Syrians return to traditional market
Syrians have visited a traditional market in the Old City in Damascus today as the country prepares to mark a week since rebel fighters ousted Bashar al Assad.
Dolls, jewellery, and sweets were just some of the goods being sold.
Listen: Inside the fall of Assad
NBC’s Richard and Sky News’ Yalda meet in rebel-held Damascus after the fall of one of the world’s most brutal dictators – Bashar al Assad
With gunfire echoing across the Syrian capital, they ask what the future holds for the country after his family’s 50-year reign of terror.
To get in touch or to share questions for Richard and Yalda, email theworld@sky.uk.
Episodes of The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim will be available every Wednesday on all podcast platforms.
Insurgents set fire to tomb of Syria’s former president
Insurgents have set fire to the tomb of Syria’s former President Hafez Assad.
Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Syrian journalist Qusay Noor told The Associated Press that the tomb was set on fire Wednesday in the town of Qardaha in Latakia province.
Videos circulating online appeared to show men inside the tomb in the northwest of the country.
“God is the greatest, this is the breaking of the tomb of the criminal, the tyrant, the dictator Hafez Assad. God is the greatest, what you see now is them burning the dog’s tomb,” one man said.
Hafez Assad had ruled Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000, when his son, Bashar, succeeded him.
Both ruled Syria with an iron fist and were blamed for crackdowns that left tens of thousands dead since the civil war in 2011.
Bashar al Assad was ousted last weekend and fled to Russia, where he was given political asylum.
World leaders call for peace in Syria and back local political process
Leaders from several Arab nations, the US, Turkey and the EU have called for peace in Syria and said they will support a local-led political process.
The leaders released a joint statement after meeting in Jordan to discuss the situation in Syria.
They called for preventing the re-emergence of extremist groups and ensuring the security and safe destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles.
They also expressed full support for Syria’s territorial integrity.
A separate statement issued by Arab foreign ministers called for UN-supervised elections based on a new constitution approved by Syrians.
That statement also condemned Israel’s incursion into the buffer zone with Syria and adjacent sites over the past week as a “heinous occupation”.
On the ground: Jets scream overhead and soldiers drop down into gun turrets – Outside Russia’s military base in Syria
By Stuart Ramsay, chief correspondent in Latakia
I knew we were near a Russian military base when I could read the names of shops, cafes and pharmacies written in Russian, in surrounding villages.
The Russians have been permanently based here since 2017, propping up the Assad regime and overseeing the war against their many opponents. And the local communities have benefitted financially from their presence.
But for how long this will all last is apparently the focus of talks between Moscow and the new government in Syria because they may not stay.
For now, though, what we do know, is that Russian convoys are withdrawing from bases across Syria and are heading for the Mediterranean Coast.
On a dusty road near the main Russian entrance to Hmeimim air base near Latakia, I could see a convoy of Russian military vehicles trundling their way past the Russian-named shops.
They were armoured fighting vehicles, troop carriers, armoured police trucks, and supply lorries, some marked with the letter ‘Z’ – synonymous of course with the war in Ukraine.
But this is a war that is over.
The Russian soldiers onboard the vehicles basically tried to ignore us, or simply drop down into the gun turrets to avoid being filmed.
Above us, a Russian helicopter gunship constantly patrolled the area in bright blue skies, occasionally passing a huge white observation blimp – a constant presence at all major military bases the world over.
Jets would occasionally scream overhead, some landing, some taking off, while transport planes, some of the largest in the world, taxied to-and-fro on the air strip.
It’s a busy base and it appears to be getting busier – the convoys have been arriving for the last few days.
The entrance to the civilian airport, which shares the runway, is now guarded by HTS fighters. They were relaxed, sitting next to pick-up trucks with high-calibre machine guns mounted on the back.
I asked one of the soldiers on duty, Zakaria Harir, what his orders were, and if they had any contact with the Russians inside.
“The location of this airport is very important, and that’s why we’ve received orders to be here,” he told me.
“As soldiers, we don’t have any contact with them [the Russians], but there might be coordination between them and the country’s military council.”
Nobody knows what is going to happen to the Russians, but at the very least they are reported to be withdrawing to Russia’s two main bases on the coast, one of which is the Hmeimim base.
On the road to Latakia, along the same route some of the Russian convoys take, the sheer number of destroyed or abandoned Syrian army military vehicles – tanks, rocket launchers, trucks, and armoured vehicles, and troop carriers – is quite astounding. It goes on for mile after mile after mile.
Some are burnt out and riddled with bullets, and it’s clear that despite the speed of the rebel advance, there were major exchanges of fire here. As we drove, we could see low loader lorries backing up to tanks on the main highway.
HTS soldiers were using bulldozers to push the tanks on board, and the tanks appeared to be in working order.
A soldier told me that they had simply been abandoned by retreating Syrian army tank crews or had broken down. They were taking the tanks away to workshops to be fixed – some they said just need new batteries, others just needed an oil change.
It feels like they are building a new Syrian army, taking over and using the equipment of the old one.
The regime is gone, and its main supporter’s soldiers are drawing down. Syria is changing at breakneck speed – just a week ago it was a war.
Lebanese militant group loses supply route through Syria
Hezbollah has lost its supply route through Syria, the head of the Lebanese militant group Naim Qassem has said.
It marks his first comments since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad nearly a week ago by a sweeping rebel offensive.
Under Assad, Iran-backed Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon.
But, last week, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, Islamist rebels captured the capital Damascus.
“Yes, Hezbollah has lost the military supply route through Syria at this stage, but this loss is a detail in the resistance’s work,” Qassem said in a televised speech.
“A new regime could come, and this route could return to normal, and we could look for other ways,” he added.
Hezbollah started intervening in Syria in 2013 to help Assad fight rebels seeking to topple him at that time.
Last week, as rebels approached Damascus, the group sent supervising officers to oversee a withdrawal of its fighters there.
In pictures: Symbols of the broken Assad regime across Syria
We’re nearly a week on from the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and the signs of the former government are still being torn down across the country.
Statues, busts, posters and murals of former leaders Hafez al Assad and his son Bashar al Assad have been defaced and ripped down.
Turkey becomes first country to resume embassy operations in Syria
Turkey has become the first country to reopen its embassy in Damascus since the end of Bashar al Assad’s regime six days ago.
TV cameras captured the moment the Turkish flag was raised above the walled compound in the Syrian capital for the first time since diplomatic ties were cut in 2012.
The newly-appointed charge d’affaires Burhan Koroglu was present at the ceremony.
The embassy suspended operations 12 years ago due to escalating security conditions during the Syrian civil war.
‘Every prisoner slept on a tile – if they moved, they were beaten’
While Syrians have celebrated the demise of Bashar al Assad’s government, others have spent the last week searching for the traces of their friends and relatives at notorious prisons across the country.
Palestine detention centre, known in Arabic as Fare’a Falstine, is one of the prisons.
Here, detainees were tortured physically and psychologically without any clear charges against them.
Insurgents who are now guarding the prison described how people were tortured and interrogated.
“Thank God we toppled the tyrant Bashar and freed our brothers and, as you can tell, the smell, no lighting, they (detainees) were monitored by surveillance cameras,” one of the insurgents said.
“When they were sleeping, they were lying on one tile, every prisoner was allowed to sleep on one tile and if they moved, they would be beaten,” he said.
“The prison was very hard, living in it is so difficult, no lights, no food, and when they delivered food, it was rotten and you could not eat it. It was just for the prisoner to live, nothing more than that, not to be satisfied. It was so bad.”
An estimated 150,000 people were detained or went missing in Syria since 2011.