Thousands of Syrians take to streets in anti-assad protests

SYRIA’S Bashar al-assad is facing renewed threats to his regime after hundreds of protesters took to the streets with the country facing a deepening economic crisis.

Spiralling oil and food prices are hitting a beleaguered population exhausted by years of vicious civil war.

Protesters marched in the restive south on Sunday and again yesterday, almost a decade after demonstrations there ignited the country’s bloody revolution.

Al Assad – who has seen off the threats of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, and Isil – is now at the mercy of a failing economy, as Syria’s plunging currency sends the prices of everyday essentials sky-high, sparking dissent within his regime and in recaptured towns and cities.

Videos posted to social media showed crowds gathered in the towns of Suwayda, and Tafas in Deraa chanting anti-assad slogans on Sunday.

Demonstrators returned again yesterday, rallying against the Russian and Iranian interventions in Syria.

The Syrian lira has lost more than half its value since January. Coupled with systemic corruption and years of war, that has pushed record numbers into dire circumstances. Salaries in government-held areas barely stretch to cover the cost of a bowl of fruit. The UN says that the number of food-insecure climbed to more than nine million people last month.

The crisis has driven people on to the streets in the south, two years after the government finished battling rebels for control of the area. One man, 30, who attended the demonstrations in Suwayda, told The Daily Telegraph: “I have lived through a decade of hell. Now all I can afford is a piece of bread. What sort of victory is that?”

Rami Makhlouf, a billionaire and one of Al Assad’s staunchest allies, last month publicly rebuked the government after he was ordered to pay millions in extra tax. It prompted speculation of increasing fissures within the president’s normally loyal Alawite base.