Waking up to blasts, Damascus residents rally behind Assad
Hours before dawn, a string of powerful blasts jolted awake residents of the capital. Emerging onto their balconies, they watched Western strikes light up the sky over the city.
For around 45 minutes, explosions and the sound of warplanes roared over here, a stronghold of Syria’s regime, as the United States, France and Britain carried out raids on military installations nearby and in Homs province.
“I heard the strike and woke up. I checked the Internet and read: barefaced attack by America, France, and Britain,” said Sawsan Abu Tableh.
She and other residents described hearing a volley of fire in the morning, and seeing plumes of thick smoke emerging from the city’s north and east.
“I woke up to the sound of the strike at 4am and checked the news,” said Rahmeh Abu Hamra, 49, who lives in the eastern suburb of Jarmana.
Abu Hamra rushed out onto her balcony and saw streams of people heading down to the city centre in an impromptu rally as day broke.
“We don’t care about Trump or a million people like him, we don’t care about missiles or anything else,” she said.
Just after the barrage of strikes began, Syria announced it was activating its air defence system to block the attack. The army said around 110 missiles were fired on Syria, but air defences shot most of them down.
Nedher Hammoud, 48, jumped out of bed at the sound of the blasts and clambered up to his rooftop.
“I went out on my roof this morning and saw the missiles being shot down like flies.
“History will record that Syria shot down missiles — and not just missiles. It shot down American arrogance.”
Still in his pyjamas, Hammoud scrambled to join the crowds of people heading to the famed Umayyad Square to show their support for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.
Draped in government flags and blaring patriotic tunes, dozens of Syrians arrived on bicycles, on foot and in cars spray painted with the red, white and black colours of the Syrian flag.
A traffic jam had started to form around the square, and young Syrians leaned out of their car windows to take selfies as military personnel looked on.
“God is protecting you, Damascus!” some called out, and others chanted in support of Assad and the army.
Soldiers threw up two fingers to flash the victory sign near a car with pictures showing the president, his late father Hafez, and ally Hassan Nasrallah, who heads the Iran-backed Lebanese Shia movement Hizbollah.
Car horns blared and people clapped, swaying back and forth to pro-army tunes.
“Bashar, we’re at your command! Let the world go up in flames!” people chanted.
Amina al-Fares, 58, came to the rally dressed in black.
“I lost my recently-married nephew, my son, my brother’s children, all for Bashar al-Assad,” she said of relatives killed in Syria’s seven-year war.
Fares said she felt the bombing early in the morning when she was drinking mate, but said she was not afraid.
“I heard the first strike, then the second, and I went out onto my balcony,” she said.
“Trump thought we’d be in bomb shelters, but here we are in Umayyad Square.”
Assad, too, appeared determined to show he was not unfazed. The Syrian presidency posted a video that appeared to show Assad arriving for work yesterday, hours after the strike.
“The morning of resilience,” declared a caption accompanying the video circulated on the presidency’s Telegram feed, which showed Assad in a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase as he walked into the marble-floored entrance of a building. Assad did not speak during the video which lasted eight seconds.