To define Bashar al-Assad's omnipresence in their daily lives, Syrians would sometimes say, just for a laugh, that they might even find him in their bedroom, or in the bathroom. Two weeks after the fall of the regime, in Aleppo – the city that for years symbolized the horrors of the Syrian war and its murderous divisions – the haunting image of the deposed dictator has disappeared.

The portraits which, like those of his father before him, dominated the streets, crossroads and public spaces have been torn down. The red, white and black national flag that adorned the city's lampposts and gray walls is gone, promptly replaced by the so-called "independence flag." And the headquarters of the Ba'ath party, a huge concrete and stone eyesore in the city center, is closed and emptied.

Former members of the state security forces were last seen there on December 12. Pale-faced, they handed over their weapons in exchange for what Syria's new masters of power, the fighters of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), described as an amnesty, before leaving.

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