Syria’s White Helmets rescue teams have flooded back to towns and cities previously held by the Assad regime with a pledge to rebuild their country after 13 years of civil war.

The group, which gained global notoriety for pulling survivors and bodies out of the rubble during Assad’s relentless sieges, had been trapped in the only pocket held by the rebels until the regime collapsed.

Farouq Habib, the civil defence group’s deputy manager, said the rebel takeover of much of the country had allowed him to return to his home town of Homs for the first time in 11 years.

He told The Telegraph’s Battle Lines podcast: “I came without my family first to see how the city looks, are we able to live there or not yet.