By RAJA ABDULRAHIM
Shortly before the first domestic flight since Bashar Assad’s fall landed at Aleppo International Airport late Wednesday morning, the final preparations were still being made. Workers rushed to remove about a dozen empty ammunition boxes, gas masks and helmets from a grassy patch next to the runway.
When the Syrian Air flight from Damascus, the Syrian capital, landed, more than an hour behind schedule, it was greeted by a large crowd of journalists and a phalanx of security personnel, including military police officers and civil defense workers, standing by in case anything went wrong.
But its arrival was otherwise smooth — a sign, the rebels who ousted Assad as president 10 days ago hope, that Syria’s new transitional government will be able to run the country. They want to prove they can provide Syrians with basic services, including domestic and international flights.
“We consider this a big accomplishment — we are coming to rebuild this country,” said Anas Rustum, who was appointed to oversee the Aleppo airport by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that led the offensive against the Assad government and now leads the transitional government in Damascus.
Rustum, speaking outside the airport terminal as the just-landed Airbus A320 sat on the tarmac behind him, said Syria’s leaders were open to welcoming flights from all countries and airlines, touting “these results you are seeing in front of your eyes.”
In another sign of the new government’s efforts to restore services, Syria’s central bank said Wednesday that ATMs and electronic payment services had been brought back online.
But the challenges remain immense.
The new government does not control all of Syria. The rebel alliance that ousted Assad holds much of the northeast and parts of the east and south, but other groups hold large parts of the country. Israel’s military seized territory in southern Syria last week, and its prime minister signaled Tuesday that it would occupy the area for the foreseeable future.
The transitional government has also inherited crippling sanctions imposed on the country during Assad’s rule. And the United States, the United Nations and others continue to designate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham a terrorist organization, which could prevent the country from getting help with reconstruction and make it harder for governments to send aid. The group’s leaders have called for the sanctions to be lifted, and pledged that all armed groups would be dissolved.
Reminders of the war were close at hand Wednesday, even as the Aleppo airport marked a new chapter. Throughout Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, the civilian facility was used by the Assad government to stage attacks on rebels and civilians living in rebel-held areas.
Ahmed Ibrahim, an airport control tower operator for nearly three decades, said the Assad forces had positioned a machine gun atop the control tower to fire on nearby neighborhoods, and rocket launchers on a grassy patch near the runway.
Airport staff removed the launchers a few days ago. The empty ammunition boxes that had been left there were taken away Wednesday morning. The flight itself was directed from a backup control tower as the primary one was damaged in an earthquake last year — and again during brief battles after the rebels captured the city on Nov. 30, leaving its windows pocked with bullet holes.
The rebel offensive, and the fall of the Assad regime, grounded Syria’s flights. Until Wednesday, the only aircraft flying over the country had been Israeli warplanes carrying out hundreds of strikes on Syrian military and naval positions. The United Nations has called on Israel to cease its attacks on Syria and to respect the country’s sovereignty.
“Operating the airport is connected to operating the skies,” Rustum said. “And the air corridors are connected to neighboring countries.”
Rustum, a small, smartly dressed man who had served as the airport’s communications manager until 2012, a year after the civil war broke out, brimmed with excitement Wednesday. He said Syrian officials had been in touch with neighboring countries that were ready to resume flights to Syria.
When the rebels captured Aleppo, the airport’s employees were initially afraid, Ibrahim said. But they were soon reassured as the rebel leadership called on all airport staff members to return to work.
He said that domestic and international aviation could be a symbol of the new, post-Assad Syria.
“We’re hoping for there to be an opening to other countries,” he said.
Syrian Air is one of the country’s two national airlines, but because of years of international sanctions, many of its planes could not be kept in operation for lack of parts, he said.
Abutting the civilian airport in Aleppo is the Nayrab military airport, which during the Assad years housed Soviet-era warplanes and helicopters of the type that government forces used to bombard rebel-held areas, killing untold numbers of civilians.
The military side, which was also used by the Russian forces that backed the Assad regime, is now deserted. Pro-Assad graffiti is scrawled on a wall. In a Russian outpost at the military airport, Russian-language newspapers are splayed across a desk. Crude dumbbells — fashioned from scrap metal and concrete — sit in a corner.
In the courtyard of the military outpost lay a poster of Russian President Vladimir Putin, his face ripped. Inside, a photo of Putin meeting with Assad had been smeared with eggs.
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