SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
One year ago this week, Syrian rebels pushed out the Assad regime, ending nearly 14 years of revolution and brutal civil war. NPR's Emily Feng and Jawad Rizkallah go back to one of the first cities to rise up against the old regime to see how some of the first revolutionaries there are doing now.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR SQUEAKING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Singing in Arabic).
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: The city of Homs sometimes gets the nickname the cradle of the revolution because some of Syria's first mass demonstrations were here. So the Syrian regime besieged the city, starved out dissidents and destroyed their homes.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR CLOSING)
FENG: But when I visited this fall, it was starting to come to life.
Feels good. There's people selling stuff.
Yet dark memories linger. Like on this road, Cairo Street. Anwar Al-Ahmed works for the new Homs city government now, but during the war, he was briefly a rebel fighter, stationed here with a famed commander named Abdul Baset al-Sarout when this was the front line of an urban guerrilla war against the Assad regime.
ANWAR AL-AHMED: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: He says to try and break the government siege, they fought their way across the street, but they got trapped.
AL-AHMED: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Anwar and 70 fighters spent 13 days to hand dig a tunnel and escape. Today, he marvels that he can just walk through the entire city without being shot.
Another former rebel fighter, Hossam Hammada, is now an officer in the new Syrian army.
HOSSAM HAMMADA: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: But despite his privileged position now, he says he used to pray he would die a martyr. He says he dreaded what he sees now.
HAMMADA: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: "Where the most deserving people who gave everything to the revolution...
HAMMADA: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: ...Are now jobless," Hammada says, "without enough money to buy bread." As we leave, Hammada breaks out into song.
HAMMADA: (Singing in Arabic).
FENG: The song of his fallen comrades, for the tens of thousands of Syrians killed or who are still missing after the war. Heaven is my new home, he sings. Celebrate and be happy with me, and forgive me for leaving you.
AHMAD HUSSEIN AL-ATIKI: (Singing in Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Singing in Arabic).
FENG: On the other side of Homs, two young men sit and sing another revolutionary song. They're relatives of the late rebel commander Abdul Baset al-Sarout, who Hammada also fought with and still mourns. They, too, are celebrating the end of war, but they say they still see former regime officials and profiteers walking around unscathed. And they think people are taking justice into their own hands, exacerbating sectarian violence. Here's Ahmad Hussein Al-Atiki.
AL-ATIKI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: NPR's Jawad Rizkallah translates.
JAWAD RIZKALLAH, BYLINE: "We're a state with law, and people who are criminals must be held to account, regardless of their sect."
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Ululating).
FENG: And for now, this is how the living find peace...
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
FENG: ...By gathering the families of the dead, each time at a different site of tragedy during the war. Neighbors here say they were targeted by regime allied militias in late 2012.
ABDEL MATEEN AL-MUHBANI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Abdel Mateen Al-Muhbani writes down the names of 32 family members all killed, he says, in that massacre.
AL-MUHBANI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Al-Muhbani, once a rebel negotiator, now wants to help the new government pursue justice for atrocities.
AL-MUHBANI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: He says he knows the government needs time. But he's not a sheep, he says - not for the Assad regime, nor for the new government now.
Later, Al-Muhbani joins friends for dinner. They're a motley crew reuniting - all survivors of the regime's siege of Homs. They haven't seen each other since 2014, when they were evacuated from the city.
(CROSSTALK)
FENG: Over big plates of kebab and hummus, a filmmaker and teacher named Wiam Bedirxan talks about how they were forced to eat cats and tree leaves during the regime's siege. Everyone is happy tonight, but they're in disbelief that they were the ones who made it - that they're together again.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE RUMBLING)
FENG: Bedirxan finds her mind always drifting to the past.
WIAM BEDIRXAN: Always thinking of these days. How it's - how it was.
FENG: And as we drive through the chill of the night, explosions go off.
(SOUNDBITE OF FIREWORK EXPLODING)
FENG: But they're not gunshots or bombs. They're fireworks. Someone is getting married.
BEDIRXAN: Are we in a long dream?
FENG: A dream? - I ask.
Which is the dream? The war or peace?
BEDIRXAN: The - all this. All this time, this period.
FENG: She's not sure what feels more unreal - the war itself or the idea that there can be true peace after such a war.
Emily Feng, NPR News, Homs, Syria. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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