Syrians celebrated on Friday the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad, as the country's new Islamist-led rulers faced massive challenges amid uncertainty about the future of the multi-ethnic, multi-confessional country.
Assad fled the country on Sunday after a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, ending five decades of iron-fisted rule by his clan.
The rebel-appointed transitional government now faces the huge logistical challenge of keeping services running, after nearly 14 years of war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
Here are some key developments from the past 24 hours.
'Friday of victory'
Thousands of Syrians rallied in cities across Syria to celebrate Assad's ouster, marking the first Friday prayers since his overthrow.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani had called on all Syrians "to go to the streets to express their joy" on Friday to mark "the victory of the blessed revolution".
During the early days of Syria's uprising in 2011, pro-democracy protesters gave their Friday gatherings a different name every week -- the latest was called the "Friday of victory".
Interim Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir addressed a large congregation at Damascus's landmark Umayyad Mosque.
"We hope that Syria will head towards a better future," said 23-year-old Omar al-Khaled in Damascus.
Search for victims
Attention has now turned to the many people who were killed, detained or disappeared under the Assad clan's long, iron-fisted rule.
At the core of the system Assad inherited from his father Hafez was a brutal complex of prisons and detention centres used to eliminate dissent.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday it has documented over 35,000 cases of disappearances, adding the true number was likely far higher.
Syria's leadership said it is willing to cooperate with Washington in the search for US citizens who disappeared under Assad's rule, including US journalist Austin Tice, abducted in 2012.
Another American, Travis Timmerman, has already been located alive.
Israel could stay in UN buffer zone
Israel, which has launched hundreds of strikes against Syrian military sites since Sunday, has also seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone that is supposed to separate Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights.
The move drew international condemnation, with the UN saying it violated a 1974 armistice. Israel's close ally and top arms supplier the United States has said it was consistent with Israel's right to self-defence.
Israeli troops have now been ordered to "prepare to remain" in the buffer zone throughout the winter, Defence Minister Israel Katz's office said on Friday.
'Constructive' signals
Syria's interim authorities have asked the United Nations refugee agency to remain in the country, the organization said Friday.
"The initial signals that they are sending us are constructive," said UNHCR's representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, adding that "the needs are huge."
The UN's humanitarian agency says more than a million people, mostly women and children, have been newly displaced in Syria since Assad's ouster.
EU aid
The European Commission announced the launch of an "air bridge" operation to deliver an initial 50 tonnes of health supplies to Syria via neighbouring Turkey in coming days.
A further 46 tonnes of relief supplies will be trucked from an EU stockpile in Denmark to Turkey's Adana.
The UN's World Food Programme has separately called for $250 million in funding for food assistance to Syria over the next six months, to provide for up to 2.8 million displaced and vulnerable people.