Sharaa's Islamist group is stamping its authority on Syria's state with the same lightning speed that it seized the country, deploying police, installing an interim government and meeting foreign envoys - raising concerns over how inclusive Damascus' new rulers intend to be.

Images show the fighters standing next to the burning gravesite of Hafez al-Assad in the former president's hometown.

Assad’s father in a symbolic moment for Syria as it grapples with what shape the country will take next. Pictures and videos showed men circling the burning remains in the marble-clad mausoleum that was the last resting place of Hafez al-Assad,

Travis Timmerman, a missing American from Missouri, was freed from a Syrian prison and found Thursday outside of Damascus trying to make his way out of the country on foot.

An American who disappeared seven months ago into former Syrian President Bashar Assad's notorious prison system said early Friday he was released by the "liberators" who arrived in Damascus a day after the longtime ruler fled the capital.