What is next for Syria after Assad’s fall?

After more than a year of relentless conflict in the Middle East, the stunning capitulation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime will go down in the region’s history as one of its greatest shocks.

In just 12 days, rebels marched from the north and then the south to the heart of Damascus,

capturing the capital

and ending the Assads’ more than 50-year dynastical rule over the nation. In less than two weeks, they achieved what tens of thousands of armed opposition fighters had failed to do in 13 horrendous years of civil war.