The Syrian flag visible in the images of joy, after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, has three red stars and green, white and black bands.
On the various images of joy observed in Syria, and all over the world, at the announcement of the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime this Sunday, December 8, several flags with three green-white-black stripes decorated with three red stars were seen.
Since the start of the Syrian revolution in 2011, this flag has been waved as a sign of opposition to the power in place.
This is the flag of the Syrian revolution raised for the first time in Aleppo in 1932, and officially adopted in 1936 following the treaty conferring semi-independence on Syria from France. When the country gained complete independence on April 17, 1946, this banner was retained.
In this case, the three stars represent the districts of Aleppo, Damascus and Deir ez-Zor, the three major Syrian cities of the time.
The flag of Syria has not changed since 1980
For its part, since 1980 the Baathist regime has displayed a flag with only two green stars and a red stripe instead of a green one. It first appeared in 1958, when Syria and Nasser's Egypt unified to form the United Arab Republic, which lasted only three years.
The stars corresponded to the two constituent states, while the colors were inspired by the Egyptian flag.
Several flags, including that of the current revolution between 1961 and 1963, then followed one another until the 1980s, changing according to Syria's different alliances with certain Arab countries.
The revolutionary banner chosen by the Syrian National Council in 2011
While Hafez al-Assad, the father of Bashar al-Assad, was in power, this red-white-black flag with two stars became established. But the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 pushed the protesters to choose the flag with three red stars as a rallying sign.
In November 2011, the Syrian National Council – a transitional political authority created two months earlier and based in Istanbul to coordinate all opponents of the Baathist regime in Syria and elsewhere – endorsed this choice. This is why this flag is widely displayed today.
Three supporters of the Syrian rebels also displayed the flag of the revolution on the roof of the Syrian embassy in Athens this Sunday, before being arrested, reports the Greek newspaper I Kathimeriní.
