Whilst the Syrians are celebrating in Syria and in the UK and elsewhere, I get the horrible feeling that the euphoria will be temporary because it surely won't be long before the other factions there will fall out with this HTS group in a power struggle. The scenes are so reminiscent of Iraq – the pulling down of statues, ransacking the presidential properties etc.

The Syrian family who we look after are obviously pleased that the butcher Assad has gone but they are not so naive to assume that everything will be sweetness and light from now on. I spoke with them today and they have no intention of returning to Syria, certainly not until they see what happens in the coming months and years. In any case their children are growing up here and only the eldest has any significant memories of Syria. I suspect that many other Syrian refugee families feel the same.

There are plenty of unintended consequences of the overthrow of the Assad regime. The Russians are worried about the fate of the bases they have there and then there is Israel with its eyes on the Golan Heights. This is an extract from the BBC News website tonight ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c77jrrxxn07o ):

Israel is especially concerned about who might get their hands on Bashar al-Assad's alleged arsenal of chemical weapons.
The leader of the Syrian rebellion is Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani. His family roots are in the occupied Golan Heights, where thousands of Israeli settlers now live alongside about 20,000 Syrians, most of them Druze, who stayed on after it was captured.
Israel will have no intention of giving that land up and is determined to protect its citizens.
During the 2011 Syrian uprising, Israel made the calculation that Assad, despite being an ally of both Iran and Hezbollah, was a better bet than what might follow his regime.
Israel will now be trying to calculate what comes next in Syria. Like everyone, it can only guess.

Definitely a situation to keep an eye on! Our Syrian family still have relatives over there with whom they are in constant contact by phone, so thus we get first hand info from folk who are “on the ground” as they say.