DAMASCUS, Dec 18, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - The first flight since the ouster of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad took off on Wednesday from Damascus airport to Aleppo in the country's north, AFP journalists saw.

Forty-three people including journalists were on board the plane. Assad fled Syria as a lightning rebel offensive wrested from his control city after city. His army and security forces abandoned Damascus airport on December 8.