The Syrian rebels destroyed the tomb of the late president Hafez al-Assad, the father of the deposed president Bashar, in the family's hometown.
Videos confirmed by the BBC showed armed men chanting as they surrounded a burning mausoleum in Qardaha, in the northwestern coastal region of Latakia.
Rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have swept across Syria in a landslide that toppled the 54-year-old Assad regime. Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia where he and his family were granted asylum.
Pictures and posters of Hafez and his son were pulled across the country to cheer Syrians celebrating the end of their rule.
In 2011, Bashar al-Assad brutally put an end to a peaceful democratic uprising, sparking a civil war in which more than half a million people were killed and another 12 million were forced to flee their homes.
Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria brutally from 1971 until his death in 2000, when power was handed over to his son.
He was born and raised in a family of Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam and a religious minority in Syria, whose main population center is in the province of Latakia along the Mediterranean coast near the border with Turkey.
Many Alawites – who make up about 10% of the country's population – were staunch supporters of the Assads during their long tenure in power.
Some of them now fear that they may be attacked by the victorious rebels.
On Monday, a group of rebels and members of HTS and another Sunni Muslim group, the Free Syrian Army, met with Qardaha elders and received support, according to the Reuters news agency.
A delegation of rebels signed the document, which Reuters reported emphasizes religious and cultural differences in Syria.
HTS and allied rebels took control of the Syrian capital Damascus on Sunday after years of civil war.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who has started using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is one of the jihadist leaders who cut ties with al-Qaeda in 2016. He recently promised to be tolerant of different religious groups and communities.
The UN envoy to Syria said rebels must turn their “good messages” into action on the ground.
Meanwhile, the US secretary of state said Washington will recognize and fully support the future Syrian government as long as it emerges from an honest, inclusive process that respects minorities.
HTS has appointed an interim government led by Mohammed al-Bashir, the former head of the rebel administration in the northwest, until March 2025.
Bashir held a meeting in Damascus on Tuesday attended by members of his new government and those of Assad's former cabinet to discuss the transfer of positions and institutions.
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