As news of the rebels’ victory in Syria spread at dawn on Sunday, people in seaside towns long known as bastions of loyalty to the Assad regime took to the streets to celebrate.

By the time rebels themselves rolled into the northwestern coastal heartland of Bashar al-Assad after lunchtime, statues of Assad’s father had already been torn down from town squares, said Samer Abbas, a researcher from the countryside near the port city of Tartus.

“I was shocked by how quickly people rose up,” said Abbas, who for more than a decade had worked under a pseudonym, which he hid even from his wife, to avoid being arrested for his anti-regime writing.