NBC 7’s Dana Williams visits El Cajon to hear from Syrian refugees about the news of their home country.
In San Diego County, the fall of the Assad family regime was welcome news to some members of the Syrian community, including those eating at Mal Al Sham, a Syrian restaurant in El Cajon.
The eatery sits on the corner of East Main Street and Ballantyne Street and boasts “a Taste of Damascus” on its main signage. The majority of items on the items are displayed both in both English and Arabic, which is the perfect representation of the staff, many of whom do not speak English. The easy smiles and dancing on display, however, are universally understood: They were thrilled to know President Basha al-Assad was gone.
“We’re just so happy,” Waseem Tarabishi, the owner of Collision Tech in El Cajon, told NBC 7 as he picked up his lunch. “Finally, after 54 years of darkness, the light’s finally out.”
Tarabishi told NBC 7 he came to the United States from Syria when he was around 20 years old. He explained he was a medical student and “left everything behind” in pursuit of a better quality of life.
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“It was just unjust, and anybody that has human decency could not accept that,” Tarabishi said. “You know, some people have no choice, they have to [stay], but I had a choice and I took that choice.”
Tarabishi, who still has family in Syria, said he had not been able to sleep throughout the weekend because he was glued to news updates and hoping for the end of Assad. In the 30 years he has been in America, he has had two daughters, neither of whom have had the opportunity to visit the place where their father is from. That's something they now hope to change.
“I think, within a matter of time — just a month or two — things are going to get a lot better,” Tarabishi said.
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Among the joy and optimism, though, there is concern for what is next for the fragile nation.
"We’ve got a happy situation with Assad out, but we have an unknown situation with the regime that’s coming in," Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director of counterintelligence for the FBI, told NBC 7.
The group that overthrew Assad is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the United Nations. Figliuzzi emphasized that this cannot be overlooked, despite celebrations happening in Syrian communities internationally. He warned that what's to come could be a threat in its own.
“It was a coalition of people that took power now in Syria, and amongst that coalition are other known terrorist organizations and individuals,” Figliuzzi said. “The concern with Syria would be that everybody promises the right thing. They’re talking the right way right now, but they could, in a heartbeat, slide back into a state of tribalism and violence and allowing and enabling terrorism.”
