“I must be dreaming — this is the greatest dream of my life and I don’t want to wake up,” Mohammed Al-Owir, 63, told NBC News in Damascus’ Umayyad Square, which has become a scene of flag-flying, car horns and celebratory gunfire.

Imprisoned for nine years by Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, he described living “in constant fear, never allowed to lift our heads” under the family’s 50-year dynasty.

His half-smile hinting hope, pain and trepidation, Al-Owir surveyed the scene…