What is happening in Syria right now? Just everything.

The events of the weekend and the weeks leading up to it are described as a seismic political shift. After years in which the 13-year civil war seemed to be dormant, it suddenly was no longer so. If your head is spinning, it’s because the events in Syria happened so quickly.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled to Russia. The doors to Syria’s notorious prisons have been opened and the excited prisoners are streaming out. Millions of refugees could finally return home from camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

And there are celebrations all over the world.

“It’s hard to describe it in words. What I hear from my Syrian friends and colleagues is that it feels like a dream. Nobody thought this could happen so quickly,” Nader Hashemi, director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, told CBC The collapse.

“It’s just amazing. It’s mind-boggling… it’s actually hard to process,” added Steven Heydemann of the Brookings Institute’s Center for Middle East Policy.

So forgive yourself if you’re struggling to catch up and let CBC News break it down for you.

What happened this weekend?

Syrian rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate, reached Damascus over the weekend and toppled Assad’s government.

Assad fled the country on Sunday, marking a dramatic end to his nearly 14-year struggle for control as his country disintegrated in a brutal civil war that became a proxy battleground for regional and international powers.

The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia had granted Assad political asylum.

The fall of Assad, which seemed unthinkable just two weeks ago, raised hopes for a more peaceful future but also concerns about a possible security vacuum in the country, which remains divided among armed groups.

What is the HTS?

The jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda and known as the Nusra Front. HTS later distanced itself from al-Qaeda and attempted to market itself as a more moderate group. It is classified as a terrorist group by the United Nations and the USA

The rebels’ main commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, met with Assad’s Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali and Vice President Faisal Mekdad overnight to discuss arrangements for an interim government, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters .

Al-Golani, who spent years in U.S. custody as an insurgent in Iraq but later broke with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, has vowed to rebuild Syria. “After this great victory, a new history will be written throughout the region, my brothers,” he told a large crowd at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus on Sunday.

HTS and Al-Golani have worked to “professionalize” their force, said Broderick McDonald, an associate fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at the University of Oxford.

That helped them prepare for this moment, McDonald told CBC News Network Sunday. “And then it just came down to the right timing and the right opportunity for the group to really break out of their enclave.”

What was the Civil War?

Do you remember the Arab Spring?

In 2011, Syria was rocked by anti-Assad protests inspired by anti-regime demonstrations across the region, dubbed the Arab Spring.

Assad and his family had ruled Syria for more than 50 years. Since he took over as president in 2000 following the death of his father, Assad’s forces have killed more than 350,000 opponents, imprisoned and tortured scores more, and used banned nerve gas against opposition cities to deter any challengers to his rule, according to the United Nations .

Anti-government protests in 2011 were met with a brutal crackdown and escalated into a civil war that has killed more than half a million people and displaced half of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million. Assad, with support from Iran and Russia, gradually regained control of more than two-thirds of Syria, leaving the rebels with a stronghold in the northwest of the country.

And there the conflict continued for years, until the end of November.

When did the rebel offensive begin?

On November 27, armed opposition groups led by HTS launched a large-scale attack on areas controlled by government forces in northwestern Syria, saying they had wrested control of more than 15 villages from government forces in northwestern Aleppo province.

The government and its allies responded with airstrikes and shelling to stop the insurgents’ advance.

The attack on Aleppo followed weeks of simmering low-level violence, including government attacks on opposition-held areas.

On November 29, the insurgents entered Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, for the first time since being driven out in 2016. They encountered little resistance. On November 30, the rebels declared they had controlled Aleppo by raising a flag over the city’s citadel and seizing the international airport.

That evening, the insurgents captured at least four towns in central Hama province and claimed to have entered the provincial capital. The Syrian government launched a counterattack on December 1, but received little support from its allies.

Over the next few days, the insurgents captured Hama and Homs, the fourth and third largest cities. On Sunday they captured the capital Damascus.

What is happening in Syria now?

On Monday it was quiet in Damascus and life was slowly returning to normal. Most shops and public facilities were closed. Some people were still celebrating in public places. After a nighttime curfew, traffic returned to the streets and people ventured out. In the middle there were rebels.

The Syrian prime minister said on Monday that most cabinet ministers were still working from their offices in Damascus. Jalali, the prime minister, remained in office after Assad and most of his top officials disappeared over the weekend, trying to project normalcy.

He said the government was coordinating with the insurgents and he was ready to meet rebel leader Al-Golani.

It is not clear who is in charge.

“There is a lot of uncertainty about what comes next,” Stephen Sakalian, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria, told CBC News Network.

“This is Damascus, there is a certain normality… but many questions remain unanswered among the population.”

What about the prisons?

Meanwhile, enthusiastic inmates are streaming out of prisons. For generations, Assad’s police state was considered one of the toughest in the Middle East and housed hundreds of thousands of political prisoners.

North of Damascus, at Saydnaya military prison, known as a “human slaughterhouse,” female prisoners, some with their children, screamed as men broke the locks on their cell doors.

Tens of thousands of prisoners have been released so far, said Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition war monitor.

“I feel great joy to see the dictator and his party… he is gone. He’s gone,” Omar Alshogre, a former Syrian political prisoner, told CBC News Network Monday.

“Now it is our responsibility as Syrians to show the world that we actually want freedom and democracies.”