Syria to resume international flights from Damascus airport next week

An aircraft is prepared on the day the first domestic flight departs from Damascus to Aleppo during the reopening of the airports after the removal of Syria's Bashar al-Assad [File: Ammar Awad/Reuters]

Syria’s Damascus airport will resume international flights on Tuesday for the first time since Bashar al-Assad was overthrown last month by armed opposition fighters.

No flights had taken off or landed since pro-Assad forces abandoned the airport in the Syrian capital on December 8 after the opposition fighters marched on the city following a lightning offensive that began on November 27.