A UN envoy warned on Tuesday that Syria's protracted conflict "has not ended yet", even as the country's victorious Islamist-led rebels stepped up contacts with governments that deemed ousted president Bashar al-Assad a pariah.
Assad fled Syria just over a week ago following a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), more than 13 years after his crackdown on democracy protests precipitated one of the deadliest wars of the century.