DAMASCUS: The first flight since the ouster of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad took off on Wednesday from Damascus airport to Aleppo in the country’s north, AFP journalists saw.

Forty-three people including journalists were on board the Syrian Air Airbus plane.

Assad fled Syria as a lightning rebel offensive launched on November 27 wrested from his control city after city.

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His army and security forces abandoned Damascus airport on December 8, and until Wednesday no flights had taken off or landed.

Earlier this week, airport staff were painting on planes the three-star independence flag that became a symbol of the 2011 uprising and which the country’s new rulers have adopted.

In the terminal, the new flag also replaced the one linked to Assad’s era.