Rhino: Agencies – Families of army officers who served under ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been evicted from their subsidized housing in a residential community to make way for members of the victorious opposition and their families, residents and fighters said.

The Moadamiyeh al-Sham community, which houses hundreds of people in more than a dozen buildings, is one of several communities allocated to officers under Assad.

With the restructuring of the army with forces from the opposition and the demobilization of officers who served under Assad, the evacuation of officers’ residences comes as no surprise.

But the rapid replacement of Assad’s officers by fighters who spent years in impoverished opposition-held rural areas shows the sudden shift in fortunes for supporters of each side in the conflict.

The names of rebel factions affiliated with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which seized the capital Damascus on December 8, were written in paint on the entrances to the buildings, seemingly to identify them to each faction’s fighters.