Residents of Syria’s capital are picnicking on a once-forbidden mountaintop and trading openly in dollars and imported Nescafe. They say the city seems theirs again.

The Qatar Airways flight landed at Damascus International Airport. Many passengers were Syrian nationals coming come for the first time in more than a decade.

The country’s new leaders are pushing to restore a sense of normalcy. But Syria remains under a host of international sanctions imposed during the Assad regime.

The first international flight has landed in Syria since the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad last month. The flight from Qatar landed around 1pm at Damascus International Airport, according to AFP correspondents, the first from the Gulf state in 13 years.

International commercial flights have resumed at Damascus airport, for the first time since the ouster of Basshar al Assad by Islamist-led rebels. Some of the Syrians waiting to welcome their loved ones home had spent more than a decade apart from each other.

First international commercial flight lands at Damascus airport since Assad's fall. Qatar Airways flight arrived on Tuesday, greeted by passengers' families inside the terminal. Many passengers are Syrians returning home after more than a decade.

Jubilant Syrians who had been away for years finally returned to their homeland following the ousting of Bashar al-Assad. Footage shows passengers cheering onboard a Qatar Airways Airbus A330 that flew from Doha to Damascus on January 7.