Amid ongoing celebrations in Syria marking nearly a year since the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad, information emerged on Friday suggesting that a former intelligence chief and Assad’s cousin may be behind plans to launch uprisings along the Syrian coast against President Ahmed Al-Shar’.

The reports coincided with a large-scale event in Al-Assi Square in Hama, marking a year since the city’s liberation from Assad’s forces. Participants raised a Syrian flag measuring 500 meters long and four meters wide, in what state media SANA described as a symbolic display of national unity.