Excerpts from the news:

“I thought once the war ended, our currency would become stronger and our living standards better,” said Saeed al-Khaldi, who transports vegetables across the sprawling city. Damascus’s population has almost doubled since the war started, to over 6 million, as civilians fled violence in other regions. “Instead, we’re living from one crisis to the other.”

The gasoline crisis spells disaster for al-Khaldi. Having lost his furniture store and two homes on the outskirts of the capital in 2013, he’s about to lose his livelihood again. “I spent 19 hours yesterday waiting to get 20 liters of gasoline,” al-Khalidi, 63, said recently on a cool breezy day in Damascus. “It’s not enough to get me around.”

Nearby, Salem Saleh, a 50-year-old government employee, was leaving the vegetable market empty handed.

“I came to buy fruits and vegetables but didn’t because everything is so expensive,” said Saleh. He said he had expected one kilogram of potatoes to cost 300 Syrian pounds (less than 50 U.S. cents). It was selling for 400 pounds because of increased transport fees due to the gasoline shortages. Saleh, who makes 70,000 pounds a month, said he couldn’t afford the 100 pound difference. “The prices are too high for our income.”

The difficulties highlight some of the post war challenges ahead for Assad, who has reclaimed most of the terrain held by the rebels with military help from Russia and Iran. Gulf money that poured into Lebanon after its 1975-1990 civil war helped restore areas completely devastated by the violence.

In addition to the Iranian embargo, Syria has been under sanctions since the government’s violent crackdown on protesters in 2011, crippling its oil industry and squeezing an economy that was already corrupt and mismanaged.

“He has almost won the war in Syria, but he cannot capitalize on the victory mainly due to his partnership with Iran,” said Ayham Kamel, head of Middle East and North Africa research at Eurasia Group. “The Iranians can send plenty of troops to die for Assad and his regime, but what they cannot do is send in funds.”

According to UN estimates, 83 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line, this in a country where bread, petroleum products and staples like tea, rice and sugar are subsidized by the government.

“In Syria, poverty is soaring, basic service infrastructure is damaged or destroyed, and the social fabric is strained to the limit,” said Achim Steiner, a UN administrator, said last month.