The smoke rose from the North Korean Embassy for days after the Assad regime fell, the smell of burning documents or other materials wafting through the neighborhood in northeast Damascus. Foreign guards bearing firearms stood watch as diplomats shuffled in and out of the compound. Staff and their family members piled into awaiting vehicles.

Eyewitness accounts paint a picture of a hurried DPRK operation to evacuate personnel from Syria after the rebel takeover this month, shutting down a decades-long mission to a key Middle Eastern partner and likely destroying evidence of cooperation that experts say extends to weapons of mass destruction.