Mohamed al-Bashir may head new Syria govt

Mohamed al-Bashir may head new Syria govt


Reuters December 10, 2024

print-news
DAMASCUS:

Ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's prime minister said he had agreed to hand power to the rebel-led Salvation Government, as Damascus stirred to life on Monday, a day after the fall of the capital and Assad's escape to Russia.

The imminent transfer of power follows 13 years of civil war and the end to more than 50 years of the Baath party rule, led by the Assad family, leaving Syrians at home and millions of refugees abroad hopeful yet deeply uncertain about their country's future.

With traffic returning to streets and people venturing out after a night-time curfew in Damascus, most shops still remained shut. Fighters from the remote countryside milled about in the capital, clustering in the central Umayyad Square.

Prime Minister Mohammed Jalali told Al Arabiya TV he had agreed to hand power to the 'Salvation Government', an administration based in a small pocket of rebel-held territory in northwest Syria. He, however, added that the handover could take days to carry out.

The main rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, had met overnight with Jalali and Vice President Faisal Mekdad to discuss a transitional government, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters.

Al Jazeera television reported the transitional authority would be headed by Mohamed al-Bashir, who ran the Salvation Government before the 12-day lightning offensive that swept into Damascus. A source close to the rebels in Idlib confirmed Bashir had been nominated.

Syria's banks will reopen on Tuesday and staff had been asked to return to offices, according to a Syrian central bank source and two commercial bankers. The oil ministry called on all employees to head to their workplaces starting on Tuesday, adding that protection would be provided to ensure their safety.

Assad's police state was known for generations as one of the harshest in the Middle East, holding hundreds of thousands of political prisoners. At the Interior Ministry that ran Assad's police force, furniture had been looted and staff stayed away, while armed rebels were there to maintain order.

The advance of a militia alliance spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al Qaeda affiliate, was a generational turning point for the Middle East. It ended a war that killed hundreds of thousands, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times.

The group's leader Jolani, who spent years in US custody as an insurgent in Iraq but later broke with al Qaeda and Islamic State, has vowed to rebuild Syria. "A new history, my brothers, is being written in the entire region after this great victory," he told a huge crowd on Sunday.

The rebels announced on their Telegram channel that they were granting amnesty to all conscript soldiers drafted under Assad. On Sunday, elated inmates poured out of jails. And abroad, refugees could finally go home from camps across Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

One of the final areas to fall to the rebels was the Mediterranean coast, heartland of Assad's Alawite sect and site of Russia's naval base. Two Alawite residents said so far the situation had been better than expected, seemingly without retribution against Alawites.

Near Latakia, a rebel delegation entered the Assad family's hometown of Qardaha and met with elders there, one resident said, describing the interaction as calm. The town is the site of a mausoleum for Assad's father, who seized power in a coup in 1970 and ruled until his death in 2000.

The Kremlin said it was too early to know the future of Russia's military bases in Syria, but it would discuss the issue with the new authorities. The US, which has 900 soldiers in Syria alongside Kurdish-led forces in the east, said its forces hit around 75 targets in airstrikes on Islamic State on Sunday.

COMMENTS

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ