The Syrian anti-regime alliance that toppled the Bashar Assad regime has continued its momentum to deploy police, set up an interim authorities and meet overseas envoys to say management within the war-torn nation.
Since the regime’s removing Sunday, senior bureaucrats of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led (HTS) alliance have moved into authorities headquarters in Damascus.
The appointment of Mohammed al-Bashir, the pinnacle of the regional authorities within the HTS’ enclave of Idlib, as Syria’s new interim prime minister on Monday underlined the group’s standing amongst teams that battled for greater than 13 years to finish Assad’s dictatorship.
The HTS has reassured tribal leaders, native officers and abnormal Syrians throughout its march to Damascus that it might shield minority faiths, successful broad approval.
The message helped easy the opposition’s advance and the group’s chief Abu Mohammed al-Golani has repeated it since Assad’s ouster.
At the workplace of the Damascus governor, its partitions exquisitely embellished with marquetry and stained glass, the person introduced from Idlib to run affairs dismissed rumors that Syria would have a non secular type of governance.
“There is no such thing as Islamic governance. After all, we are Muslims and it’s civil institutions or ministries,” stated Mohammed Ghazal, a bespectacled 36-year-old civil engineer who was raised within the United Arab Emirates and spoke in near-perfect English.
“We don’t have any problem with any ethnicity and religion,” he stated. “The one who made the problem was the (Assad) regime.”
Al-Bashir has stated he’ll solely stay in energy till March though HTS has but to spell out key particulars of the transition course of, together with its pondering on a brand new structure.
Al-Golani, in an announcement to Reuters on Wednesday, stated he would dissolve the ousted regime’s safety forces, shut its prisons, and seek out anybody concerned in torture or killing detainees.
While Syrians rejoice the autumn of Assad’s brutal police state, some voiced fears about uncertainties.
Zakaria Malahifji, secretary-general of the Syrian National Movement who as soon as served as political advisor to opposition teams in Aleppo, stated the shortage of session in forming an interim authorities was a misstep.
“You are bringing (ministers) from one color, there should be participation of others,” he stated. “Syrian society is diverse in terms of cultures, ethnicities, so frankly this is concerning,” he stated.
‘Ruins, ruins, ruins’
Like different members of the HTS-affiliated Salvation Government in Idlib dropped at Damascus to run state our bodies, Ghazal stated he had given assurances to workers and urged them to return to work. “It’s a collapsed state. It’s ruins, ruins, ruins,” Ghazal stated.
His priorities for the subsequent three months are getting fundamental providers operating and streamlining the forms. Salaries, which common some $25 a month, can be elevated according to Salvation Government wages. Its minimal wage is $100 a month.
“Syria is a very rich country,” stated Ghazal, requested how this could be financed. “The regime used to steal the money.”
Policemen introduced from Idlib are directing site visitors in Damascus, attempting to revive some normalcy for the reason that HTS ordered armed teams out of the town. One officer, who didn’t give his title, stated they had been stretched skinny, noting they beforehand simply needed to patrol Idlib.
Though the HTS is pre-eminent among the many factions that fought Assad, others stay armed, notably in areas on the borders with Jordan and Türkiye.
During the struggle, anti-regime factions usually clashed with every, leaving a legacy of rivalries and enmity seen as considered one of many dangers to stability in post-Assad Syria.
Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Middle East Center, stated the HTS “clearly is seeking to maintain the momentum on all levels,” including that any group of their place, taking on from a collapsed regime in an exhausted nation, would behave broadly the identical manner.
But he assessed the variety of Syria’s opposition and society would make it troublesome for one group to monopolize affect.
Türkiye – an influential backer of the opposition – was additionally eager for a authorities that would win worldwide backing, he stated.
Meanwhile, an opposition supply aware of HTS consultations stated all of Syria’s sects would have illustration in a caretaker authorities. Issues to be decided within the subsequent three months included whether or not Syria ought to have a presidential or parliamentary system of presidency, the supply stated.
In an interview with Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera printed on Wednesday, Prime Minister Bashir stated, “We will only stay until March 2025.”
The priorities, he stated, had been restoring safety and state authority, bringing residence hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and offering important providers.
Mohammed Alaa Ghanem, a number one Syrian activist primarily based in Washington and in contact with senior opposition figures, stated the HTS was being urged to “be smart and get the transition right, instead of letting the moment go to their heads by completely dominating the new government.”
The Biden administration has urged the HTS to not assume computerized management of Syria however as an alternative run an inclusive course of to type a transitional authorities, based on two U.S. officers and a congressional aide briefed on the primary U.S. contacts with the group.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has stated the transition in Syria ought to result in “credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governance” in line with U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254.
That decision, authorised in 2015, requires a Syrian-led course of facilitated by the United Nations, establishing inside six months non-sectarian governance and setting a schedule for the method of drafting a brand new structure.
It additionally calls totally free and truthful elections.
Source: www.dailysabah.com