After Assad’s ouster, Syrian insurgent chief tightens his grip on the state

By Timour Azhari, Maya Gebeily, Tom Perry

DAMASCUS/BEIRUT (Reuters) -Insurgent chief Ahmad al-Sharaa’s Islamist group is stamping its authority on Syria’s state with the identical lightning pace that it seized the nation, deploying police, putting in an interim authorities and assembly overseas envoys – elevating considerations over how inclusive Damascus’ new rulers intend to be.

Since Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group swept Bashar al-Assad from energy on Sunday on the head of a insurgent alliance, its bureaucrats – who till final week had been operating an Islamist administration in a distant nook of Syria’s northwest – have moved into authorities headquarters in Damascus.

The appointment of Mohammed al-Bashir, the pinnacle of the regional authorities in HTS’ enclave of Idlib, as Syria’s new interim prime minister on Monday underlined the group’s standing as essentially the most highly effective of the armed teams that battled for greater than 13 years to finish Assad’s iron-fisted rule.

Though it was a part of al Qaeda earlier than breaking ties in 2016, HTS had reassured tribal leaders, native officers, and abnormal Syrians throughout its march to Damascus that it will defend minority faiths, successful broad approval. The message helped clean the rebels advance and Sharaa – higher generally known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani – has repeated it since Assad’s ouster. 

On the workplace of the Damascus governor, its partitions exquisitely embellished with marquetry and stained glass, the person introduced from Idlib to run affairs dismissed considerations that Syria was being moved in direction of an Islamic type of authorities. 

“There isn’t a such factor as Islamic governance. In spite of everything, we’re Muslims and it is civil establishments or ministries,” stated Mohammed Ghazal, a bespectacled 36-year-old civil engineer with a thick beard who was raised within the United Arab Emirates and spoke in close to excellent English.

“We haven’t any drawback with any ethnicity and faith,” he stated. “The one who made the issue was the (Assad) regime.”

Nevertheless, the way in which HTS has gone about shaping the brand new interim authorities – by bringing senior directors from Idlib – has prompted concern for some. 4 opposition sources and three diplomats advised Reuters they had been involved concerning the inclusiveness of the method to date.   

Bashir has stated he’ll solely stay in energy till March. However HTS – which stays labeled as a terrorist group by the US, regional powerbroker Turkey and different governments – has but to spell out key particulars of the transition course of, together with its pondering on a brand new structure.

Sharaa, in a press release to Reuters on Wednesday, stated he would dissolve the ousted regime’s safety forces, shut its prisons, and search out anybody concerned in torture or killing detainees.

Whereas Syrians rejoice the autumn of Assad’s brutal police state, some are voicing fears about what might come.

Wissam Bashir, 28, talking at a Damascus cafe, expressed concern “due to the issues that I am seeing … comparable to the brand new authorities, the unfold of Islamic flags”.

When he took workplace this week, Prime Minister Bashir appeared with two flags behind him – the inexperienced, black and white flag flown by opponents of Assad all through the civil struggle, and a white flag with the Islamic oath of religion in black writing, sometimes flown in Syria by Sunni Islamist fighters. 

Solely the Syrian nationwide flag appeared behind him in an interview he gave to Al Jazeera on Wednesday.

Zakaria Malahifji, secretary basic of the Syrian Nationwide Motion who as soon as served as political advisor to rebels in Aleppo, stated the shortage of session in forming an interim authorities was a misstep.

“You might be bringing (ministers) from one color, there must be participation of others,” he stated. “Syrian society is numerous when it comes to cultures, ethnicities, so frankly that is regarding,” he stated. 

‘RUINS, RUINS, RUINS’

Like different members of the HTS-affiliated Salvation Authorities in Idlib delivered to Damascus to run state our bodies, Ghazal stated he had given assurances to workers and urged them to return to work. “It is a collapsed state. It is ruins, ruins, ruins,” Ghazal stated. 

His priorities for the following three months are getting fundamental providers operating and streamlining the forms. Salaries, which common some $25 a month, can be elevated in step with Salvation Authorities wages. Its minimal wage is $100 a month.

“Syria is a really wealthy nation,” stated Ghazal, requested how this is able to be financed. “The regime used to steal the cash.”     

Policemen introduced from Idlib are directing site visitors in Damascus, making an attempt to revive some normalcy since 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.        

Although HTS is pre-eminent among the many factions which fought Assad, others stay armed, notably in areas on the borders with Jordan and Turkey. 

In the course of the struggle, insurgent factions usually clashed with every, leaving a legacy of rivalries and enmity seen as one in every of many dangers to stability in post-Assad Syria.  

Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Center East Heart, stated HTS “clearly is in search of to keep up the momentum on all ranges”, including that any group of their place, taking up from a collapsed regime in an exhausted nation, would behave broadly the identical approach.

“There are a number of dangers with HTS setting priorities and the tempo for what comes subsequent. One in every of these is to determine a brand new type of authoritarian rule, this time in Islamic garb,” he stated.

However he assessed the variety of Syria’s opposition and society would make it tough for one group to monopolize affect. 

Turkey – an influential backer of the opposition – was additionally eager for a authorities that might win worldwide backing, he stated.

‘WE WILL ONLY STAY UNTIL MARCH’

An opposition supply aware of HTS consultations stated all of Syria’s sects would have illustration in a caretaker authorities. Points 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.  

The Syrian revolt spiralled out of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that toppled autocrats in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, giving rise to turbulent and sometimes violent intervals of transition.

In an interview with Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera revealed on Wednesday, Prime Minister Bashir stated “we’ll solely keep till March 2025”.

The priorities, he stated, had been restoring safety and state authority, bringing house tens of millions of Syrian refugees, and offering important providers. 

Requested whether or not Syria’s new structure can be Islamic, he stated “these particulars” can be clarified within the constitution-making course of.

Mohammed Alaa Ghanem, a number one Syrian activist primarily based in Washington and in contact with senior opposition figures, stated HTS was being urged to “be sensible and get the transition proper, as an alternative of letting the second go to their heads by utterly dominating the brand new authorities”.

The Biden administration has urged HTS to not assume computerized management of Syria however as an alternative run an inclusive course of to kind a transitional authorities, in keeping with 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” according to U.N. Safety Council Decision 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 a means of drafting a brand new structure.

It additionally calls totally free and honest elections. 

One diplomat in Damascus stated HTS is the one faction assembly with overseas missions. “We’re involved – the place are all of the heads of the political opposition,” the diplomat stated. “It might be a serious sign to have them right here, and they aren’t right here.”

A second diplomat stated HTS had conveyed good messages to the general public however the diploma of inclusiveness displayed in current days was disturbing. Constitutional reform, particularly, have to be an inclusive course of and can be a very large take a look at. 

The diplomat famous the presence of many different factions which have but to disarm or demobilise as a doubtlessly destabilising issue if an inclusive course of doesn’t happen.

Joshua Landis, a Syria professional and head of the Heart for Center East Research on the College of Oklahoma, stated Sharaa “should assert authority shortly to cease a good into chaos”.

“However he should additionally attempt to scale up his administrative capability by bringing in technocrats and representatives of the various communities,” he stated.