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 have 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 unusual Syrians throughout its march to Damascus that it might shield minority faiths, successful broad approval. The message helped clean the rebels advance and Sharaa – higher referred to as Abu Mohammed al-Golani – has repeated it since Assad’s ouster.
On the workplace of the Damascus governor, its partitions exquisitely adorned with marquetry and stained glass, the person introduced from Idlib to run affairs dismissed considerations that Syria was being moved in the 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 have no downside with any ethnicity and faith,” he stated. “The one who made the issue was the (Assad) regime.”
Nonetheless, the way in which HTS has gone about shaping the brand new interim authorities – by bringing senior directors from Idlib – has brought on concern for some. 4 opposition sources and three diplomats instructed Reuters they have been involved in regards to the inclusiveness of the method to this point.
Bashir has stated he’ll solely stay in energy till March. However HTS – which stays labeled as a terrorist group by america, regional powerbroker Turkey and different governments – has but to spell out key particulars of the transition course of, together with its considering 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 … corresponding 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 dearth of session in forming an interim authorities was a misstep.
“You’re bringing (ministers) from one color, there needs to be participation of others,” he stated. “Syrian society is numerous by way of cultures, ethnicities, so frankly that is regarding,” he stated.
‘RUINS, RUINS, RUINS’
Like different members of the HTS-affiliated Salvation Authorities 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 is a collapsed state. It is ruins, ruins, ruins,” Ghazal stated.
His priorities for the following three months are getting fundamental companies operating and streamlining the paperwork. Salaries, which common some $25 a month, can be elevated consistent with Salvation Authorities wages. Its minimal wage is $100 a month.
“Syria is a really wealthy nation,” stated Ghazal, requested how this may be financed. “The regime used to steal the cash.”
Policemen introduced from Idlib are directing visitors in Damascus, attempting to revive some normalcy since HTS ordered armed teams out of town. One officer, who didn’t give his identify, stated they have 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.
Throughout the struggle, insurgent factions usually clashed with every, leaving a legacy of rivalries and enmity seen as certainly one of many dangers to stability in post-Assad Syria.
Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Center East Middle, stated HTS “clearly is in search of to keep up the momentum on all ranges”, including that any group of their place, taking on from a collapsed regime in an exhausted nation, would behave broadly the identical means.
“There are a number of dangers with HTS setting priorities and the tempo for what comes subsequent. One in every of these is to ascertain a brand new type of authoritarian rule, this time in Islamic garb,” he stated.
However he assessed the range of Syria’s opposition and society would make it troublesome for one group to monopolize affect.
Turkey – an influential backer of the opposition – was additionally eager for a authorities that would win worldwide backing, he stated.
‘WE WILL ONLY STAY UNTIL MARCH’
An opposition supply acquainted with 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 infrequently violent durations of transition.
In an interview with Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera printed on Wednesday, Prime Minister Bashir stated “we are going to solely keep till March 2025”.
The priorities, he stated, have been restoring safety and state authority, bringing dwelling thousands and thousands of Syrian refugees, and offering important companies.
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 based mostly in Washington and in contact with senior opposition figures, stated HTS was being urged to “be sensible and get the transition proper, as a substitute 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 a substitute run an inclusive course of to kind a transitional authorities, in accordance 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” in step with U.N. Safety Council Decision 2254.
That decision, authorized 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 technique of drafting a brand new structure.
It additionally calls without cost 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 significant 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 latest days was disturbing. Constitutional reform, specifically, should be an inclusive course of and can be a very large check.
The diplomat famous the presence of many different factions which have but to disarm or demobilise as a probably destabilising issue if an inclusive course of doesn’t happen.
Joshua Landis, a Syria skilled and head of the Middle for Center East Research on the College of Oklahoma, stated Sharaa “should assert authority rapidly to cease an honest into chaos”.
“However he should additionally attempt to scale up his administrative capability by bringing in technocrats and representatives of the varied communities,” he stated.
