Syria’s new interim leader announced on Tuesday he was taking charge of the country as caretaker prime minister with the backing of the former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad three days ago.
In a brief address on state television, Mohammed al-Bashir, a figure little known across most of Syria who previously ran an administration in a small pocket of the northwest controlled by rebels, said he would lead the interim authority until March 1.
“Today we held a cabinet meeting that included a team from the Salvation government that was working in Idlib and its vicinity, and the government of the ousted regime,” he said.
“The meeting was under the headline of transferring the files and institutions to caretake the government.”
Behind him were two flags: the green, black and white flag flown by opponents of Assad throughout the civil war, and a white flag with the Islamic oath of faith in black writing, typically flown in Syria by Sunni Islamist fighters.
In the Syrian capital, banks reopened for the first time since Assad’s overthrow. Shops were also reopening, traffic returned to the roads, construction workers were back fixing a roundabout in the Damascus city centre and street cleaners were at work.
There was a notable decrease in the number of armed men on the streets. Two sources close to the rebels said their command had ordered fighters to withdraw from cities and for police and internal security forces affiliated with the main rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Shams (HTS), to deploy.
Israel intensifies raids
The steps toward normalization came despite intense airstrikes from Israel targeting bases of the Syrian army, whose forces had melted away in the face of the lightning rebel advance that ousted Assad.
Israel, which has sent forces across the border into a demilitarized zone inside Syria, said its airstrikes were aimed at keeping weapons from falling into hostile hands. It denied reports that its forces had advanced beyond the buffer zone into the countryside southwest of Damascus.
Syrian security sources said the Israeli incursion reached about 25 kilometres southwest of Damascus.
A Syrian security source said Israeli troops reached Qatana, which is 10 kilometres into Syrian territory east of a demilitarized zone separating the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria.
Lt.-Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, said troops remained in the buffer zone and “a few additional points” in the vicinity but he denied there had been any significant push into Syria beyond the separation area.
“IDF forces are not advancing towards Damascus. This is not something we are doing or pursuing in any way,” he told a briefing with reporters.
Israeli naval missile ships also destroyed the Syrian military fleet in a Monday night operation as part of a broad campaign to eliminate strategic threats to Israel, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday during a visit to a naval base in Haifa.
In a statement, he said Israeli forces were establishing themselves in the buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and said he had ordered a “sterile defensive zone” to be created in southern Syria, without a permanent Israeli presence, to prevent any terrorist threat to Israel.
In a sign foreigners are ready to work with HTS, the UN envoy to Syria played down its designation as a terrorist organization. The former al-Qaeda affiliate that led the anti-Assad revolt has lately emphasized its break with its jihadist roots.
“The reality is so far that HTS and also the other armed groups have been sending good messages to the Syrian people … of unity, of inclusiveness,” Geir Pedersen told a briefing in Geneva.
Airstrikes wipe out Syrian army assets, sources say
Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have condemned the incursion. Saudi Arabia said the move would “ruin Syria’s chances of restoring security.”
Regional security sources and officers within the now-fallen Syrian army said heavy Israeli airstrikes continued against military installations and airbases across Syria overnight, destroying dozens of helicopters and jets, as well as Republican Guard assets in and around Damascus.
The rough tally of 200 raids had left nothing of the Syrian army’s assets, they said.
Israel said its airstrikes would carry on for days but told the UN Security Council that it was not intervening in Syria’s conflict. It said it had taken “limited and temporary measures” solely to protect its security.
With the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, Syrians searched for those who went missing under his regime — especially in the country’s notorious Sednaya prison. Meanwhile, the world waited to see what a new government could mean for the future.
The United Nations Security Council met behind closed doors late on Monday, and diplomats said they were still in shock at how quickly Assad’s overthrow unfolded, after a 13-year civil war that was locked in stalemate for years.
“Everyone was taken by surprise, everyone, including the members of the council. So we have to wait and see and watch … and evaluate how the situation will develop,” Russian UNÂ Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters after the meeting.
Mood in Damascus still celebratory
Russia played a major role in supporting Assad’s government and helping it fight the rebels. The Syrian leader fled Damascus for Moscow on Sunday, ending more than 50 years of brutal rule by his family.
With the mood in Damascus still celebratory, Assad’s prime minister, Mohammed Ghazi al-Jalali, on Monday agreed to hand power to the rebel-led Salvation Government, an administration based in rebel-held territory in northwest Syria.
The main rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, met with Jalali and Vice-President Faisal Mekdad to discuss the transitional government, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters. Jalali said the handover could take days to carry out.
Al Jazeera television reported the transitional authority would be headed by Mohamed al-Bashir, who has headed the Salvation Government.
The steamroller advance of the militia alliance headed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate, was a generational turning point for the Middle East.
The civil war that began in 2011 killed hundreds of thousands, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble, the countryside depopulated and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
But the rebel alliance has not communicated plans for Syria’s future, and there is no template for such a transition in the fractious region.
