The prime minister of Syria’s new transitional government has said it is time for people to “enjoy stability and calm” after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.
Mohammed al-Bashir, the former head of the rebel administration in the north-west, was speaking to Al Jazeera after being tasked with governing until March 2025 by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies.
Bashir chaired a meeting in Damascus on Tuesday attended by members of his new government and those of Assad’s former cabinet to discuss the transfer of portfolios and institutions.
It came as the UN envoy for Syria said the rebels must transform their “good messages” into practice on the ground.
The US secretary of state meanwhile said Washington would recognise and fully support a future Syrian government so long as it emerged from a credible, inclusive process that respected minorities.
In 2011, Assad brutally crushed a peaceful pro-democracy uprising, sparking a devastating civil war in which more than half a million people have been killed and 12 million others forced to flee their homes.
Before this week, Mohammed al-Bashir was little known outside the areas dominated by HTS in the north-western provinces of Idlib and Aleppo.
According to his CV, he trained as an electrical engineer and worked at gas plants before the start of the civil war in 2011.
In January, Bashir was appointed prime minister of the Salvation Government (SG), which HTS established to run the territory under its control.
The SG functioned like a state, with ministries, local departments, judicial and security authorities, while maintaining a religious council guided by Islamic law.
Around four million people, many of them displaced from elsewhere in the country, lived under its rule.
When institutions stopped functioning in Aleppo after HTS and its allies captured the city earlier this month at the start of their lightning offensive, the SG stepped in to restore public services.
Technicians reportedly helped repair local electricity and telecommunications networks, security forces patrolled streets, medics volunteered at hospitals, and charities distributed bread.
“It is true that Idlib is a small region lacking resources, but they [SG officials] have a very high-level of experience after starting with nothing,” HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani was heard telling Assad’s former prime minister, Mohammed al-Jalali, in a video of a meeting in Damascus on Monday.
“We will benefit from your experiences. We certainly won’t ignore you,” he added.
On Tuesday, Bashir was pictured chairing a meeting of former SG ministers and ministers who served under Jalali. He was sat in front of the Syrian opposition and the HTS flags.
“[We] invited members from the old government and some directors from the administration in Idlib and its surrounding areas in order to facilitate all the necessary works for the next two months until we have a constitutional system to be able to serve the Syrian people,” Bashir told Al Jazeera afterwards.
“We had other meetings to restart the institutions to be able to serve our people in Syria,” he added.
Also on Tuesday, rebel commander Hasan Abdul Ghani announced his forces have taken control over the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zour. It had previously been captured by Syrian Kurdish troops on Friday.
Meanwhile, life appeared to be slowly returning to normal in the capital Damascus after two days of near-shutdown.
There were many pedestrians and cars out on the streets, and some shops and restaurants were open.
People were also sweeping away spent bullet cases that littered the ground around the central Umayyad Square, where many rebel fighters fired into the air as crowds celebrated the end of Assad’s 24-year rule.
US makes first contact with HTS, urges inclusive governance
The Reuters news agency is reporting that the Biden administration has urged HTS not to assume automatic leadership of Syria, but instead run an inclusive process to form a transitional government.
The agency cited two US officials and a congressional aide briefed on the matter.
The anonymous sources declined to say whether the messages were being sent directly or via an intermediary, but said the communications were conducted in coordinated with the US’s allies in the Middle East, including Turkey.
The US designates HTS, a group formerly allied with al-Qaeda, as a “terrorist” organization.
Washington sent the message that it believes the transitional government should represent the desires of the Syrian people and would not support HTS taking control without a formal selection process for new leaders, according to the officials.
The White House is also in touch with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming team about the situation in Syria, one of the officials added.
Source: BBC
