DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The chief of Syria’s rebels who toppled President Bashar Assad last month was named the nation’s interim president on Wednesday as former insurgents cancelled the existing constitution, saying a brand new constitution can be drafted quickly.
The appointment of Ahmad al-Sharaa, a rebel once aligned with al-Qaida, as Syria’s president “within the transitional part,” got here after a gathering of the previous rebel factions in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
The announcement was made by the spokesperson for Syria’s new, de facto authorities’s army operations sector, Col. Hassan Abdul Ghani, the state-run SANA information company stated.
Trusted information and each day delights, proper in your inbox
See for your self — The Yodel is the go-to supply for each day information, leisure and feel-good tales.
Al-Sharaa had been anticipated to look in a televised speech following the assembly, however didn’t instantly accomplish that, and it remained unclear if he would. The precise mechanism below which the factions chosen him as interim president was additionally not clear.
Al-Sharaa, previously generally known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, is the chief of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist former rebel group that led the lightning offensive that toppled Assad in early December. The group was as soon as affiliated with al-Qaida however has since denounced its former ties, and lately, al-Sharaa has sought to solid himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance and promised to guard the rights of ladies and non secular minorities.
America had beforehand positioned a $10 million bounty on al-Sharaa however canceled it final month after a U.S. delegation visited Damascus and met with him. High U.S. diplomat for the Center East, Barbara Leaf stated after the assembly that al-Sharaa got here throughout as “pragmatic.”
There was no rapid response by the Arab world or past on al-Sharaa’s appointment, which had been anticipated. Western nations, though they’ve moved to revive ties with Damascus after Assad was overthrown, are nonetheless considerably circumspect about Syria’s new Islamist rulers.
Abdul Ghani, the spokesman, additionally introduced on Wednesday the cancelation of the nation’s structure — adopted in 2012, below Assad’s rule — and stated that al-Sharaa can be licensed to kind a short lived legislative council till a brand new structure is drafted.
All of the armed factions within the nation can be disbanded, Abdul Ghani stated, and can be absorbed into state establishments.
Since Assad’s fall, HTS has change into the de facto ruling occasion and has arrange an interim authorities largely composed of officers from the native authorities it beforehand ran in rebel-held Idlib province.
The interim authorities have promised they might launch an inclusive course of to arrange a brand new authorities and structure, together with convening a nationwide dialogue convention and invite Syria’s completely different communities, although no date has been set.
As the previous Syrian military collapsed with Assad’s downfall, al-Sharaa has referred to as for creation of a brand new unified nationwide military and safety forces, however questions have loomed over how the interim administration can carry collectively a patchwork of former insurgent teams, every with their very own leaders and beliefs.
Even knottier is the query of the U.S.-backed Kurdish groups that have carved out an autonomous enclave early in Syria’s civil struggle, by no means totally siding with the Assad authorities or the rebels in search of to topple him. Since Assad’s fall, there was an escalation in clashes between the Kurdish forces and Turkish-backed armed teams allied with HTS in northern Syria.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces weren’t current at Wednesday’s assembly of the nation’s armed factions Wednesday and there was no rapid remark from the group.
On the World Financial Discussion board’s annual assembly in Davos this month, Asaad al-Shibani, Syria’s new overseas minister and HTS official, stated the nation wants the worldwide neighborhood’s assist because it begins rebuilding after practically 14 years of brutal civil struggle.
___
Sewell reported from Beirut.
Source link