After the overthrow of Bashar al-Assadʼs regime in Syria, the opposition began to form an interim government. It will be headed by Muhammed Bashir until the beginning of 2025.
This is reported by Al Jazeera.
Assad-era Prime Minister Mohammed al-Jalali will hand over power to the Salvation Army, based in Idlib. According to the publication, Bashir is close to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, which led the capture of Damascus.
Muhammad Bashir will serve as prime minister until March 1, 2025, Reuters writes, referring to the leaderʼs statement on television on December 10.
The new government is likely to focus on uncontrolled territories, reforms of state institutions and the repatriation of Syrian refugees, says University of San Francisco political science professor Stephen Zuns.
HTS, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, is trying to tone down the rhetoric — offering amnesty to Assadʼs army soldiers and promising to protect religious minorities. At the same time, the countryʼs new leadership assured that high-ranking military personnel and security forces would be "justly punished" for their crimes.
What preceded
Active clashes between the rebels and Syrian troops began on November 27. The offensive was launched by the Syrian Revolutionary Forces in "response to months of continuous attacks on civilians" by the Assad regime in Aleppo province. It was the most intense fighting in northwest Syria since 2020, when government forces seized areas previously controlled by opposition fighters.
In early December, the media reported that the Assadʼs Forces had lost control of Aleppo for the first time since the start of the military conflict that began more than a decade ago. Later, it became known about the loss of the city of Hama, the fifth largest in the country, by the Assad regime. And already on December 8, the Assad regime fell after the opposition attacked the capital Damascus.
The countryʼs prime minister is preparing to hand over the functions of the transitional government to her. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Bashar al-Assad left the post of president of Syria and left the country, adding that he gave the order to transfer power peacefully and before that held negotiations with the participants in the conflict.
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