'We do not want any conflict... with Israel or anyone else'

Syrian rebel leader: Territory will not be used to launch attacks against Israel

Chief of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which ousted Assad regime, pledges commitment to 1974 buffer-zone agreement, says IDF activity in Syria ‘must end’ and Israel ‘has to pull back’

This handout photo provided by Syria's Interim Government shows Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani, now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, meeting with UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen (not pictured) in Damascus on December 15, 2024. (Syrian Interim Government/AFP)
This handout photo provided by Syria's Interim Government shows Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani, now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, meeting with UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen (not pictured) in Damascus on December 15, 2024. (Syrian Interim Government/AFP)

Abu Muhammad al-Julani, the leader of the Islamist group that toppled Bashar al-Assad in Syria, said Monday that Syria will not be used as a launchpad for attacks against Israel and that he is committed to the 1974 agreement that established a demilitarized zone in Syrian territory as a buffer between the two countries.

“We are committed to the 1974 agreement and we are prepared to return the UN [monitors],” Julani told The Times of London, referring to peacekeeping forces that manned the demilitarized zone alongside Syrian troops.

“We do not want any conflict whether with Israel or anyone else and we will not let Syria be used as a launchpad for attacks. The Syrian people need a break, and the strikes must end and Israel has to pull back to its previous positions,” he said.

Julani reiterated his position that Israel — which, in the weeks since the Assad regime fell, has destroyed most of the regime’s military assets, fearing their use by hostile groups, and taken control of the buffer zone — had a right to target Iranian-backed forces prior to the government’s fall earlier this month, but has no legitimate basis to keep operating in Syria.

Speaking to journalists at the prime ministerial headquarters in Damascus, Julani said rebel factions in Syria would be disbanded, and their fighters placed under the defense ministry. He played down the prospect of a Syria run by Islamic law, according to The Times, and vowed to protect minority rights. He also called for sanctions to be lifted so refugees can return.

The long-ruling Assad, an ally of Iran, was toppled in a lightning 11-day rebel offensive spearheaded by the Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS), whose fighters and allies swept down from northwest Syria and entered the capital on December 8.

The leader of Syria’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that headed a lightning rebel offensive snatching Damascus from government control, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, address a crowd at the capital’s landmark Umayyad Mosque on December 8, 2024. (Aref Tammawi/AFP)

Julani, who has recently returned to using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said Monday on the group’s Telegram channel that all the rebel factions “would “be disbanded and the fighters trained to join the ranks of the defense ministry,” adding, “all will be subject to the law.”

Speaking to foreign journalists, the Islamist leader said his nascent government intends to overhaul Syria’s constitution and institutions, but said it will take time, and that the country is not yet ready for elections due to remaining disorder, some 13 years after civil war broke out amid the 2011 Arab Spring.

“People have big ambitions, but today we must think realistically, because Syria has many problems, and they won’t be solved with a magic wand,” Julani said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “It needs patience.”

He also emphasized the need for unity in a country home to different ethnic minority groups and religions, while speaking to members of the country’s Druze community, which makes up about 3 percent of Syria’s prewar population.

“Syria must remain united,” he said. “There must be a social contract between the state and all religions to guarantee social justice.”

Several countries and organizations have welcomed Assad’s fall but said they were waiting to see how the new authorities would treat minorities in the country.

Responding to the possibility of a Syria governed by Islamic law, Julani told The Times, “It will be the natural Syria,” and,“I think Syria will not deeply intrude on personal freedoms,” but noted that “customs” would factor in.

A masked opposition fighter carries a flag of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque in the old walled city of Damascus, Syria, on December 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda, and proscribed as a terrorist organization by many Western governments, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric. Since the toppling of Assad, it has insisted that the rights of all Syrians will be protected.

Speaking to journalists on Monday, Julani bristled at the designation of HTS as a terror group.

“The real terrorist is the one who killed people in Sednaya and dropped barrel bombs,” he said, according to The Wall Street Journal, referring to an infamous government prison.

Additionally, during a second meeting with a delegation of British diplomats, the HTS leader spoke “of the importance of restoring relations” with London. He stressed the need to end “all sanctions imposed on Syria so that Syrian refugees can return to their country,” according to remarks reported on his group’s Telegram channel.

In his conversation with journalists on Monday, Julani also condemned the waves of Israeli airstrikes, following the fall of the Assad regime, which are estimated to have taken out a large majority of that government’s military assets amid concerns that they could be used against Israel in the future.

The Israel Defense Forces has also seized a buffer zone between Israel and Syria that was previously manned in part by Syrian troops, who abandoned their posts amid the regime’s collapse. Israel has repeatedly said that control of the buffer zone is a temporary defense measure amid the chaotic takeover.

On Monday, Julani said that Israel had reason to involve itself in the fighting in Syria while the Assad regime — allied with Iran, which is committed to Israel’s destruction, as well as the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group, with which Israel entered a shaky ceasefire last month — was still standing, but that now “the excuse is gone.”

“There is no justification for the Israelis to bomb Syrian facilities or advance inside Syria,” he said, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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