Syrian rebels grant amnesty to Assad conscripts as leaders discuss transfer of power
Rebel leader al-Golani touts experience of administration over small Idlib region; Tehran insider claims Assad became a burden, regime leaked location of Iranian commanders
Syrian rebels on Monday said they would grant amnesty to conscripted soldiers who fought for ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s regime, as their leader began setting up a transitional government.
The amnesty granted by the rebels will not apply to officers, according to the statement posted on Telegram by the Military Operations Command, the joint operations room of opposition factions that led the lightning-fast offensive that ousted Assad.
The leader of the rebels, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, met with outgoing Syrian prime minister Mohammed al-Jalali and discussed the “transfer of power,” the rebels said.
A short video of the meeting showed it was also attended by Mohammed al-Bashir, who headed the rebels’ “Salvation Government” in their northwest Syria bastion and who was tapped as the acting prime minister.
Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham HTS had been administering swaths of Idlib province and parts of neighboring areas until November 27, when it led a lightning offensive, seizing government-held territory and capturing Damascus on Sunday.
In the video, Golani was heard telling the outgoing prime minister that although “Idlib is a small region lacking resources,” authorities there “have a very high level of experience after starting with nothing.”
Here’s a snippet of the lengthy #Jolani, Bashir, Jalali meeting in #Damascus — facilitating the #HTS-directed transition away from #Assad’s government. https://t.co/mGtUBYhbfz pic.twitter.com/fySa5fvJlt
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) December 9, 2024
Jalali said Sunday he was ready to “cooperate” with any leadership chosen by the people and for any handover process. He said the handover could take days to carry out.
Assad’s Baath party said Monday it will back the process.
“We will remain supportive of a transitional phase in Syria aimed at defending the unity of the country,” party Secretary-General Ibrahim al-Hadid said in a statement.
The Salvation Government, which has ministries, departments and judicial and security authorities, was set up in 2017 to assist people cut off from government services in the stronghold.
Authorities from the area have already started returning services including water, communications, and power to Syria’s second city Aleppo after the rebels seized it in their lightning offensive.
Meanwhile, Syria’s banks will reopen on Tuesday and staff have been asked to return to offices, according to a Syrian central bank source and two commercial bankers.
At the Interior Ministry that ran Assad’s police force, furniture had been looted and staff stayed away. Armed rebels were there to maintain order.
The oil ministry called on all employees in the sector to head to their workplaces starting on Tuesday, adding that protection would be provided to ensure their safety.
The advance of a militia alliance spearheaded by HTS, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, was a generational turning point for the Middle East.
It ended a war that 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. Refugees could finally go home from camps across Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
The United Nations said that whoever ends up in power in Syria must hold the Assad regime to account. But how Assad might face justice remains unclear, especially after the Kremlin refused on Monday to confirm reports by Russian news agencies that he had fled to Moscow.
Iran, another key ally that provided military support for Assad’s brutal crackdown on his opposition, said it expected its “friendly” ties with Syria to continue, with its foreign minister saying the ousted president “never asked” for Tehran’s help against the rebel offensive.
An insider in Iran’s government told the Financial Times Monday that Assad had become “an obstacle, a liability — some even called him a betrayer,” citing inaction toward reported Israeli strikes on Iranian targets inside Syria.
“People within his regime were leaking information about the whereabouts of Iranian commanders,” the insider claimed. “Assad turned his back on us when we needed him most.”
Despite the fall of Assad, conflict was at risk of persisting, with the US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces (SDF) saying they were still fighting Turkish-backed rebels in the northern Syrian city of Manbij.
The SDF said a Turkish drone struck in the village of al-Mistriha in eastern Syria, killing 12 civilians, including six children.
Turkey views the SDF, which is primarily composed of a Syrian Kurdish militia, as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. The SDF has also been a key ally of the United States in the war against the Islamic State group.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday expressed hope for a new era in Syria in which ethnic and religious groups can live peacefully under an inclusive government. But he warned against allowing Islamic State or Kurdish fighters to take advantage of the situation, saying Turkey will prevent Syria from turning into a “haven for terrorism.”
