Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa attends a meeting with former rebel faction chiefs, as he reached an agreement with them to dissolve all groups and consolidate them under the Defence Ministry, according to a statement from the new administration, in Damascus, Syria on December 24, 2024. Credits: Sana, via Reuters

Syria’s new authorities announced on Tuesday (December 24, 2024) that they had reached an agreement with the country’s rebel groups on their dissolution and integration into the regular defence forces.

Photos published by the state-run SANA news agency showed the country’s new leader, Muhammad al-Jolani [Ahmed al-Sharaa], surrounded by the heads of several armed factions — but not representatives of the Kurdish-led forces in Syria’s northeast.

The meeting “ended in an agreement on the dissolution of all the groups and their integration under the supervision of the ministry of defence”, said a statement carried by SANA and the authorities’ Telegram account.

On Sunday (December 22, 2024), Jolani said the new authorities would “absolutely not allow there to be weapons in the country outside state control”.

“That also applied to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces,” he said.

Last week, the military chief of Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — the Islamist group that spearheaded the offensive that toppled President Bashar al-Assad — said that Kurdish-held areas would be integrated under the new leadership, and that “Syria will not be divided”.

Thirteen years of civil war in Syria has left more than half a million people dead and fragmented the country into zones of influence controlled by different armed groups backed by regional and international powers.

Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir had said last week that the Ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Bashar al-Assad’s army. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa reached an agreement on Tuesday (December 24, 2024) with former rebel faction chiefs to dissolve all groups and consolidate them under the Defence Ministry, according to a statement from the new administration.

Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir had said last week that the Ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Bashar al-Assad’s army.

Mr. Sharaa will face the daunting task of trying to avoid clashes between the myriad groups.

Syria’s new rulers appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency that toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defence minister in the interim government.

Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.

Boys carry bags of bread as people line up on the street to buy in a bakery near Bab Touma, a neighbourhood of the Old City of Damascus, Syria, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Syria’s new rulers have appointed a Foreign Minister, the official Syrian news agency (SANA) said on Saturday (December 21, 2024), as they seek to build international relations two weeks after Bashar al-Assad was ousted.

The ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as Foreign Minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability”.

No details were immediately available about Mr. Shibani.

Syria’s de facto ruler, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has actively engaged with foreign delegations since assuming power, including hosting the U.N.’s Syria envoy and senior U.S. diplomats.

Mr. Sharaa has signalled a willingness to engage diplomatically with international envoys, saying his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development. He has said he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.

The United States, other Western powers and many Syrians were glad to see rebel groups led by Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) topple Assad, but it is not clear whether the Islamist group will impose strict Islamic rule or show flexibility and move towards democracy. HTS was part of al Qaeda until Sharaa broke ties with it in 2016.

Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.

Forces under the command of Mr. Sharaa — better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani — installed a three-month caretaker government that had been ruling a rebel enclave in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib.

Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. U.S. officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.

The war killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.

Damascus:

Syria wants to contribute to “regional peace”, the country’s new authorities said late Friday, after a meeting between leader Ahmed al-Sharaa and a US diplomatic delegation.

“The Syrian side indicated that the Syrian people stand at an equal distance from all countries and parties in the region and that Syria rejects any polarisation,” the statement said.

It said the new authorities wanted to “affirm Syria’s role in promoting regional peace and building privileged strategic partnerships with countries in the region”.

A Syrian official had previously told AFP that the meeting between al-Sharaa — known previously by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani — and the US delegation led by Barbara Leaf, head of the Middle East at the State Department, was “positive”.

Al-Sharaa, the leader of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that seized power in Damascus, was previously the target of US sanctions.

But after their first formal contact in Damascus on Friday, Washington announced it had dropped a bounty for his arrest.

“Based on our discussion, I told him that we were dropping the offer of a reward,” Leaf told reporters.

She said she told the new Syrian leader of the “critical need to ensure that terrorist groups cannot pose a threat inside Syria or outside, including to the United States and our partners in the region”.

He “committed to doing so”, she said, adding he had appeared to her as “pragmatic”.

HTS, which leads the victorious coalition of armed groups in Damascus, claims to have broken with jihadism and has sought to reassure people of its ability to revive the country after nearly 14 years of civil war.

France, Germany, Britain, and the United Nations have also sent emissaries to Damascus in recent days to establish contacts with the new authorities.

The West is wary of the risk of fragmentation of the country and the resurgence of the jihadist group Islamic State, which has never been completely eradicated there.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)