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Mohammad Al-Bashir
Mohammad Al-Bashir

Syria rebels name interim PM

Turkey won’t let ‘Syria be divided’ • Anger over Zionist strikes • IS kills 54 troops • Tortured bodies found

DAMASCUS: The rebels who ousted president Bashar Al-Assad and are now in power in Syria appointed a transitional head of government Tuesday to run the country until March 1, a statement said. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged all nations to support an “inclusive” political process in Syria, saying the United States would eventually recognize a government if it meets such standards.

“The general command has tasked us with running the transitional government until March 1,” said a statement attributed to Mohammad Al-Bashir on state television’s Telegram account, referring to him as “the new Syrian prime minister”. Assad fled Syria as an Islamist-led rebel alliance swept into the capital Damascus on Sunday, ending five decades of brutal rule by his clan.

Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, the Islamist leader who headed the offensive that forced Assad out, had announced talks on a transfer of power and vowed to pursue former senior officials responsible for torture and war crimes. His group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, is rooted in Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch and is proscribed by many Western governments as a terrorist organization, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric.

Blinken said the future government of Syria should be “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian” after Islamist rebels toppled strongman Assad, a member of the Alawite minority who led a secular dictatorship. Laying out US priorities, Blinken said the new government must “uphold clear commitments to fully respect the rights of minorities” and allow the flow of humanitarian assistance. The United States wanted the next government to “prevent Syria from being used as a base for terrorism”, he added. Although they no longer hold any territory in Syria, the jihadists of the Islamic State group remain active. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS fighters killed 54 government troops after capturing them as they fled across the vast Syrian Desert.

The UN envoy for Syria said the groups that forced Assad to flee must transform their “good messages” into actions on the ground. “They have been sending messages of unity, of inclusiveness,” Geir Pedersen said, adding that in Aleppo and Hama, “we have also seen... reassuring things on the ground”. But “what we need not to see is... that this is not followed up in practice in the days and the weeks ahead of us,” he added.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned of the risks of sectarian violence and a resurgence of extremism. “We must avoid a repeat of the horrific scenarios in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan,” she said. The overthrow of Assad, who maintained a complex web of prisons and detention centers to keep Syrians from straying from the Baath party line, sparked celebrations around the country and in the diaspora around the world.

The civil war that led up to it killed 500,000 people and forced half the country to flee their homes, millions of them finding refuge abroad. Jolani, who now uses his real name Ahmed Al-Sharaa, vowed: “We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people.” He held talks on Monday with outgoing prime minister Mohammed Al-Jalali “to coordinate a transfer of power that guarantees the provision of services” to Syria’s people, according to a statement on Telegram.

Further complicating prospects, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had recorded more than 300 Zionist strikes on the country since Assad’s fall. Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, called on the Zionist entity to stop. “We are continuing to see (Zionist) movements and bombardments into Syrian territory. This needs to stop,” he said.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources around Syria, said Zionist strikes had “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria”. The monitor said the strikes targeted weapons depots, naval vessels and a research center that Western governments suspected of having links to chemical weapons production. In the port city of Latakia, smoke was still rising Tuesday from the wreckage of naval vessels half under water in the harbor, an AFP correspondent reported.

Zionist Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed the military had been operating in Syria in recent days to “destroy strategic capabilities that threaten (the Zionist entity)”. “The navy operated last night to destroy the Syrian fleet with great success,” he said. The Zionist entity, which borders Syria, also sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone east of the Zionist-annexed Golan Heights.

The Zionist entity’s backer the United States said the incursion must be “temporary”, after the United Nations said the Zionist entity was violating the 1974 armistice. The Zionist defense minister said the military had orders to “establish a sterile defense zone free of weapons and terrorist threats in southern Syria, without a permanent (Zionist) presence.”

Syria must never be divided again, and Turkey will act against anyone seeking to compromise its territory, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday. “From now on, we cannot allow Syria to be divided again,” said the Turkish leader. “Any attack on the freedom of the Syrian people, the stability of the new administration, and the integrity of its lands will find us standing against it.”

On Sunday, Turkey’s top diplomat, Hakan Fidan, warned Kurdish fighters not to try to extend their influence in Syria by “taking advantage of the situation” created by Assad’s ouster. Over the past 10 days, Turkish-backed forces in northern Syria have fought an offensive in the north, seizing several Kurdish-held areas.

Turkey has also denounced the Zionist entity for expanding into Syrian territory, reiterating its support for Syria’s “territorial integrity”. “In this sensitive period, when the possibility of achieving the peace and stability that the Syrian people have desired for many years has emerged, (the Zionist entity) is once again displaying its occupying mentality,” Ankara said in a statement.

The fall of Assad has sparked a frantic search by families of the tens of thousands of people held in his security services’ jails and detention centers. As they advanced towards Damascus, the rebels released thousands of detainees, but many more remain missing. A large crowd gathered Monday outside Saydnaya jail, synonymous with the worst atrocities of Assad’s rule, to search for relatives, many of whom had spent years in captivity. Crowds of freed prisoners wandered the streets of Damascus, many maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger.

Rebel fighters told AFP they found around 40 bodies bearing signs of torture inside a hospital morgue near Damascus on Monday, stuffed into body bags with numbers and sometimes names written on them. “I opened the door of the morgue with my own hands, it was a horrific sight: about 40 bodies were piled up showing signs of gruesome torture,” Mohammed Al-Hajj, a fighter with rebel factions from the country’s south told AFP by telephone from Damascus.

AFP saw dozens of photographs and video footage that Hajj said he took himself and showed corpses with evident signs of torture: Eyes and teeth gouged out, blood splattered and bruising. The footage taken in Harasta hospital also showed a piece of cloth containing bones, while a decomposing body’s rib cage peaked through the skin.

The bodies were placed in white plastic bags or wrapped in white cloth, some stained with blood. Corpses had pieces of cloth or adhesive tape bearing scribbled numbers and sometimes names. Some seemed to have been killed recently. While some of the dead were wearing clothes, others were naked.

The United Nations said whoever ended up in power in Syria must hold Assad and his lieutenants to account. UN investigators who for years have been gathering evidence of horrific crimes called Assad’s ouster a “game-changer” because they will now be able to access “the crime scene”. While Syrians were celebrating Assad’s ouster, the country now faces enormous uncertainty, and it is unclear whether the dreams of democracy so many sacrificed their lives for will be realized. – Agencies

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