Syria rebels name head of transitional govt

AFP | Damascus, Syria

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The rebels who ousted president Bashar al-Assad and are now in power in Syria appointed a transitional head of government yesterday to run the country until March 1, a statement said.

"The general command has tasked us with running the transitional government until March 1," said a statement attributed to Mohammad alBashir 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 organisation, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric.

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 of course that the good statements and what we are seeing on the ground at the beginning, that this is not followed up in practice in the days and the weeks ahead of us."

The overthrow of Assad, who maintained a complex web of prisons and detention centres 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.

The country now faces profound uncertainty after the collapse of a government that had run every aspect of daily life. 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."

Jolani 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.