Rebel-backed figure takes charge as Syria's interim prime minister

DAMASCUS: Syria's new interim leader announced on Tuesday he was taking charge of the country as caretaker prime minister with the backing of the former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad three days ago.

In a brief address on state television, Mohammed al-Bashir, a figure little known across most of Syria who previously ran an administration in a pocket of the northwest controlled by rebels, said he would lead the interim authority until March 1.

"Today we held a cabinet meeting that included a team from the Salvation government that was working in Idlib and its vicinity, and the government of the ousted regime," he said.

"The meeting was under the headline of transferring the files and institutions to caretake the government."

Bashir ran the rebel-led Salvation Government before the 12-day lightning rebel offensive swept into Damascus.

Behind him were two flags - the green, black and white flag flown by opponents of Assad throughout the civil war, and a white flag with the Islamic oath of faith in black writing, typically flown in Syria by Sunni Islamist fighters.

In the Syrian capital, banks reopened for the first time since Assad's overthrow. Shops also opened again, traffic returned to the roads, cleaners were out sweeping the streets and there were fewer armed men about.

Two sources close to the rebels said their command had ordered fighters to withdraw from cities, and for police and internal security forces affiliated with the main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Shams (HTS) to deploy there.

HTS is a former al Qaeda affiliate that led the anti-Assad revolt and has lately downplayed its jihadist roots.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington fully supports Syria's political transition process and wants it to lead to inclusive and non-sectarian governance.

U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer told Reuters Washington was still working out how it will engage with the rebel groups and added that as yet there had been no formal change of policy and that actions were what counted.

U.S. CAUTION

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to say whether Washington would change HTS's designation as a foreign terrorist organization, which prevents the U.S. from assisting it.

"We have seen over the years any number of militant groups who have seized power, who have promised that they would respect minorities, who have promised that they would respect religious freedom, promised that they would govern in an inclusive way, and then see them fail to meet those promises," he said.

Miller said the United States had asked HTS to help locate and free American journalist Austin Tice, who was kidnapped in Syria in 2012. He said this was a "priority" for Washington.

After Assad was toppled on Sunday, people rushed to Sednaya, a prison north of Damascus, where rights groups said torture and mass executions had been common, and freed several hundred detainees.

Rescuers digging for hidden cells at Sednaya also found dozens of corpses and people searching for missing relatives examined disfigured bodies lying in a darkened hospital morgue in the capital.

Blinken said the transition process must prevent Syria being used as a base for terrorism and ensure any chemical or biological weapons stocks are safely destroyed.

Finer said U.S. troops in northeastern Syria as part of a counter-terrorism mission would be staying there, and the top U.S. general responsible for the Middle East visited them on Tuesday, as well as U.S.-backed Kurdish Syrian forces (SDF).

Early on Wednesday, the SDF announced it had reached a ceasefire agreement in the northern city of Manbij with Syria's Turkey-backed rebels through a U.S. mediation "to ensure the safety and security of civilians."

The Kremlin said on Monday Russian President Vladimir Putin had decided to grant Assad asylum and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told U.S. network NBC News in an interview aired on Tuesday that the deposed leader had been transported to Russia very securely.

Asked whether Russia would hand over Assad for trial, Ryabkov said: "Russia is not a party to the convention that established the International Criminal Court."

ISRAELI INCURSION

Israeli airstrikes have hit bases of the Syrian army, whose forces had melted away in the face of the rebel advance.

The Israeli military said it had struck most of Syria's strategic weapons stockpiles in the past 48 hours and Defence Minister Israel Katz said it aims to impose a "sterile defence zone" in southern Syria that would be enforced without a permanent troop presence.

Israel, which has sent forces across the border into a demilitarised zone inside Syria, acknowledged on Tuesday that troops had also taken up some positions beyond a buffer zone established following the 1973 Middle East war, though it denied they were advancing towards Damascus.

Israel's incursion, condemned by Turkey, Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, creates an additional security problem for the new administration, although Israel says its intervention is temporary.

In a sign foreigners are ready to work with HTS, the U.N. envoy to Syria played down its designation as a terrorist organisation.

"The reality is so far that HTS and also the other armed groups have been sending good messages to the Syrian people ... of unity, of inclusiveness," Geir Pedersen said in Geneva.

Syria's new interim leader has little political profile beyond Idlib province, a mainly rural northwest region where rebels had maintained an administration during the long years that Syria's civil war front lines were frozen.

A Facebook page of the rebel administration says he was trained as an electrical engineer, later received a degree in sharia and law, and had held posts in areas including education.

CELEBRATORY ICE CREAM

Rebuilding Syria will be a colossal task following 13 years of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Cities have been bombed to ruins, swathes of countryside are depopulated, the economy has been gutted by international sanctions and millions of refugees still live in camps after one of the biggest displacements of modern times.

But the mood in Damascus remained celebratory, with refugees beginning to return after many years.

Anas Idrees, 42, a refugee since early in the war, raced from Lebanon to Syria to cheer Assad's fall.

He ventured into the Hamidiyeh Souk in old Damascus to the renowned Bakdash ice cream parlour, where he ordered a large scoop of their signature Arabic gelato, served coated in pistachios.

"I swear to God, it tastes different now," he said after eating a spoonful. "It was good before, but it's changed because now we are happy inside."

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