Jerusalem: Syria’s new leadership has taken steps to try to unite disparate rebel factions under a single government, the latest move to try to assert authority over the country following their ouster of Bashar al-Assad.
A number of rebel factions have agreed to dissolve themselves and be integrated under the Defence Ministry, according to SANA, the Syrian state-run news service.
Beyond dissolving rebel factions, the man born Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa but formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of the offensive that overthrew the Assad dictatorship, has taken other actions recently aimed at building a new state. His administration has appointed a caretaker prime minister to lead a transitional government until March and has promised that a legal committee would draft a new constitution.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, left, shakes hands with Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani during their meeting in Damascus, Syria, on Sunday.Credit: AP
Disbanding the country’s armed factions was a logical step for a leadership trying to establish a single national military.
“They are trying to build a state,” said Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, which researches global crises. “You can’t build a state while you have a million and one militias running around doing their own things.”
Khalifa, who met Sharaa this week, said she was under the impression that dissolving the rebel factions was a top priority for the new leaders because “wayward factions” were acting outside their command in parts of rural Syria.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani in his rebel days.Credit: Al Jazeera
Pictures posted on social media on the day the rebel unification was announced showed Sharaa meeting with dozens of rebel faction leaders, many of them clad in military uniforms.
Sharaa has participated in official meetings recently wearing a business suit rather than a military uniform. Since his faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, routed Assad, he has presented himself as more of a statesman and less of a rebel leader, and has espoused relatively moderate political positions despite past links to Islamist extremists.
