West Softening Image of Turncoat Terrorist

U.S., UK Overtures to Golani

Date: 09 December 2024 - 22:14

News ID: ۱۳۴۵۰۸

DAMASCUS (Dispatches) — Syria’s prime minister said Monday that most cabinet ministers are still working from offices in Damascus after militants and takfiri terrorists entered the capital over the weekend and overthrew President Bashar Assad.
But there were already signs of the difficulties ahead for the militant alliance now in control of much of the country, which is led by a former senior Al-Qaeda militant who has promised representative government and religious tolerance.
Meanwhile, some key government services had shut down as state workers ignored calls to return to their jobs, a UN official said, causing issues at airports and borders and slowing the flow of humanitarian aid.
In northern Syria, Turkey said allied militant forces seized the town of Manbij from Kurdish-led forces backed by the United States, a reminder that even after Assad’s departure to Russia the country remains split among armed groups that have fought in the past.
The main rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Muhammad al-Golani, met overnight with Assad’s Prime Minister Muhammad Jalali and Vice President Faisal Mekdad to discuss arrangements for a transitional government, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters.
Al Jazeera television reported that the transitional authority would be headed by Muhammad al-Bashir, who ran the administration in a small pocket of militant-held territory before the 12-day lightning onslaught that swept into Damascus.
Reports said U.S. officials had discussed the merits of removing a $10 million bounty on Golani. He was proscribed by the Trump administration in 2018 when the bounty was placed on his head.
A senior Arab official briefed by the Americans, quoted by the Middle East Eye, said at the discussions had divided officials in the Biden administration.
Later, a senior Biden administration official, when asked about contact with HTS leaders, said Washington was in contact with Syrian groups of all kinds.
As a Syrian “foreign fighter” in his early 20s, Jolani crossed into Iraq to purportedly fight the Americans when they invaded the country in the spring of 2003.
That eventually landed him in the notorious U.S.-run Iraqi prison, Camp Bucca, which became a key recruiting ground for terrorist groups, including what would become Daesh.
Freed from Camp Bucca, Jolani crossed back into Syria and started fighting against the Syrian government, doing so with the
backing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would later become the founder of Daesh.
In Syria, Jolani founded a militant group known as Jabhat al-Nusra, which pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda, but in 2016, Jolani broke away from the terror group, according to the U.S. Center for Naval Analyses.
The UK government could remove Hayat Tahrir al-Sham from the list of banned terrorist groups, cabinet minister Pat McFadden told the BBC.
He said the situation in the country was “very fluid” and if it stabilized, any change in the ban would be a “relatively swift decision”.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was proscribed as a terror organization in the UK after being added as an alias of Al-Qaeda in 2017.
At the Interior Ministry that ran Assad’s police force, furniture had been looted and staff stayed away.
The oil ministry called on all employees in the sector to head to their workplaces starting on Tuesday, adding that protection would be provided to ensure their safety.
Fighters from the remote countryside milled about in the capital, clustering in the central Umayyad Square before Damascus’s great 1,300-year-old mosque.
The Kremlin said Russia has granted political asylum to Assad, a decision made by President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Assad’s specific whereabouts and said Putin was not planning to meet with him.
The Kremlin said it was too early to know the future of Russia’s military bases in Syria, but it would discuss the issue with the new authorities.
Damascus was quiet on Monday, with most shops and public institutions closed. Civilian traffic resumed but there was no public transport. Long lines formed in front of bakeries and other food stores.
There was little sign of any security presence, and reporters saw a few SUVs on the side of a main boulevard that appeared to have been broken into.
In some areas, small groups of armed men were stationed in the streets. A video circulating online showed a man in military fatigues holding a rifle attempting to reassure residents of the Mezzeh neighborhood in Damascus that they would not be harmed.
“We have nothing against you, neither Alawite, nor Christian, nor Shia, nor Druze, but everyone must behave well, and no one should try to attack us,” the fighter said.
Prime Minister Jalali, who remained in his post after Assad and most of his top officials vanished over the weekend, has sought to project normalcy.
“We are working so that the transitional period is quick and smooth,” he told Sky News Arabia TV on Monday, saying the security situation had already improved from the day before.
At the court of Justice in Damascus, which was stormed by the rebels to free detainees, Judge Khitam Haddad, an aide to the justice minister in the outgoing government, said Sunday that judges were ready to resume work quickly.
But a UN official said some government services had been paralyzed as worried state employees stayed home.
The public sector “has just come to a complete and abrupt halt,” said UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria Adam Abdelmoula, noting, for example, that an aid flight carrying urgently needed medical supplies had been put on hold after aviation employees abandoned their jobs.
“This is a country that has had one government for 53 years and then suddenly all of those who have been demonized by the public media are now in charge in the nation’s capital,” Abdelmoula told The Associated Press.
Separately, a Syrian opposition war monitor said a top aide to Assad’s brother, Maher, was found dead in his office near Damascus. A video that circulated on social media purportedly showed Maj. Gen. Ali Mahmoud covered with blood and with his clothes burned. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was not clear if he was killed or died by suicide.