Leader of rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad is named country’s interim president

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The leader of Syria’s rebels who toppled President Bashar Assad last month was named the country’s interim president on Wednesday as former insurgents cancelled the existing constitution, saying a new charter would be drafted soon.

The appointment of Ahmad al-Sharaa, a rebel once aligned with al-Qaida, as Syria’s president “in the transitional phase,” came after a meeting of the former insurgent factions in Damascus, the Syrian capital.

The announcement was made by the spokesperson for Syria’s new, de facto government’s military operations sector, Col. Hassan Abdul Ghani, the state-run SANA news agency said.

Al-Sharaa had been expected to appear in a televised speech following the meeting, but did not immediately do so, and it remained unclear if he would. The exact mechanism under which the factions selected him as interim president was also not clear.

Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, is the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist former insurgent group that led the lightning offensive that toppled Assad in early December. The group was once affiliated with al-Qaida but has since denounced its former ties, and in recent years, al-Sharaa has sought to cast himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance and promised to protect the rights of women and religious minorities.

The United States had previously placed a $10 million bounty on al-Sharaa but canceled it last month after a U.S. delegation visited Damascus and met with him. Top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf said after the meeting that al-Sharaa came across as “pragmatic.”

There was no immediate reaction by the Arab world or beyond on al-Sharaa’s appointment, which had been expected. Western nations, although they have moved to restore ties with Damascus after Assad was overthrown, are still somewhat circumspect about Syria’s new Islamist rulers.

Abdul Ghani, the spokesman, also announced on Wednesday the cancelation of the country’s constitution — adopted in 2012, under Assad’s rule — and said that al-Sharaa would be authorized to form a temporary legislative council until a new constitution is drafted.

All the armed factions in the country would be disbanded, Abdul Ghani said, and would be absorbed into state institutions.

Since Assad’s fall, HTS has become the de facto ruling party and has set up an interim government largely composed of officials from the local government it previously ran in rebel-held Idlib province.

The interim authorities have promised they would launch an inclusive process to set up a new government and constitution, including convening a national dialogue conference and invite Syria’s different communities, though no date has been set.

As the former Syrian army collapsed with Assad’s downfall, al-Sharaa has called for creation of a new unified national army and security forces, but questions have loomed over how the interim administration can bring together a patchwork of former rebel groups, each with their own leaders and ideology.

Even knottier is the question of the U.S.-backed Kurdish groups that have carved out an autonomous enclave early in Syria’s civil war, never fully siding with the Assad government or the rebels seeking to topple him. Since Assad’s fall, there has been an escalation in clashes between the Kurdish forces and Turkish-backed armed groups allied with HTS in northern Syria.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces were not present at Wednesday’s meeting of the country’s armed factions Wednesday and there was no immediate comment from the group.

At the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos this month, Asaad al-Shibani, Syria’s new foreign minister and HTS official, said the country needs the international community’s help as it begins rebuilding after nearly 14 years of brutal civil war.

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Sewell reported from Beirut.