Syria’s new prime minister said the Islamist-led alliance that ousted president Bashar al-Assad will guarantee the rights of all religious groups and called on the millions who fled the war to return home.
Assad fled Syria after a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and its allies, which brought to a spectacular end five decades of brutal rule by his clan.
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Syrians across the country and around the world erupted in celebration, after enduring a stifling era during which anyone suspected of dissent could be thrown into jail or killed.
With Assad’s overthrow plunging Syria into the unknown, its new rulers have sought to assure members of the country’s religious minorities that they will not repress them.
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They have also pledged justice for the victims of Assad’s iron-fisted rule, with HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani vowing on Wednesday that officials involved in torturing detainees will not be pardoned.
Half a million people have been detained since the start of the war, with about 100,000 dying either under torture or due to poor detention conditions, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
“We will not pardon those involved in torturing detainees,” said Jolani, now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, urging “countries to hand over any of those criminals who may have fled so they can be brought to justice”.
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In the corridors of Damascus’s main hospitals, thousands of families gathered to try to find the bodies of loved ones captured years ago by the authorities.
“Where are our children?” women cried out as they grasped at the walls, desperate for closure after their years-long ordeal.
Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by many Western governments, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric.
“Precisely because we are Islamic, we will guarantee the rights of all people and all sects in Syria,” said Mohammad al-Bashir, whom the rebels appointed as the transitional head of government.
Asked whether Syria’s new constitution would be Islamic, he told Italian daily Corriere della Sera that “we will clarify all these details during the constituent process”.
Bashir, whose appointment was announced Tuesday, is tasked with heading the multi-ethnic, multi-confessional country until March 1.
After decades of rule by the Assads, members of the minority Alawite offshoot of Shiite Islam, Syrians now face the enormous challenge of charting a new course as they emerge from nearly 14 years of war.
In Aleppo, Syria’s second city and the first major one captured by the rebels in their offensive, shopkeeper Ramadan Dali, 70, said that “we are starting to feel safe.”
Juman Khilaly, 40, said that “there is still a lot of uncertainty” over even the most basic aspects of life, like school for her 10-year-old child and soaring prices.
“Everything is so expensive,” she said.
In the Assads’ home village Qardaha, the tomb of the former leader’s father was set alight, AFP footage showed, with rebel fighters in fatigues and young men watching it burn.
The war has killed more than 500,000 people and forced half the population to flee their homes, with six million of them seeking refuge abroad.
In his interview with Corriere della Sera, which was published on Wednesday, Bashir called on Syrians abroad to return to their homeland.
“Syria is now a free country that has earned its pride and dignity. Come back,” he said.
Syria’s main international airport in Damascus, closed since the rebels overran the capital, will reopen “in the next few days”, its director Anis Fallouh told AFP.
Bashir said Syria’s new rulers would be willing to work with anyone so long as they did not defend Assad.
The United Nations’ envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, urged an inclusive process, telling AFP that his “biggest concern is that the transition will create new contradictions in the manner that could lead to new civil strife”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world body was “totally committed to supporting a smooth transition of power”.
Assad was propped up by Russia, where he reportedly fled, as well as Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.
On Wednesday, the Kremlin said it wanted to see stabilisation in Syria “soon”, as it criticised Israel over hundreds of air strikes it conducted on its neighbour over the past two days.
Some Western governments have also warned against military action by foreign powers.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Syrian “neighbours such as the Turkish and Israeli governments, which are asserting their security interests, must not jeopardise” the transition of power.
France called on Israel to withdraw its troops from the buffer zone separating the annexed Golan Heights from Syrian territory, and Spain urged respect for “the territorial integrity of the country”.
While Assad had faced down protests and an armed rebellion for more than a decade, it was a lightning offensive launched on November 27 that finally forced him out.
The rebels launched their offensive from northwestern Syria on the same day that a ceasefire took effect in the Israel-Hezbollah war in neighbouring Lebanon.
That war, which killed thousands in Lebanon, saw Israel inflict staggering losses in the ranks of Assad ally Hezbollah.
Qatar, which has backed Assad’s opponents, said Wednesday it would reopen its embassy in Damascus “soon”.
Robert Ford, the last US ambassador to Syria, helped spearhead the terrorist designation of HTS in 2012.
But he pointed with hope to post-victory statements by Jolani, including welcoming international monitoring of any chemical weapons that are discovered.
“Can you imagine Osama bin Laden saying that?” said Ford, now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
“I’m not saying trust Jolani… But I sure as hell want to test him on some of these things.”
