The main commander of the fighters who toppled Bashar al-Assad said on Wednesday that anyone involved in the torture or killing of detainees during the ousted Syrian president’s rule would be hunted down, and pardons were out of the question.
“We will pursue them in Syria, and we ask countries to hand over those who fled so we can achieve justice,” Abu Mohammed al-Golani said in a statement published on the Syrian state TV’s Telegram channel.
The world is carefully watching to see if Syria’s new rulers can stabilise the country and avoid unleashing violent revenge, after a 13-year civil war fought along sectarian and ethnic lines destroyed the country.
Syria ran one of the most oppressive police states in the Middle East during five decades of Assad family rule. Mr Golani, whose former al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is now the country’s most powerful force, must balance demands for justice from victims with the need to prevent violent reprisals and secure international aid.
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Mohammad al-Bashir, the man installed by Mr Golani’s fighters to lead an interim administration, said he aimed to bring back millions of refugees, create unity and provide basic services. But rebuilding would be daunting with little funding on hand.
“In the coffers there are only Syrian pounds worth little or nothing. One US dollar buys 35,000 of our coins,” Mr Bashir told Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera.
“We have no foreign currency and as for loans and bonds we are still collecting data. So yes, financially we are very bad,” said Mr Bashir, who previously ran a small rebel-led administration in a pocket of northwestern Syria.
Rebuilding Syria is a colossal task following a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, reduced cities to ruins, depopulated the countryside and left the economy gutted by international sanctions. Millions of refugees still live in camps after one of the biggest displacements of modern times.
Since Assad’s fall, Hayat al-Turki has been searching the abandoned cells of Syria’s most notorious prison, the vast Sednaya complex, for any sign of her missing relatives, including her brother who vanished 14 years ago.
“Are these for my brother for example? Do I smell him in them? Or these? Or is this his blanket?” she said, combing through belongings left behind in a cell.
“I was hopeful and optimistic to find someone from my missing prisoners – a brother, an uncle or a cousin – but I did not find. I did not find. I searched the whole prison,” she said “I go into a cell, not even for five minutes, and I suffocate.”
Foreign officials are warily engaging with the former rebels, although HTS remains designated a terrorist organisation by the US, the United Nations, EU and others.
The new government must “uphold clear commitments to fully respect the rights of minorities, facilitate the flow of humanitarian assistance to all in need, prevent Syria from being used as a base for terrorism or posing a threat to its neighbours”, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said.
UN secretary general António Guterres said: “It’s our duty to do everything to support different Syrian leaders in order to make sure that they come together, they are able to guarantee a smooth transition.”
In addition to terrorism bans in place against the former rebels, Syria also remains under US, European and other financial sanctions imposed against Damascus under Mr Assad.
Two senior US congressmen, a Republican and a Democrat, wrote a letter calling for Washington to suspend some sanctions. The most punishing wartime US sanctions are up for renewal this month, and the former rebels have told Reuters they are in touch with Washington about potentially easing them.
A resident of Mr Assad’s family hometown of Qardaha said Sunni Islamist fighters had torched the mausoleum of Mr Assad’s father Hafez over the past two days, instilling fear among villagers from Mr Assad’s Alawite sect who had pledged co-operation with the new rulers.
For refugees, the prospect of returning home has brought a mixture of joy and grief over hardship in exile. Syrians lined up at the Turkish border on Wednesday to head home, speaking of their expectations for a better life following what was for many a decade of hardship in Turkey.
“We have no one here. We are going back to Latakia, where we have family,” said Mustafa as he prepared to enter Syria with his wife and three sons at the Cilvegozu border gate in southern Turkey. Dozens more Syrians were waiting to cross.
US deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said Washington was still working out how it will engage with the former rebels.
“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,” state department spokesman Matthew Miller said. – Reuters