Good morning. After the fall of Bashar al-Assad two weeks ago, Syria’s de facto government inherited a failed state. The task for rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is formidable: rewrite the constitution, bring the country’s disparate armed factions to heel, persuade international partners that their commitment to a pluralistic democracy is real – and reconstruct a shattered nation.
Events are moving fast: yesterday, Sharaa, who previously went by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, said that his administration would announce their new defence and military structure within days, and reiterated that all armed factions would be dissolved and their weapons brought under state control. Meanwhile, the visiting head of a UN investigative body said that it would likely be possible to gather enough evidence to secure war crimes convictions against members of the Assad regime.
