Sitting in the police headquarters of Homs, in an office that, until last week, was run by the feared intelligence network of Bashar al-Assad, Alaa Omran is holding court.
A former regime police chief turned Islamist rebel commander, he faces an unenviable task: managing a tricky transition from five decades of brutal rule by the Assad family. Their stunning defeat, by a hodgepodge of rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a group that was previously aligned with al-Qaeda – has left a security vacuum that needs to be filled quickly. It is a quandary facing every city across Syria: who will rule and how?
