The leader of the former rebel group that toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was named the country's interim president today, following a meeting of former rebel factions.
The spokesman for the new, de facto government sector of military operations in Syria, Colonel Hassan Abdul Ghani, announced the appointment of Ahmad al-Shara as the country's president "in the transitional phase," the state news agency SANA reported.
The new authorities also announced that all armed groups that participated in the overthrow of Assad, as well as the former army and security services, have been disbanded.
"All military factions have been dissolved... and integrated into state institutions," the SANA news agency quoted military official Hassan Abdel Ghani as saying.
Shaara is tasked with "forming an interim legislative council... until a permanent constitution for the country is decided" after authorities announced that the Assad-era parliament had been dissolved and the 2012 constitution suspended.
Assad's Baath Party, which had ruled Syria for decades, was also dissolved.
Shaara was the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist rebel group that led the lightning offensive that toppled Assad last month. Since Assad’s fall, HTS has become the de facto ruling party and has established an interim government largely made up of officials from the local government it previously led in the rebel-held province of Idlib.
As the former Syrian army disintegrated following Assad's fall, Shaara called for the creation of a new unified national army and security forces, but questions have arisen about how an interim administration can bring together former rebel groups, each with their own leaders and ideology.
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