Syria: the United States has established “direct” contact with Islamist rebels | Post-Assad, new era in Syria

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday that his country had established “direct contact” with Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTC), the Islamist group at the head of the coalition that seized power in Syria, leading to the fall by Bashar Al-Assad.

Turkey, a major player in the conflict in Syria and support of the new authorities, has also reopened its embassy in Damascus after more than 12 years of closure.

Traffic police under the new authorities were deployed on Saturday to the streets of the capital, where municipal workers are cleaning the roads. Most businesses have reopened, including the famous Al-Hamidiyé souk in old Damascus, according to correspondents of theAFP on site.

We need to quickly restart activity in the souksays Amjad Sandouq, a trader. The regime fell, but the state did not fall, thank God.

During an 11-day offensive launched from Idlib (north-west), a coalition of rebel factions led by the radical Sunni group HTC took most of the country, including Damascus, from government forces, ending a conflict on December 8. half century of power of the Assad family.

Led by Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani, HTC claims to have broken with jihadism, but remains classified terrorist by several Western capitals, including Washington.

We have been in contact with HTC and other partiesMr. Blinken told reporters in Aqaba, Jordan.

He did not provide further details on the circumstances of these exchanges, but when asked if the United States had a direct link, he replied: Contact direct, oui.

Mr. Blinken specified that this contact was notably part of efforts to locate Austin Tice, an American journalist kidnapped in 2012 at the start of the civil war in Syria.

Mr. Blinken was wrapping up a regional tour that took him to Türkiye, Iraq and Jordan, countries neighboring Syria.

In Aqaba, Mr. Blinken participated in discussions bringing together Arab, European, Turkish diplomats and the special envoy of theHIM for Syria Geir Pedersen, who agreed that the transition process must to be directed […] by the Syrians themselves and achieve an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative governmentaccording to a joint press release.

They further stressed that Syria, under international sanctions, had finally the chance to end decades of isolation and insisted on the importance of fighting terrorism and extremism.

Guarantee the rights of all

Faced with concerns from the international community, the new prime minister in charge of the transition until March 1, Mohamed Al-Bashir, promised this week a rule of law and to “guarantee the rights of all”.

Turkey, which welcomed the fall of Bashar Al-Assad, reopened its embassy in Damascus on Saturday.

The chancellery closed in March 2012, a year after the start of the civil war in Syria, triggered by the repression of pro-democracy demonstrations and during which Ankara took up the cause of the rebels.

United, united, united, the Syrian people are unitedhas become the leitmotif of Syrians since Mr. Assad fled with his family to Russia.

But the jubilation is accompanied by the painful quest of Syrians who are looking for their loved ones who disappeared during the decades of repression by Assad, accused of the worst abuses.

Several armed groups and international powers have been involved in the war in Syria, which has left more than half a million dead, pushed some six million Syrians, or a quarter of the population, to flee, and fragmented and devastated the country.

Jolani, whose real name is Ahmad Al-Chareh, for his part denounced the incursion of Israeli troops into the south of the territory after the fall of Assad but affirmed that his country was too exhausted by war to engage in a new conflict.

Lebanese Hezbollah said it hoped that the new authorities would not normalize their relations with Israel, the sworn enemy of the pro-Iranian Shiite movement.

Other Israeli strikes

Israel carried out new strikes on military sites of the old regime in Damascus and its suburbs, destroying a scientific institute and a military airportaccording to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).

L’OSDH has identified 61 strikes in less than five hours Saturday evening from Israel, bringing to 446 the total number of air raids since December 8.

Israel continues its intensification of airstrikes against Syrian territory, in particular to completely destroy tunnels under the mountains containing ballistic missile warehousesadded theOSDHspecifying that fragmentation missiles had been used.

These tunnels also contain ammunition, mortar shells and other military equipmentaccording toONGbased in the United Kingdom but with an extensive network of sources inside Syria.

In northeast Syria, the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) welcomed Assad’s fall.

While the Kurdish community suffered discrimination for decades during Assad’s rule, the leader of FDSMazloum Abdi, called on Saturday on X the Kurdish parties to participate in building the future of a democratic and pluralist Syria.

In western Syria, at least four fighters from a faction of the ruling coalition were killed in an ambush in a stronghold of the ousted president, according to theOSDH.