Syria’s new authorities announced Tuesday that they had reached an agreement with the country’s rebel groups on their dissolution and integration into the regular defence forces.
“A meeting of the heads of the groups” with new Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa “ended in an agreement on the dissolution of all the groups and their integration under the supervision of the ministry of defence“, said a statement carried by state media agency SANA and the authorities’ Telegram account.
No details of the armed groups were provided.
#BREAKING: New Syrian Administration announces that Syrian Leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa has reached an agreement with armed factions to dissolve all formations and merge them under the Ministry of Defense. pic.twitter.com/LPAp02NfuS
— Clash Report (@clashreport) December 24, 2024
Syria’s new prime minister, Mohammed al-Bashir, had said last week that the ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Bashar al-Assad‘s army.
On Sunday, Sharaa said the new authorities would “absolutely not allow there to be weapons in the country outside state control”.
That also applied to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, he said.
The country’s new rulers appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency against Assad, as defence minister in the interim government.
Sharaa will face the daunting task of trying to avoid clashes between the myriad groups.
Last week, the military chief of Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – the Islamist group that spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad – told AFP that Kurdish-held areas would be integrated under the new leadership, and that “Syria will not be divided”.
Syria’s historic ethnic and religious minorities include Muslim Kurds and Shiites – who feared during the civil war that any future Sunni Islamist rule would imperil their way of life – as well as Syriac, Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christians, and the Druze community.
Sharaa has told Western officials visiting him that the HTS will neither seek revenge against the former regime nor repress any religious minority.
Thirteen years of civil war in Syria has left more than half a million people dead and fragmented the country into zones of influence controlled by different armed groups backed by regional and international powers.
Druze brigade
But in the southwestern town of Suwayda, a small group of Druze fighters are reluctant to give up their arms. These fighters from the Druze religious minority say they prefer to rely on their own men, rather than the promises made by Syria’s transitional authorities.
Suwayda is the bastion of the Druze, one of the Middle East’s most insular minorities based largely in the borderlands between Syria, Lebanon , Jordan and Israel.
Chekib Azzam is the strongman of Suwayda, with a brigade of around 7,000 fighters under his command.
He welcomes all the fighters who have pledged loyalty to him and states his position clearly.
“Our brigades are all united. But we categorically refuse to give up our weapons, we are in the field, and we are used to the fear and distrust,” he says.
Distrust
Despite the assurances by Syria’s new leader the problems in the southwestern corner of Syria and Hama point to distrust in these uncertain times.
The burning of the Christmas tree in Hama as Christians celebrate Christmas proves that the new leaders don’t have their act together yet, according to analysts . “Words are not enough” analysts say as they commented on the fears of the minorities in Syria
France 24/ Reuters