(Bloomberg) -- The rebel group that toppled Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad tasked Mohammed Al Bashir to form a transitional government, Syrian television reported.
Al Bashir will form a government to manage the transition period and “avoid slipping into chaos,” the report said, without providing further details.
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Al Bashir, a trained engineer, is the head of a quasi-government set up in 2017 by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, an Islamist group that ousted Assad’s government over the weekend. The administration was headquartered in Idlib to govern the northwestern Syrian city and other territories controlled by HTS.
That government is not internationally recognized and was funded by HTS through taxes and fees collected via the Bab Al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, according to media reports.
Al Bashir, who comes from Idlib, was minister of development in the opposition-run government until he was named prime minister earlier this year, according to the so-called Syrian Salvation government website.
The move to task him with forming a transitional government came after a meeting between Al Bashir, HTS’s leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa and current Prime Minister Ghazi al-Jalali, according to Arabiya TV.
While Al-Sharaa, previously known by his nom de guerre as Mohammed Al-Jolani, is the face of HTS, he remains the head of the military operations and will likely play a major role in domestic and international politics.
--With assistance from Paul Wallace.
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