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After more than half a century of rule by the Assad family Syriahe was a little known local politician appointed as the country’s interim leader and has the task of establishing a stable government.
Three days after the end of the rebellion an all-out offensive forcing Bashar Al-Assadwho succeeded his father as ruler, out of Syria and out of office, the country seeks to secure peaceful transition of power.
Mohammed al-Bashir, a politician who has been in charge of the rebel-controlled province of Idlib in northwestern Syria since January of this year, is responsible for that transition, from where the offensive began.
In a brief address on state television on Tuesday, he announced that representatives of the rebels and the ousted government had agreed to keep him until March 1.
“Today we held a cabinet meeting in which there was a team from the rescue government that worked in Idlib and its vicinity and the government of the deposed regime,” he said.
“The meeting was under the title of transferring files and institutions to the care of the government.”
As he spoke, banks and shops reopened in the Syrian capital, Damascus, for the first time since the fall of the Assad regime. Traffic was back on the road, and street sweepers were sweeping the streets.
below, The Independent look at what is known about Mr. al-Bashir.
Born in 1983, Syria’s new interim leader has little political profile outside of Idlib province, where rebels maintained an administration during the long years when Syria’s front lines were frozen.
On the Facebook page of the rebel administration, it is written that he was trained as an electrical engineer, that later in 2007 he received a degree in Sharia and law from the University of Aleppo, and that he held jobs in fields including education.
He also has qualifications in English and administrative planning and project management.
After the civil war broke out in Syria, he became the director of the Al-Amal Educational Institute, which provided education to war-affected children.
Mr. al-Bashir held a number of ministerial positions in Syria’s Salvation Government, which was a pocket civilian administration in Syria’s northwest Idlib province controlled by HTS.
He has been the Prime Minister of the Syrian Salvation Government since January 2024.
It remains unclear who will take over from Mr al-Bashir after March next year, and despite a relatively stable few days since the end of Assad’s rule, there remain concerns that instability and violence could follow.
While pointing to positive early signals, European UnionNew foreign minister Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday that there are legitimate concerns about the risk of sectarian violence in Syria and the resurgence of extremism in the country.