December 11th, 2024: Who’s Running Syria’s New Government? & Fighter Jets For Kim
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What is the latest news from Syria?
I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. We'll begin today's show with the latest news from Syria, where a new interim government is taking shape under a relatively unknown figure, Mohammad al-Bashir. This development comes as Israel intensifies its campaign, dismantling what remains of the former President Assad's war machine. Later in the show, the UN's Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, is back in the news for its links to the Iranian-backed terrorist group, Hamas. Newly uncovered documents reveal that top administrators at UNRWA schools were, in fact, Hamas fighters. Not that the UN is going to care. Plus, new developments in the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea, as reports suggest that Russia is supplying fighter jets to Pyongyang in exchange for thousands of North Korean troops.
And in today's Back of the Brief, we'll have the latest on the slaying of the UnitedHealthcare CEO as the man suspected of killing him is fighting extradition from Pennsylvania to New York to face the murder charges. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. As the dust settles in Syria following the overthrow of the Assad regime, the outlines of a new government are beginning to take shape. Now, Syrian state television reported on Tuesday that the Coalition of Islamist Rebels have named Mohammed al-Bashir as Syria's new caretaker or interim prime minister. In that role, he'll oversee a transitional Syrian government until March of 2025, when the rebels... hoped to establish a more permanent administration chosen by the Syrian people, and that's according to a report from Bloomberg.
Who is Mohammed al-Bashir and what is his role?
While an unknown on the international stage, al-Bashir has a long history with the dominant militant rebel group in Syria known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which led the 12-day revolt against Assad. A former electrical engineer, Al Bashir, has been serving as the head of a quasi-government setup by HTS in 2017 called the Syrian Salvation Government, or SSG, because you have to have an acronym. Headquartered in the Idlib province, the SSG has governed territory in rebel-held areas in northwestern Syria for the better part of seven years, providing assistance to Syrians that were cut off from government services during the civil war. al-Bashir served in a number of ministerial positions over the years before being named the prime minister of SSG last January.
The decision to tap him to lead the transitional government reportedly came after a meeting earlier this week between al-Bashir, HDS leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, and the outgoing Syrian prime minister. Speaking with al-Jazeera following his appointment, al-Bashir said the transitional government will be made up of members of both the previous administration and officials from the SSG in order to provide some stability and, quote, facilitate all the necessary works for the next two months until we have a constitutional system to be able to serve the Syrian people, end quote. Al-Bashir's appointment appears to have brought a fragile sense of stability back to Syria. The capital of Damascus showed signs of a return to normalcy on Tuesday, with banks and shops reopening. But there remain widespread concerns over a return to sectarian violence and a resurgence of extremism, particularly among the international community.
Critically, it remains unclear who will take over from al-Bashir come March and how al-Julani, a former al-Qaeda operative, will position himself within the new power structure. But whatever the new government ends up looking like, it's going to need to build its military back from scratch thanks to a series of preemptive strikes by Israel.
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