Syria’s de facto ruler, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who commanded an Islamist-led rebel alliance that toppled long-time dictator, Bashar al-Assad, said drafting a new constitution for the war-shattered country could take around three years.
Al Arabiya television reported on Sunday that the rebel leader al-Sharaa, previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, added in an interview with the Saudi-owned broadcaster that organising elections in Syria may take four years.
“Any meaningful elections will require conducting a comprehensive population census,” he said, to specify the numbers of eligible voters in the country.
Syria has been deeply divided since protests broke out in 2011 against al-Assad’s rule and a civil war with international involvement ensued.
Al-Sharaa had led the al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of the terrorist al-Qaeda network.
He later broke away and founded the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS) that led the insurgent coalition, which overthrew al-Assad earlier this month after a lightning sweep.
HTS had ruled authoritatively in Idlib in Syria’s north west.
Al-Arabiya Sunday quoted al-Sharaa as saying that the HTS disbanding would be announced at a planning conference for national dialogue in Syria.
Since al-Assad’s ouster, al-Sharaa has been at pains to project a moderate image and reach out to the outside world.
“Syria will not be a source of disturbance to anyone,” he told Al Arabiya.
He hoped that the administration of US President Donald Trump, who will take office next month, will lift the sanctions imposed on al-Assad’s Syria.
Russia was a key supporter of al-Assad and has military bases in Syria.
“We don’t want Russia to leave in a way that doesn’t befit its relations with Syria,” he said, according to al-Arabiya.
“Syria has strategic interests with Russia,” he added without elaborating.
Al-Assad, who ruled Syria for more than two decades, fled to Russia as rebels advanced on the capital, Damascus.
The interim government, installed by Syria’s new rulers, has since struggled to re-establish security and pursued a crackdown on al-Assad’s loyalists suspected of atrocities during his region.
Newly-appointed intelligence chief Anas Khattab has said all security agencies will be disbanded and rebuilt.
“The security establishment will be reconstituted after dissolving all security branches and restructuring them in a way befitting our people, sacrifices and their long history,” Syria’s state news agency SANA quoted him as saying late Saturday.
Khattab accused al-Assad’s regime of exploiting the security apparatus to oppress Syrians.
“Our valiant people, with all their different sects and categories, have suffered a lot of injustice and oppression of the former regime through its various security services,” he said.
The transitional government’s security forces have rounded up around 300 suspects in less than a week through ongoing operations in several parts of Syria, a monitoring group reported on Sunday.
The arrests included former officers, security personnel, and informants involved in detaining many Syrians, as well as other suspects in committing abuses under the protection of al-Assad’s regime, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added.
According to the UK-based observatory, Lebanon on Saturday handed over to Syrian authorities around 70 Syrians, including ex-officers, at a border crossing between the two countries.
