Syria’s rebel leaders face huge challenges

In Damascus, Syria🇸🇾

Syria’s rebel leaders face huge challenges

The rebels who seized control of Syria must strike a balance between obtaining justice for the victims of atrocities committed under the ousted Assad regime and preventing the newly liberated country from descending into unchecked vengeance.

Syria’s new leaders have promised amnesty for conscripted soldiers who served under the former president, Bashar al-Assad, but Ahmed al-Shara, the leader of the rebel force that toppled him, has stressed that those who helped al-Assad brutalize or slaughter others would be held accountable. “We call on nations to hand over to us whoever of those criminals has escaped to them to subject them to justice,” he said in a post on Telegram.

In Aleppo, the many monuments of the Assad regime that once dotted the city have been toppled, torn or burned. Excitement and frenzy were on full display in some places — yet the city was still gripped by uncertainty and grim reminders of the 13-year civil war.

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For over a decade, tens of thousands of people in Syria were tortured and killed in al-Assad’s vast network of prisons. After he fell, thousands of people searched Sednaya, a notorious prison, for loved ones. My colleagues went inside. Kurdish-led fighters backed by the U.S. said that they had agreed to a U.S.-brokered cease-fire in the city of Manbij in northern Syria, where they have been battling forces backed by Turkey. President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel today. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Turkey and Jordan this week to discuss the developments in Syria.