The leader of Syria's rebels who toppled President Bashar Assad last month was named the country's interim president on Wednesday as former insurgents cancelled the existing constitution, saying a new charter would be drafted soon.
The appointment of Ahmad al-Sharaa, a rebel once aligned with al-Qaida, as Syria's president “in the transitional phase,” came after a meeting of the former insurgent factions in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
The spokesperson made the announcement for Syria's new, de facto government's military operations sector, Col. Hassan Abdul Ghani, the state-run SANA news agency said.
Al-Sharaa had been expected to appear in a televised speech following the meeting, but did not immediately do so, and it remained unclear if he would. The exact mechanism under which the factions selected him as interim president was also not clear.
Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, is the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist former insurgent group that led the lightning offensive that toppled Assad in early December. The group was once affiliated with al-Qaida but has since denounced its former ties, and in recent years, al-
Sharaa has sought to cast himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance and promised to protect the rights of women and religious minorities.
The United States had previously placed a USD 10 million bounty on al-Sharaa but cancelled it last month after a US delegation visited Damascus and met with him.
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