HTS says 'next step' to disband its armed wing; Netanyahu holds security meeting in occupied Golan: Live updates of developments in Syria

That concludes our live coverage of the events in Syria. Thanks for joining us and goodnight!

⚡ HTS military commander Mourhaf Abu Qasra, known by his nom de guerre Abu Hassan al-Hamwi, called for an end to Israeli incursions and strikes against Syria, AFP reports. Earlier, we reported that, according to the U.N. special envoy to Syria, the Israeli army has bombed Syria 350 times since the Assad regime was toppled less than 10 days ago. 

In an interview in the coastal city of Latakia, Qasra also claimed that the new government wanted to extend its authority over the Kurdish areas of northeastern Syria and that it "refused federalism."

Qasra also said that "the next step" would be the dissolution of armed groups, starting with his own, to merge them into the future military institution.

Druze leader Walid Joumblatt said that the Syrian people were the winners from the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, and that relations between Lebanon and the "new Syrian power" could only be positive.

"We can only deal positively with the new Syrian regime," Joumblatt said during a special meeting of the General Assembly of the Druze Council in Verdun. "We want a democratic, pluralist and diverse Syria, whose people decide its future, and we will help from afar and up close if necessary."

Joumblatt said that he was not afraid, "contrary to some in the media," of seeing "an Islamic fundamentalist regime" replace that of Bashar al-Assad, since he believes that "the Syrian people, who have freed themselves after 61 years of oppression, must be given the opportunity to emerge from 61 years of imprisonment" that followed the reign of the Baath Party, which began in 1963.

Read the full report here. 👈

Ahmad, originally from Idlib, spent years witnessing the grim procession of trucks arriving at the Najha cemetery in Husseiniya, east of Damascus.

“My house is at the cemetery’s entrance. I saw them arriving, day and night, dumping bodies in bags and covering them with earth,” he said, standing at the edge of a massive pit, several meters deep and the size of a football field.

More than a hundred presumed mass graves may lie in this expanse at the far end of Najha cemetery. On Monday, Ahmad came to see up close what he had observed from afar for years without being able to verify it: “Army intelligence checkpoints prevented us from coming here until last week.” For him, there is no doubt: “This is where my two nephews and my son must be, somewhere under our feet.”

Read the full piece by L'Orient-Le Jour's Emmanuel Haddad here. 👈

An international war crimes prosecutor says that evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run "machinery of death" under toppled leader Bashar al-Assad in which he estimated more than 100,000 people were tortured and murdered since 2013.

Speaking after visiting two mass grave sites in the towns of Qutayfah and Najha near Damascus, Stephen Rapp, American lawyer and former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice, told Reuters: "We certainly have more than 100,000 people that were disappeared into and tortured to death in this machine. I don't have much doubt about those kinds of numbers given what we've seen in these mass graves."

"When you talk about this kind of organized killing by the state and its organs, we really haven't seen anything quite like this since the Nazis," said Rapp, who led prosecutions at the Rwanda and Sierra Leone war crimes tribunals.

Read the full report here. 👈

Speaking during a Security Council meeting today, U.N. special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen called for Israel to "cease all settlement activity in the occupied Syrian Golan" and said an end to sanctions would be key to assisting Syria, AFP reports.

Pedersen noted Israel had conducted more than 350 strikes on Syria following the departure of the former regime, including a major strike on Tartous. "Such attacks place a battered civilian population at further risk and undermine the prospects of an orderly political transition," he said. The envoy also warned against plans announced by Israel's cabinet to expand settlements inside the Golan, occupied by Israel since 1967 and annexed in 1981.

Read the full report here.  👈

A German delegation led by Germany's Middle East commissioner Tobias Tunkel held talks with HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, its foreign affairs representative Zaid al-Attar and the transition government's education minister, Reuters reports, citing the German Foreign Office.

At today's meeting the two sides discussed the political transition in Syria and human rights, the Foreign Office said in a statement, adding that the delegation spoke with civil society and religious organizations and inspected Germany's embassy building in Damascus.

"The core of the discussion focused on the political transition and our expectations regarding the protection of minorities and of women's rights, so that we can see peaceful developments in Syria," the statement read. 

A member of Syria's new authorities shouts instructions at a crowd of men waiting to either register or hand over their weapons, at the entrance of a registration centre in the western port city of Latakia, on Dec. 16, 2024. (Credit: Ozan Kose/AFP)

Another photo from Associated Press, also taken in Latakia, shows members of Bashar Assad's army or other pro-government militias lining up to register with Syrian rebels as part of an "identification and reconciliation process" at an army compound.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security meeting in Syria, atop Mount Hermon, on the edge of the Israeli-annexed Syrian Golan Heights, according to statements from his office and the defense minister.

Netanyahu "held today an assessment of the situation on the Hermon ridge," according to the statement from his office. Defense Minister Israel Katz said he and Netanyahu had visited "the summit of Mount Hermon for the first time" since the Israeli army deployed there in the wake of the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

France urged Syria's new rulers to "continue fighting" against Islamic State (IS) extremists who had controlled swathes of the country during one phase of its civil war, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.

French diplomats who went to Damascus to meet the new authorities made clear that Paris would closely watch security in Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad "including continuing the fight against Daesh (IS) and other terrorist groups and preventing the proliferation of the Syrian regime's chemical weapons," it said.

The European Union announced that it will contribute an extra billion euros to fund aid for refugees in Turkey, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in Ankara.

"An extra billion euros is on the way for 2024. This sum will be used in particular to fund healthcare and education for refugees in Turkey and ... will contribute to migration and border management, including the voluntary return of Syrian refugees," Von der Leyen detailed.

"And as things evolve on the ground, we will be able to adapt this billion to new needs that may arise in Syria," she added.

European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen Today that Brussels would intensify its "direct engagement" with Syria's new Islamist-led rulers after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.

Speaking after talks in Ankara with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government is in constant dialogue with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), she said the EU would increase its own contact with the group.

"Now we have to step up and continue our direct engagement with HTS and other factions," she said.

She also warned against a resurgence of Islamic State group extremists in Syria, saying it "must not" be allowed to happen.

European countries are wrestling with their approach to HTS which is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda and has been largely been seen in the West as a terror group, despite moderating its rhetoric recently. 

The UN estimated today that one million Syrian refugees could return home between January and June 2025, following the ousting of Bashar al-Assad.

"We have forecasted that we hope to see somewhere in the order of one million Syrians returning between January and June of next year," Rema Jamous Imseis, the Middle East and North Africa director for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, told reporters in Geneva.

The European Union "will reopen" its delegation in Syria, announced the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas, just over a week after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

"We have already started with a process to engage cautiously with the new leadership and the civil society," Kallas announced on social media platform X. 

"We will also reopen the EU delegation in Syria to have constructive engagement and get input from the ground." 

"We can't leave a vacuum in Syria. The EU must be present." she wrote. 

The U.N.'s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen meeting Abu Mohammad al-Jolani in Damascus on Sunday (Credit: AFP)

A week after the fall of the Syrian regime, the country’s new leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa — better known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani — remains an enigmatic figure. However, L'Orient-Le Jour spoke to several individuals who met him this week who have painted a largely favorable picture of the man who could become Syria’s next president.

To find out more, read more Mounir Rabih analysis. 👈

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Tuesday her country was ready to engage with Syria's new leadership but urged "maximum caution," particularly over treatment of Christians.

She said the Islamist-led rebels who seized power from Bashar al-Assad in a lightning offensive would be judged on their attitude towards minorities.

"Italy ... is ready to engage with the new Syrian leadership, obviously in the context of assessments and actions shared with European and international partners," Meloni told parliament.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he welcomed the caretaker government's commitment to protect civilians, including humanitarian workers.

"I also welcome their agreement to grant full humanitarian access through all border crossings; cut through bureaucracy over permits and visas for humanitarian workers; ensure the continuity of essential government services, including health and education; and engage in genuine and practical dialogue with the wider humanitarian community," Guterres said.

The United Nations humanitarian chief said Monday that huge amounts of aid were needed in war-ravaged Syria following the ouster of president Bashar al-Assad, saying the world body was ready to "go big."

"Food, medicine, shelter, but also the funds to redevelop the Syria that people can believe in again," UN relief chief Tom Fletcher told reported in Damascus.

"Moment of cautious hope in Syria. I’m encouraged from my meetings in Damascus, including constructive discussion with Commander of New Administration, Mr. Ahmed al-Sharaa. We have basis for ambitious scaling-up of vital humanitarian support," said Fletcher on social platform X. 

"France is preparing to stand by the Syrians during the transition period," Jean-François Guillaume, special envoy for Syria, told journalists, including AFP, shortly after arriving in Damascus.

The French flag was raised this morning over the embassy, which had been closed since 2012, an AFP journalist reported. The French delegation stated its mission is to "make contact with the de facto authorities" in Damascus.

German diplomats are set to hold initial talks in Damascus today with representatives of the transitional government formed by the Islamist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the Foreign Ministry announced.

Discussions will focus on an inclusive transition process in Syria, the protection of minorities, and the potential for establishing a diplomatic presence in Damascus, a ministry spokeswoman told AFP.

Iran's foreign ministry said today that its embassy in Syrian would reopen once the "necessary conditions" are met, after the diplomatic mission was vandalized following the ouster of Tehran ally Bashar al-Assad.

"The reopening of the embassy in Damascus requires preparations, the most important of which is ensuring the security and safety of the embassy and its staff," said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei.

He added that work to that end will be pursued "as soon as the necessary conditions are provided," without offering a specific timeline.

A French delegation, led by Jean-François Guillaume, special envoy for Syria, has arrived in Damascus and visited the embassy, AFP journalists reported.

Western governments, initially cautious, are increasingly engaging with Syria's new Islamist-led government following the fall of Bashar al-Assad. The European Union announced it would send a representative to Damascus, while the UK has also dispatched an official delegation.

The head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, asserted yesterday that Russia and Iran should "have no place" in Syria, and that the EU would raise the question of the future of Russian military bases in Syria with the new power in the country.

The U.S. military announced yesterday that it had killed 12 members of the Islamic State in airstrikes in Syria.

The United States has also established contacts with HTS, while the European Union announced yesterday that it was sending a senior representative to Damascus.

Facing the challenge of unifying a war-torn Syria after 13 years of conflict, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, has vowed to "disband" factions within the army that helped take down Bashar al-Assad's rule. Jolani also called for the lifting of international sanctions.

Meeting Monday with members of the Druze community, he said all rebel factions would "be disbanded and the fighters trained to join the ranks of the defense ministry, adding that "all will be subject to the law," according to posts on the group's Telegram channel.

He also emphasized the need for unity in the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional country. "Syria must remain united," he said. "There must be a social contract between the state and all religions to guarantee social justice."

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Good morning ☀

Thank you for joining our live coverage of events in Syria, following the fall of the Assad regime on Sunday, Dec. 8.

To catch up on the yesterday's key events and know what to expect today, read the Morning Brief.👈