Mohammad al-Bashir, Syria’s post-Assad PM with rebel roots

BEIRUT - As leader of a “Salvation Government” in Syria’s Idlib, Mr Mohammad al-Bashir tried to bring a degree of order to the last major bastion of armed opposition against longtime leader Bashar al-Assad.

Now, the engineering graduate in his early 40s

will lead the national government,

presiding over a country divided and battered by 13 years of war, and seek to unite it in the traditional seat of power, Damascus.

Mr Bashir was born in 1983 in Jabal al-Zawiya in Idlib province, an area mostly run in recent years by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions with less influence.

He studied electrical and electronic engineering at Aleppo university, and Islamic and civil law at Idlib university, according to his biography, and once worked for Syria’s state gas company.

He had served as the head of the rebel administration’s self-styled “Salvation Government” since January, and previously held the role of its “development minister”.

The “Salvation Government”, with its own ministries, departments, judicial and security authorities, was set up in Idlib in 2017 to assist people in the rebel-held area cut off from government services.

It has since begun rolling out assistance in Aleppo, the first major city to fall from government hands after the rebels began a lightning Nov 27 offensive, capturing swathes of territory and taking the capital on Dec 8,

toppling Mr Assad.

But managing a rebel region of some five million people is a totally different task from a national leadership role in a country torn by deep divisions and where many people live in poverty.

Beyond the rebels’ own divisions, other groups are also vying for control of former government strongholds.

Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani told outgoing prime minister Mohammed al-Jalali that although Idlib is small and lacks resources, authorities there “have a very high-level of experience” and had had “great success” on some issues.

However, he noted the new government would also need to draw on experienced people from the outgoing administration.

In his first appearance outside the Idlib region, the bearded Mr Bashir was seen in a video released Dec 9, sitting next to Mr Jolani, wearing a smart grey suit and a gold watch, during a meeting with the outgoing premier.

Dr Radwan Ziadeh, a senior fellow at the Arab Centre Washington DC, said Mr Bashir was “the closest” to Mr Jolani and the rebel factions’ joint operations room.

But “the challenges he faces are very great”, Dr Ziadeh said.

“Just as the revolution was a revolution for all Syrians, the transitional process will be the responsibility of all Syrians in order to ensure it succeeds and guarantees the peaceful transition to democracy,” he said. AFP