Syria's New Government: Who Are They & What Do They Want?
10:43 Share

Today, Syria's new prime minister calls for stability and calm. Pro-European parties seek to form a government in Romania and police raid the offices of the South Korean president. From TLBR News, this is your daily briefing for Wednesday 11th December 2024.

We begin in Syria, where the man appointed to lead the country's new transitional government has said it's time for people to enjoy stability and calm, following the overthrow of former President Bashar al-Assad. Mohammed al-Bashir, the new Prime Minister, made the comment in an interview with Al Jazeera. Bashir has previously served as the head of the rebel administration in Syria's northwest.

and has been tasked with leading the country's transitional government until March 2025 by HTS, the Islamist rebel group whose lightning offensive over the past few weeks toppled the Assad regime.

So, who exactly are Syria's new leaders, and what will they do for the country? Well, while Bashir has been named Prime Minister, the most powerful figure in Syrian politics right now is surely HTS's leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jilani, whose actual name, which he now seems to be going by, is Ahmed al-Sharah.

Al-Sharrar, or Jalani, used to be the leader of al-Qaeda's Syrian offshoot, the al-Nusra Front, and is considered a terrorist by the US State Department, which put a $10 million bounty on his head. His group was one of a few that captured Idlib in 2015, and by 2017, Jalani had severed his ties with al-Qaeda and formed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.

To cut a long story short, Jalani was able to consolidate HTS's power in northwest Syria's Idlib province, and he began a significant transformation.

HTS formed the Syrian Salvation Government, a civilian government for the rebel-held area, and Jalani oversaw a process of state-building and reshaping his image, opting for more business-friendly attire, engaging with the public, focusing on governance, calling for religious tolerance and pluralism, and building his group's legitimacy.

Since taking Damascus and toppling Assad last week, al-Sharaa, having dropped the use of Jilani, has continued to project himself as someone that Syria and the international community can work with. He did a sit-down interview with CNN in which he sought to reassure Syria's religious and ethnic minorities and said Syria deserves a governing system that's institutional, not one where a single ruler makes arbitrary decisions.

The big question is will he and his group put its moderated rhetoric into action? Action will be key to the international community's approach to dealing with Syria's new leaders, including whether or not to lift their terrorist designation. Now, it's worth pointing out that Syria's new government doesn't actually control the whole country.

As we've reported in the past few days, the Israeli military has seized land in and beyond what was a buffer zone in the Golan Heights and has carried out hundreds of strikes across Syria since Assad fell to, quote, destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the state of Israel. Separately, most of eastern Syria continues to be held by Kurdish forces and some areas along the border with Turkey are held by the Turkish-backed rebels.

How these various groups come together and interact will be key to shaping the new post-Assad Syria. In a positive sign, the Kurdish-led SDF announced that it had reached a ceasefire deal with Turkish-backed rebels in the northern city of Manbij to ensure the safety and security of civilians. Now, we've got a whole load of videos on the recent events in Syria that you should check out over on the TLDR News Global channel if you're interested.

Now before we continue, I just wanted to thank everyone who continues to watch and like The Daily Briefing every single day. Making these videos requires a lot of research and hard work to make sure that we bring you the most up-to-date and accurate news every day, and that's also an expensive process. If you want to support our journalism in 2025 and make sure we can keep doing The Daily Briefing, then there's no better way to do this than by purchasing a copy of our magazine too long.

Pro-European political parties in Romania have agreed to build a pro-EU governing majority that keeps out the hard right. For context, Romania held a parliamentary election on December 1st, in which the ruling leftist Socialist Democrats won the most seats, while several ultra-nationalist right-wing Russian-friendly parties managed to win over a third of seats.

On Monday, the Social Democrats agreed to form a pro-European government, with their current coalition partners, the centre-right Liberals, the centrist opposition Save Romania Union and an ethnic Hungarian party. Romania is in something of a political crisis, as the country's top court annulled the first round of its late November presidential election, ordering a complete rerun, following accusations of Russian electoral meddling.

The pro-European parties are considering endorsing a single candidate for the presidential election rerun, in the hopes of lifting their odds of winning against a wave of support for ultra-nationalists.

Next up, we bring you yet another dramatic update from South Korea, which is still reeling from President Yoon Suk-hyul's attempt to impose martial law last week. Today, South Korean police raided President Yoon's office amid a widening investigation. Yoon was not present during the raid, however he was named as a suspect in the search warrant.

Separately, officials say that Yoon's defence minister at the time of the martial law attempt, Kim Jong-hyun, attempted to take his own life while in police detention last night, but was prevented and is now in a stable condition and under observation. Kim, as a close confidant of Yoon and his defence minister, is thought to have played a key role in the martial law attempt,

and has formally been arrested on charges of engaging in critical duties during an insurrection, and abuse of authority to obstruct the exercise of rights. The opposition, who decried Yoon's actions as an attempted coup, will introduce another motion to impeach him this weekend, after last week's motion failed, in the hopes that more lawmakers from Yoon's own party are feeling the political and public pressure to impeach.

The turmoil has made headlines around the world, including for the first time in neighbouring North Korea, whose state news agency published an article on growing social unrest in the South and said the puppet Yoon Suk-yool, who had already faced a serious crisis of governance and impeachment, declared martial law unexpectedly and unleashed the guns of the fascist dictatorship on the people.

The International Rescue Committee, or IRC, today unveiled its annual emergency watch list, with Sudan topping the list for the second year in a row. According to the IRC, Sudan, in the grips of a brutal civil war, is the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded, accounting for 10% of people in humanitarian need globally, despite being home to just 1% of the global population. Sudan has the largest displacement crisis in the world and is heading towards one of the world's worst famines in decades.

The IRC's top 10 humanitarian crises in order are Sudan, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Myanmar, Syria, South Sudan, Lebanon, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mali and Somalia. Other countries in the second half of the list include Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Ukraine and Yemen. The IRC sets out four, quote, deep-seated imbalances in the international system that are driving crises.

These are more conflict and less diplomacy, attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure becoming increasingly central to battle strategy, more carbon emissions and less support for people suffering from the climate crisis, and more wealth accumulation, less poverty alleviation.

The IRC has called for action that includes reforming the humanitarian aid system, relieving debt burdens, improving civilian protections and humanitarian access, investments in climate adaptation and resilience, and expanding safe pathways for refugees.

Now obviously all of that is pretty complicated, but hopefully our analysis has made it a little clearer. Making videos like this requires a lot of effort and research to uncover what's really going on, before then summarising it into something that makes sense to everyone. But that's an expensive process. Running TL;DR this year has cost just under £800,000, which when your main product is free YouTube videos is quite a lot of money.

If you want to support our journalism in 2025, then one way to do so is picking up a copy of our magazine Too Long. That's because buying Too Long doesn't just get you a high-quality magazine, it also allows you to invest in independent journalism and join us in shaping the future of news. Now, this most recent issue focuses on the 29 biggest elections of the year, making sure you understand what really happened in this mega-election year and commemorating one of the biggest years in news.

We don't just discuss elections though, we also run through China's trade issues, Biden's successes and failures, and the UK's new opposition leader and the state of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Plus the fact it's a magazine also means we're not constrained by the time limits or algorithms imposed by YouTube.

Unlike fleeting news cycles and algorithmic feeds, TooLong offers thought-provoking analysis and comprehensive coverage that's truly worth holding. If you're convinced, you have three more decisions to make. First, do you want a physical or digital copy? The physical is a high-quality, 60-page perfect

bound magazine shipped right to your door. The digital is slightly cheaper, especially if shipping is a concern. Your second choice is the standard or premium edition. The standard is just a copy of the magazine, while premium also gets you access to our monthly behind-the-scenes podcast, The Bullpen, where we break down all of the production of Too Long and TLDR more generally, and you'll get your name printed in the thank you section of the magazine. Finally, do you want to subscribe? If you do, you'll get a copy of Too Long every four months.

meaning you'll never miss an issue. Plus, you'll also get 25% off every copy as long as you stay subscribed. If you can, subscribing also gives us a reliable income stream, which is super useful for us. Regardless of which option you choose, you can buy a copy right now at too-long.news or click the link in the description. Thanks for your support and thanks for backing Too Long.