Syria's interim PM named as Israeli forces press further into land, strike army bases
Israel's latest incursion comes days after rebel-led offensive pushed Assad's regime to collapse
Syria's new interim leader announced on Tuesday he was taking charge of the country as caretaker prime minister with the backing of the former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad three days ago.
In a brief address on state television, Mohammed al-Bashir, a figure little known across most of Syria who previously ran an administration in a pocket of the northwest controlled by rebels, said he would lead the interim authority until March 1.
"Today, we held a cabinet meeting that included a team from the Salvation government that was working in Idlib and its vicinity, and the government of the ousted regime," he said.
"The meeting was under the headline of transferring the files and institutions to caretake the government."
Behind him were two flags: the green, black and white flag flown by opponents of Assad throughout the civil war, and a white flag with the Islamic oath of faith in black writing, typically flown in Syria by Sunni Islamist fighters.
In the Syrian capital, banks reopened for the first time since Assad's overthrow. Shops were also opening up again, traffic returned to the roads, and cleaners were out sweeping the streets and there were fewer armed men about.
Two sources close to the rebels said their command had ordered fighters to withdraw from cities, and for police and internal security forces affiliated with the main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Shams (HTS) to deploy there.
Israeli airstrikes hit Syrian army bases
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington fully supports Syria's political transition process and wants it to lead to inclusive and non-sectarian governance.
The process must prevent Syria from being used as a base for terrorism and ensure any chemical or biological weapons stocks are safely destroyed, he said.
Israeli airstrikes hit bases of the Syrian army, whose forces had melted away in the face of the rebel advance that ousted Assad. The Israeli military later said it had struck most of the strategic weapons stockpiles in the past 48 hours.
Israel, which has sent forces across the border into a demilitarized zone inside Syria, acknowledged on Tuesday that troops had also taken up some positions beyond the buffer zone, though it denied they were advancing towards Damascus.
In a sign foreigners are ready to work with HTS, the former al Qaeda affiliate that led the anti-Assad revolt and has lately emphasized its break with its jihadist roots, the UN envoy to Syria played down its designation as a terrorist organization.
"The reality is so far that HTS and also the other armed groups have been sending good messages to the Syrian people ... of unity, of inclusiveness," Geir Pedersen told a briefing in Geneva.
The United States is still working out how it will engage with the rebel groups, U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer told Reuters, adding that as yet there had been no formal change of policy and that actions were what counted.
Syria's new interim leader has little political profile beyond Idlib province, a mainly rural northwest region where rebels had maintained an administration during the long years that Syria's civil war front lines were frozen.
A Facebook page of the rebel administration says he was trained as an electrical engineer, later received a degree in sharia and law, and had held posts in areas including education.
Meanwhile, the White Helmets announced the end of their search at Sednaya Prison late Monday, saying in a statement they had found no hidden areas in the facility, after reports of underground cells with prisoners still detained.
"We share the profound disappointment of the families of the thousands who remain missing and whose fates are unknown," said the group, also known as Syria Civil Defence.
Israel presses into Syrian territory
Israel's incursion in the southwest and its airstrikes create an additional security problem for the new administration, although Israel says its intervention is temporary.
After Assad's flight on Sunday ended more than five decades of his family's rule, Israeli troops moved into the buffer zone inside Syria established following the 1973 Middle East war.
Three security sources said on Tuesday the Israelis had advanced beyond the demilitarized zone. One Syrian source said they had reached the town of Qatana, several kilometres to the east of the buffer zone and a short drive from Damascus airport.
Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered a "sterile defensive zone" to be created in southern Syria to protect Israel from terrorism.
Military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said troops were in the buffer zone and "a few additional points" in the vicinity, the first apparent official Israeli acknowledgement that they had moved beyond it. He said, however, that there had been no significant push into Syria.
Katz also said Israel's navy had destroyed Syria's fleet.
Regional security sources and officers within the defunct Syrian army said Tuesday's Israeli airstrikes had hit military installations and air bases across Syria and destroyed dozens of helicopters and jets.
Turkey, Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia condemned the Israeli incursion.
The steamroller advance of the militia alliance headed by HTS was a generational turning point for the Middle East.
The civil war that began in 2011 killed hundreds of thousands, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble, the countryside depopulated and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
But the rebel alliance has not communicated plans for Syria's future, and there is no template for such a transition in the fractious region.