By SARAH EL DEEB, BASSEM MROUE and TIA GOLDENBERG
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria’s prime minister said Monday that most cabinet ministers are still working from offices in Damascus after rebels entered the capital over the weekend and overthrew President Bashar Assad. Streams of refugees crossed back into Syria from neighboring countries, hoping for a more peaceful future.
But there were already signs of the difficulties ahead for the rebel alliance now in control of much of the country, which is led by a former senior al-Qaida militant who severed ties with the extremist group years ago and has promised representative government and religious tolerance.
The rebel command said Monday they would not tell women how to dress.
“It is strictly forbidden to interfere with women’s dress or impose any request related to their clothing or appearance, including requests for modesty,” the General Command said in a statement on social media.
Meanwhile, some key government services had shut down as state workers ignored calls to return to their jobs, a U.N. official said, causing issues at airports and borders and slowing the flow of humanitarian aid.
Israel said it is carrying out airstrikes on suspected chemical weapons sites and long-range rockets to keep them from falling into the hands of extremists. Israel has also seized a buffer zone inside Syria after Syrian troops withdrew.
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In northern Syria, Turkey said allied opposition forces seized the town of Manbij from Kurdish-led forces backed by the United States, a reminder that even after Assad’s departure to Russia the country remains split among armed groups that have fought in the past.
The Kremlin said Russia has granted political asylum to Assad, a decision made by President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Assad’s specific whereabouts and said Putin was not planning to meet with him.
Damascus was quiet on Monday, with life slowly returning to normal while most shops and public institutions were closed. In public squares, some people were still celebrating. Civilian traffic resumed but there was no public transport. Long lines formed in front of bakeries and other food stores.
There was little sign of any security presence, and Associated Press reporters saw a few SUVs on the side of a main boulevard that appeared to have been broken into.
In some areas, small groups of armed men were stationed in the streets. A video circulating online showed a man in military fatigues holding a rifle attempting to reassure residents of the Mezzeh neighborhood in Damascus that they would not be harmed.
“We have nothing against you, neither Alawite, nor Christian, nor Shiite, nor Druze, but everyone must behave well, and no one should try to attack us,” the fighter said.
Prime minister says the government is still operational
Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali, who remained in his post after Assad and most of his top officials vanished over the weekend, has sought to project normalcy.
“We are working so that the transitional period is quick and smooth,” he told Sky News Arabia TV on Monday, saying the security situation had already improved from the day before.
He said the government is coordinating with the insurgents, and that he is ready to meet rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, who made a triumphal appearance at a famed Damascus mosque on Sunday.
Syrians who only days ago were working at all levels of the bureaucracy in Assad’s government were adjusting to the new reality.
At the court of Justice in Damascus, which was stormed by the rebels to free detainees, Judge Khitam Haddad, an aide to the justice minister in the outgoing government, said Sunday that judges were ready to resume work quickly.
“We want to give everyone their rights,” Haddad said outside the courthouse. “We want to build a new Syria and to keep the work, but with new methods.”
But a U.N. official said some government services had been paralyzed as worried state employees stayed home.
The public sector “has just come to a complete and abrupt halt,” said U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria Adam Abdelmoula, noting, for example, that an aid flight carrying urgently needed medical supplies had been put on hold after aviation employees abandoned their jobs.
“This is a country that has had one government for 53 years and then suddenly all of those who have been demonized by the public media are now in charge in the nation’s capital,” Abdelmoula told The Associated Press.
Separately, a Syrian opposition war monitor said a top aide to Assad’s brother, Maher, was found dead in his office near Damascus. A video that circulated on social media purportedly showed Maj. Gen. Ali Mahmoud covered with blood and with his clothes burned. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was not clear if he was killed or died by suicide.
Maher Assad led the army’s 4th Armored Division, which played a major role in the civil war that erupted in 2011 after a popular uprising against Assad led to a violent crackdown on dissent and the rise of an insurgency.
Israel confirms it has struck suspected chemical weapons and rockets
Israelis welcomed the fall of Assad, who was a key ally of Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, while expressing concern over what comes next. Israel says its forces temporarily seized a buffer zone inside Syria dating back to a 1974 agreement after Syrian troops withdrew in the chaos.
“The only interest we have is the security of Israel and its citizens,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters on Monday. “That’s why we attacked strategic weapons systems, like, for example, remaining chemical weapons, or long-range missiles and rockets, in order that they will not fall in the hands of extremists.”
Saar did not provide details about when or where the strikes took place.
An AP journalist in Damascus reported airstrikes in the area of the Mezzeh military airport, southwest of the capital, on Sunday. The airport has previously been targeted in Israeli airstrikes. Strikes were also heard in the capital on Monday.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria in recent years, targeting what it says are military sites related to Iran and Hezbollah. Israeli officials rarely comment on individual strikes.
Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons stockpile in 2013, after the government was accused of launching an attack near Damascus that killed hundreds of people. But it is widely believed to have kept some of the weapons and was accused of using them again in subsequent years.
Turkey says its allies have taken northern town
Officials in Turkey, which is the main supporter of the Syrian opposition to Assad, say its allies have taken full control of the northern Syrian city of Manbij from a U.S.-supported and Kurdish-led force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
The SDF said a Turkish drone struck in the village of al-Mistriha in eastern Syria, killing 12 civilians, including six children.
Turkey views the SDF, which is primarily composed of a Syrian Kurdish militia, as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. The SDF has also been a key ally of the United States in the war against the Islamic State group.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday expressed hope for a new era in Syria in which ethnic and religious groups can live peacefully under an inclusive government. But he warned against allowing Islamic State or Kurdish fighters to take advantage of the situation, saying Turkey will prevent Syria from turning into a “haven for terrorism.”
Mroue reported from Beirut and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.
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