Syrian authorities say armed groups agree to disband and merge under defence ministry

Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa reached an agreement on Tuesday with former rebel faction chiefs to dissolve all groups and consolidate them under the defence ministry, according to a statement from the new administration.

“A meeting of the heads of the groups” with al-Sharaa “ended in an agreement on the dissolution of all the groups and their integration under the supervision of the ministry of defence”, said a statement carried by state media agency SANA and the authorities’ Telegram account.

Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir had said last week that the ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Bashar al-Assad’s army.

Sharaa will face the daunting task of trying to avoid clashes between the myriad groups.

The country’s new rulers appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency that toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defence minister in the interim government.

Syria’s historic ethnic and religious minorities include Muslim Kurds and Shi’ites – who feared during the civil war that any future Sunni Islamist rule would imperil their way of life – as well as Syriac, Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christians, and the Druze community.

Sharaa has told Western officials visiting him that the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group he heads, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, will neither seek revenge against the former regime nor repress any religious minority.