The rebels who are now Syria’s de facto rulers have started to make their mark on the country’s government.
They took control of Aleppo just two weeks ago, but already police officers are in the streets sporting new uniforms, administrators are busy in the halls of government and there are posters on lampposts with QR codes directing people to updates on government policy.
Gone are the ubiquitous photos of President Bashar al-Assad, whose visage, like that of his father before him, had dominated the city. The Assad regime controlled the country for decades, then crumbled in a matter of days.
It has been replaced by an array of rebel factions led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group that has tried to gain international legitimacy while also being criticized for its authoritarian tactics. The group, which has controlled most of the northwestern province of Idlib for years, supports a conservative and at times hard-line Sunni Islamist ideology.
With all eyes on the rebels’ plans for the future, Aleppo offers early hints on how the group might approach governance — at least in the immediate future. In a country that has been deeply divided by 13 years of civil war, the group is vowing to maintain security and continuity, aiming to avoid the kind of power vacuum that has followed other Arab revolutions or regime changes.
Over the past week, there have been flashes of normalcy in the city, residents said, expressing some hope for the future.
The rebels took over much of the city on Nov. 27, the first in a series of fast-falling dominoes that led to the takeover of Damascus, the capital, on Sunday. After capturing Aleppo, the fighters moved on, leaving the city in the hands of its bureaucrats to preserve government institutions, said Ahmed al-Shara, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, until recently known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
In a sign of rebel efforts to show the country that it is in capable hands, the interim government on Tuesday appointed Mohammed al-Bashir as the new prime minister. Mr. al-Bashir previously served as the head of the rebel-run administration in northwestern Syria.
In Aleppo, new billboards have quickly appeared. On one, the new Syrian justice minister, Shadi Muhammad al-Waisi, proclaimed that the era of oppression was over. Once Syria’s commercial hub, Aleppo’s factories and businesses were largely damaged or destroyed during the civil war. “Justice and equality are the rulers after today,” the billboard read.
Another billboard featured the finance minister: “Be assured people of Aleppo,” the banner reads, “your property and your money are protected.”
Rebel and new government officials have been hesitant to speak publicly, as most public statements have come from Mr. al-Shara. In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. al-Shara said that his group had discussed plans on how to govern before they launched their offensive, though he did not provide details.
In public statements and speeches, the group appears to want to avoid the mistakes made during previous regime changes in the Middle East. In neighboring Iraq, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, a policy of so-called de-Baathification pushed at least 50,000 members of Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party out of government jobs, deepening resentment and divisions in the country.
On Monday in Aleppo, an administrator with the rebel group asked members of the City Council in Aleppo if they were willing and ready to continue to do their work. They all appeared willing.
In the immediate days after the rebels captured Aleppo, the city remained stunned and quiet. There was little of the celebratory gunfire and destruction of public property that erupted in Damascus. But within days of the rebels taking the city, prices at shops, on public transportation and at the gas pump skyrocketed. The price of a minibus ride quadrupled from 1,000 Syrian pounds to 4,000, or about $1.60.
But residents said some costs have leveled off, and though there were reports of theft, many said they were starting to feel more secure. “The situation in Aleppo is starting to get better,” said Mahmoud Yousef, 40, a lifelong resident. “We are starting to feel a little safer.”
But prices are still high and concerns about speaking openly or criticizing the rebels remain.
One resident of Sulaymaniyah, a Christian neighborhood in the city, said that owners of several liquor stores sold off most of their merchandise when the rebels first entered the city, fearing their stocks would be destroyed. But the rebels didn’t comes near the shops, he said.
Christians account for about 5 percent of Syria’s population, half of what it was before the war, according to groups that track the persecution of Christians around the world. On the day rebels captured Aleppo, some rebels reportedly went to homes in Christian neighborhoods to reassure them of their safety, residents said.
While Syria is a majority Sunni Muslim country, it has significant communities of Christians, Druse and others who adhere to different sects of Islam. Mr. al-Shara has tried to assuage fears about his government’s intentions.
Analysts say that the rebels’ treatment of minority groups could be a harbinger of how they will expand from their corner of the country — where the population is predominantly conservative Muslim — to the rest of Syria. For some Syrians, the promises made by the new government may not be enough. Under the Assad regime, corruption was rife and affected all levels of the country’s government, from the traffic police to visa officials to judges.
“We are hopeful that the system of government has changed in the country,” said Mr. Yousef, a lifelong Aleppo resident, “but we are also afraid that we will have a difficult transitional phase ahead.”
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