Power handover process underway in Syria

Ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's prime minister said he had agreed Monday to hand power to the rebel-led Salvation Government, a day after the rebels seized the capital Damascus and Assad fled to Russia.

The imminent transfer of power follows 13 years of civil war and the end to more than 50 years of brutal rule by the Assad family, leaving Syrians at home and millions of refugees abroad hopeful yet deeply uncertain about their country's future.

Damascus stirred to life Monday, with traffic returning to streets and people venturing out after a nighttime curfew, but most shops remained shut.

Fighters from the remote countryside milled about in the capital, clustering in the central Umayyad Square.

Assad's Prime Minister, Mohammed Jalali, told Al Arabiya TV he had agreed to hand power to the Salvation Government, an administration based in a small pocket of rebel-held territory in northwest Syria.

He said the handover could take days to carry out.

The main rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, had met overnight with Jalali and Vice President Faisal Mekdad to discuss a transitional government, a source familiar with the discussions said.

Al Jazeera television reported the transitional authority would be headed by Mohamed al-Bashir, who ran the Salvation Government before the 12-day lightning offensive that swept into Damascus.

Syria's banks will reopen Tuesday and staff had been asked to return to offices, according to a Syrian central bank source and two commercial bankers.

The oil ministry called on all employees in the sector to head to their workplaces starting Tuesday, adding that protection would be provided to ensure their safety.

The advance of a militia alliance spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was a generational turning point for the Middle East.

It ends a war that killed hundreds of thousands, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble, countryside depopulated and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions. Refugees could finally go home from camps across Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

HTS is still designated as a terrorist group by the UN, but has spent years trying to soften its image to reassure foreign states and minority groups within Syria.

The group's leader Golani, who spent years in US custody as an insurgent in Iraq but later broke with Al Qaeda and Islamic State, has vowed to rebuild Syria.

The rebels announced on their Telegram channel that they were granting amnesty to all conscript soldiers drafted under Assad.

The Kremlin said it was too early to know the future of Russia's military bases in Syria, but it would discuss the issue with the new authorities.

Israel said Assad's fall was a direct consequence of Israel's punishing assault on Iran's Lebanese allies Hezbollah, who had propped up Assad for years.

Since rebels entered Damascus, Israel has struck sites in Syria. Israeli officials said those airstrikes would carry on for days to keep Assad's former arsenal out of hostile hands.

The US, which has 900 soldiers in Syria alongside Kurdish-led forces in the east, said its forces hit around 75 targets in airstrikes on Islamic State on Sunday.