Little-known leader takes charge as Syria's interim prime minister, with support from rebels

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 small 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 reopening, traffic returned to the roads, construction workers were back fixing a roundabout in the Damascus city centre and street cleaners were at work.

There was a notable decrease in the number of armed men on the streets. 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.

The steps toward normalization came despite intense airstrikes from Israel targeting bases of the Syrian army, whose forces had melted away in the face of the lightning rebel advance that ousted Assad.

Israel, which has sent forces across the border into a demilitarized zone inside Syria, said its airstrikes were aimed at keeping weapons from falling into hostile hands. It denied reports that its forces had advanced beyond the buffer zone into the countryside southwest of Damascus.

Syrian security sources said the Israeli incursion reached about 25 kilometres southwest of Damascus.

A Syrian security source said Israeli troops reached Qatana, which is 10 kilometres into Syrian territory east of a demilitarized zone separating the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria.

Lt.-Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, said troops remained in the buffer zone and "a few additional points" in the vicinity but he denied there had been any significant push into Syria beyond the separation area.

"IDF forces are not advancing towards Damascus. This is not something we are doing or pursuing in any way," he told a briefing with reporters.

Israeli naval missile ships also destroyed the Syrian military fleet in a Monday night operation as part of a broad campaign to eliminate strategic threats to Israel, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday during a visit to a naval base in Haifa.