Ammon News - Refugees from Syria's long civil war were making their way home on Wednesday, as a new interim prime minister said he had been appointed with the backing of the opposition forces who toppled President Bashar al-Assad.
U.S. officials, engaging with the opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), urged them not to assume automatic leadership of the country but instead run an inclusive process to form a transitional government.

The new government must "uphold clear commitments to fully respect the rights of minorities, facilitate the flow of humanitarian assistance to all in need, prevent Syria from being used as a base for terrorism or posing a threat to its neighbours," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

In a brief address on state television on Tuesday, Mohammed al-Bashir, a figure little known across most of Syria, 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.

Bashir ran the rebel-led Salvation Government before the 12-day lightning rebel offensive swept into Damascus.

MASSIVE REBUILD
Rebuilding Syria will be a colossal task following a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Cities have been bombed to ruins, swathes of countryside depopulated, the economy gutted by international sanctions and millions of refugees still live in camps after one of the biggest displacements of modern times.

With European countries pausing asylum applications from Syrians, some refugees from Turkey and elsewhere began making their way home.

In the Syrian capital Damascus, banks reopened for the first time since Assad's overthrow on Tuesday. Shops also opened again, traffic returned to the roads, cleaners were out sweeping the streets and there were fewer armed men about.

U.S. CAUTION
U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer told Reuters Washington was still working out how it will engage with the opposition groups and added that as yet there had been no formal change of policy and that actions were what counted.

Finer said U.S. troops in northeastern Syria as part of a counter-terrorism mission would be staying there, and the top U.S. general responsible for the Middle East visited them on Tuesday.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to say whether Washington would change HTS's designation as a foreign terrorist organization, which prevents the U.S. from assisting it.

Miller said the United States had asked HTS to help locate and free American journalist Austin Tice, who was kidnapped in Syria in 2012. He said this was a "priority" for Washington.

Reuters