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The rebels who seized control called for foreign help in prosecuting atrocities, while trying to restore order in a fractured country.
Dec. 11, 2024, 6:00 p.m. ET
The rebels who seized control of Syria confronted the challenge on Wednesday of striking a balance between obtaining justice for the victims of atrocities committed under the ousted Assad regime and preventing the newly liberated country from descending into unchecked vengeance.
While Syria’s new leaders have promised amnesty for conscripted soldiers who served under the former president, Bashar al-Assad, the leader of the rebel force that toppled him made clear on Wednesday that those who helped Mr. al-Assad brutalize or slaughter would be held accountable.
“We won’t pardon those complicit in the torture and murder of detainees, and we will go after them in our country,” the leader of the rebel offensive, Ahmed al-Shara, said on the Telegram messaging app. “We call on nations to hand over to us whoever of those criminals has escaped to them to subject them to justice.”
Mr. al-Shara did not name any countries in particular, but Mr. al-Assad arrived in Russia over the weekend as the rebels swept into Damascus, the Syrian capital.
Mr. al-Shara’s comments came as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, warned that armed groups had carried out retaliatory attacks on civilians in areas that were once considered loyal to the Assad government. But it was not clear who was carrying out the violence, or directing it.
Video circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times shows fighters inside the mausoleum of Hafez al-Assad, the former Syrian president and the father of Bashar al-Assad, in the northwestern town of al-Qardaha.
