As Syria’s new leaders settle in, life in the capital resumes

BARELY THREEHTSHTSHTS days after , Syria’s dictator for the past 24 years, the country has a new provisional government. On December 10th Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (), the group that on Damascus, appointed an interim prime minister.Muhammad al-Bashir, the head of ’s administration in Idlib since January, said he would lead a caretaker government until March next year. As in Idlib, he is likely to be answerable to Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, the leader of and now, de facto, of Syria.Even before the rebels appointed a prime minister, they had begun to restore order in the capital. Fighters and police officers from Idlib are guiding traffic, policing celebratory gunfire and manning checkpoints at the presidential palace and the ransacked Iranian embassy. There are reminders that things are not quite normal yet. The sound of rocks the city every hour. Groups of masked militants parade around in pick-up trucks, brandishing their rifles. Some wear black headbands adorned with the Islamic profession of faith.Yet life in Damascus has begun to resume. Many of the capital’s shops have reopened. On the main road outside the glitzy Four Seasons hotel, a city worker swept up rubbish. A long queue snaked out of a Syriatel mobile-phone shop, with refugees returning from abroad or from Idlib keen to buy new sim cards.Among the first government employees to return to work on December 10th were those staffing the post office. As the beginning of the work day preceded the announcement of the new government, they were not entirely sure who they were working for, or who might be paying their salaries next month, much like officials in other ministries.In one meeting room, a dozen workers were smoking and swapping tales of where they were when they found out that Mr Assad, ultimately their former boss, had fled the country. It was unclear if any letters would be delivered that day.Upstairs in the office of Hayan Maqsoud, the agency’s boss since 2019, the walls were stained yellow from decades of chain-smoking, save for a slightly paler square on the wall where a portrait of Mr Assad used to hang. The portrait, now ripped, had been tossed into the corridor outside the office, along with the old regime’s red-and-black flag.All this made a welcome change from the past, when the post office was a symbol of Mr Assad’s obsession with absolute control, carrying bills and endless government documents. Foreign sanctions and fear of snooping security officials meant people sent little private mail. But even the purchase of a new motorbike used to require a signature from the prime minister, says Mr Maqsoud, who used to need special permission from the dictator himself to get into certain post-office buildings.Like Mr Maqsoud and his staff, many government employees seem willing to take orders from Syria’s new rulers. For now, they have avoided anarchy on the streets of Damascus. But their victory is only three days old. The next few weeks will show if they can run a state.