General
Thursday Briefing
Syrian soldiers step toward amnesty.
A former member of Bashar al-Assad’s security forces handing over his weapons.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
Al-Assad’s former soldiers are lining up for the future
Hundreds of soldiers and police officers who served under Bashar al-Assad heeded the call of Syria’s new rulers to formally relinquish their ties to his ousted regime.
More than 600 people showed up on Sunday when a so-called reconciliation center opened in the city of Latakia. Many more came throughout the day, hoping for a chance at amnesty. Temporary IDs were created, and photographs were taken. The men answered questions about what they had done while in al-Assad’s service, and many handed in weapons.
The rebel coalition has promised to hunt down senior officials implicated in the regime’s crimes but to spare rank-and-file conscripted soldiers. It will be some time before any of the men who showed up on their own know their fate. The Times spoke to some of them as they waited in line. Watch here.
Back to business: A Syrian Air flight from Damascus landed in Aleppo, becoming the first domestic flight since the Assad regime fell.
A fragile truce: Battles between Kurdish and Turkish-backed fighters in northern Syria threatened to upend an already shaky cease-fire.
