The General Command in Syria officially announced the appointment of Murhaf Abu Qasra as Minister of Defense in the Syrian caretaker government today, Tuesday, December 31.
The account of “General Command – Syria” on the platform “X” mentioned that Engineer Major General Murhaf Abu Qasra was appointed Minister of Defense.
This official appointment follows a decision issued last Sunday to promote a group of officers, including Abu Qasra, who was promoted to the rank of Major General, a rank also attained by Ali Nour al-Din Naasan in the new government.
Abu Qasra is known as “Abu Hassan al-Hamawi” and “Abu Hassan 600.” He is an agricultural engineer from Hama province, central Syria.
He is the first Minister of Defense in a Syrian government after the fall of the ousted Bashar al-Assad regime on December 8.
Earlier, Abu Qasra called on the United Nations and relevant European countries to remove Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from their lists of terrorist organizations.
He stated that building the military institution is certainly a next step, and all military units, including the military wing of the HTS, should be integrated into this institution.
On December 24, the Military Operations Administration in Syria announced an agreement to dissolve all military factions and integrate them under the Ministry of Defense.
The Military Operations Administration indicated that a meeting of revolutionary faction leaders with the new administration leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, resulted in this agreement.
This step came after a series of meetings al-Sharaa held over the past days with military factions to discuss the shape of the military institution in the new Syria.
Previously, the leader of the new Syrian administration, Ahmed al-Sharaa, announced in a press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, that within days he would announce the Ministry of Defense, and a committee of new military leaders would be formed to design a new structure for the upcoming army, beginning the gradual dissolution of factions and their integration into the army, with an emphasis on not allowing arms to exist outside the hands of the state.
He added that there is consensus among the majority of factions for there to be a unified command and the formation of a Ministry of Defense after completing military operations.
In recent days following the fall of the previous regime, diplomatic delegations that visited Damascus underscored the necessity of maintaining security and preserving Syria’s unity and stability, alongside calls for the involvement of all segments of Syrian society in the country’s transitional phase.