Syria’s new authorities said Tuesday that armed groups in the country agreed to dissolve and be integrated into the Defense Ministry.
A statement said the decision followed a meeting between leaders of the armed groups and Ahmad al-Sharaa, who led the rebel advance that pushed longtime leader Bashar al-Assad from power.
Rebels seized control of Syria’s capital December 8 after a lightning advance that saw them claim several key cities in a matter of days after many years of relative stalemate in the country’s 13-year civil war.
Since Assad’s ouster, governments throughout the region have sent envoys to Damascus amid questions about Syria’s political future and concerns about additional instability in the region.
One concern is the potential resurgence of the Islamic State group, which seized areas of eastern Syria in 2014 and western Iraq before losing much of that territory.
The U.S. military said Monday it carried out an airstrike that killed two Islamic State militants in eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzour province.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the militants were “moving a truckload of weapons, which were destroyed during the strike.”
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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