The leader of the Syrian rebel group “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham“ (HTS), which overthrew the government of President Bashar al-Assad, said that he has no intention of entering into conflict with Israel, the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA.
In his first public comment on Israel, Ahmad al-Shareh (also known as Mohammed al-Jawlani) said that “the excuses that Israel has used as a pretext“ for airstrikes against Syria in recent days are over.
“The Israelis have violated the rules of engagement,“ Ash-Shareh said today in an interview with Syrian television. With about 400 airstrikes in recent days, Israeli forces have destroyed a large part of the Syrian army's facilities, the AP recalls.
The HTS leader later specified in a comment on the messaging app “Telegram“ that Israel's actions threaten the region with unjustified escalation, but “Syria's state of exhaustion after years of war and conflict does not allow it to enter into new conflicts“.
The published excerpts from the interview do not mention contacts with the United States, which earlier today said it maintains direct communication with HTS – a group that has been on Washington's list of terrorist organizations for years.
The HTS leader said only that the new authorities in Damascus were in contact with Western embassies and that they had a plan to begin the reconstruction and development of Syria, but gave no further details.
He added that they had given Russia - a key ally of the Assad regime - the opportunity to reconsider its relations with the Syrian people. The new authorities are not hostile to Iran - another supporter of the former Syrian president, Ash Shareh said.