Syrian caretaker government in the context of "Mazloum Abdi"

The Syrian transitional government is the provisional government of Syria, formed on 29 March 2025 under President Ahmed al-Sharaa. It succeeded the Syrian caretaker government headed by Mohammed al-Bashir.

The government was announced by Ahmed al-Sharaa at a ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Damascus, where the new ministers were sworn in and delivered speeches outlining their agendas. Two new ministries were formed: the Ministry of Sports and Youth and Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management. The position of Prime Minister was abolished. The Ministry of Energy was formed from the mergers of the Ministry of Electricity, the Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources and the Ministry of Water Resources while the Ministry of Economy and Industry was formed from the mergers of the Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade, Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection and the Ministry of Industry.

Mohammed al-Bashir (Arabic: محمد البشير, romanized: Muḥammad al-Bashīr; born 1984) is a Syrian politician and engineer who is currently serving as the minister of energy in the Syrian transitional government since March 2025. He previously served as the last prime minister of Syria. As prime minister, he led the Syrian caretaker government, which was formed after the fall of the Assad regime, and succeeded Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali in his role.

Al-Bashir had also served as the fifth prime minister of the Syrian Salvation Government, the civilian administration of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, from his election on 13 January 2024 until his appointment by the Syrian General Command as the prime minister.

The prime minister of Syria (Arabic: رئيس وزراء سوريا, romanized: Raʾīs wuzarāʾ Sūriyā), officially the president of the Council of Ministers of the Syrian Arab Republic, was the head of government of Syria from 1920 to 2025. After the fall of the Assad regime, the prime minister of Syria was the head of the Syrian caretaker government.

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي, romanized: Ḥizb al-Ba‘th al-‘Arabī al-Ishtirākī; ba‘th meaning "resurrection"), also referred to as the pro-Syrian Ba'ath movement, is a neo-Ba'athist political party with branches across the Arab world. From 1970 until 2000, the party was led by the Syrian president and Secretary General Hafez al-Assad. Until 26 October 2018, leadership was shared between his son Bashar al-Assad (head of the Syrian regional organization) and Abdullah al-Ahmar (head of the pan-Arab national organization).

In 2018, after the reunification of the National and Regional Command, Bashar al-Assad became the Secretary General of the Central Command. The Syrian Regional Branch of the party was the largest organisation within the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party; it ruled Syria from the 1963 coup to the fall of the Assad regime in 2024. The Syrian Regional Branch's activities were indefinitely suspended on 11 December 2024 and its assets transferred to the caretaker government, dissolving the branch. Other branches of the Syrian-dominated Ba'ath faction continued to operate, with the Palestinian branch As-Sa'iqa even resuming its activities inside Syria.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is a Kurdish-led coalition of U.S.-backed left-wing ethnic militias and rebel groups, and serves as the official military wing of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES; also unofficially known as Rojava). Founded on 10 October 2015, the stated mission of the SDF is to create a secular, democratic, and federalized Syria. The SDF is opposed by Turkey, who view the group as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which it has designated a terrorist group. On 10 March 2025, the SDF agreed to integrate into Syrian state institutions under the Syrian caretaker government. Mazloum Abdi met with the committee formed by Ahmed al-Sharaa to implement the deal; further meetings were planned for April.

Formed as a rebel alliance in the Syrian civil war with American support, the SDF is composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian/Syriac, as well as some smaller Armenian, Turkmen, and Chechen forces. It is militarily led by the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia which is designated as a terrorist group by both Turkey and Qatar. The SDF also includes several ethnic militias and various factions of the Syrian opposition's Free Syrian Army.

The Syrian Interim Government (Arabic: حكومة السورية المؤقتة, romanized: Ḥukūmat as-Sūriyya al-Muwaqqata) was a government-in-exile and later a quasi-state in Syria formed on 18 March 2013 by the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (Syrian National Coalition, SNC), an umbrella opposition group, during the Syrian civil war. The Syrian Interim Government constituted a separate administration in the Turkish-controlled territories in northern Syria and had partial authority there. The interim government's headquarters in Syria were located in the city of Azaz in Aleppo Governorate. While responsible to the Syrian National Coalition, the SIG was closely aligned with Turkey. The SIG's armed forces were the SNA.

After the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, the SIG coexisted for a short period of time with the Syrian caretaker government headed by Mohammed al-Bashir in Damascus, while the SNC expressed its support for the caretaker government and called for the formation of a government that would be "inclusive of everyone." On 30 January 2025, the SIG officially "placed itself at the disposal" of the caretaker government, which began deploying its forces across former SIG territory in early February 2025.7

Manbij (Arabic: منبج, romanized: Manbiǧ) is a city in the northeast of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the Euphrates. The 2004 census gives its population as nearly 100,000. The population of Manbij is largely Arab, with Kurdish, Turkmen, Circassian, and Chechen minorities. Many of its residents practice Naqshbandi Sufism.

During the Syrian Civil War, the city was first captured by rebels in 2012, overrun by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2014 and finally captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2016, bringing it into the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). From 2018 to 2024, after an agreement with the SDF, the Syrian Arab Army had been deployed on the city's periphery as a buffer between the Turkish occupation of Northern Syria and the AANES. On December 9, 2024, it was reported that the city came under the control of the Syrian Interim Government after a deal was reached between the U.S. and Turkey to allow the safe exit of SDF fighters. The pro-Turkish forces' control over the area did not end until the SIG was incorporated into the Syrian caretaker government at the end of January 2025.

The Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) was a de facto unrecognized quasi-state in Syria formed on 2 November 2017 by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other opposition groups during the Syrian civil war. It controlled much of northwest Syria and had an estimated population of over 4,000,000 in 2023. Its de facto capital was Idlib.

After the December 2024 fall of Damascus, the final prime minister of Ba'athist Syria, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, transferred power in Syria to SSG Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir, with all ministers from the Syrian Salvation Government transferring to the same posts in the new caretaker government of Syria.

The Syrian Revolution Victory Conference, officially titled the Conference for Announcing the Victory of the Syrian Revolution (Arabic: مؤتمر إعلان انتصار الثورة السورية), was held at the Presidential Palace in Damascus, Syria, on 29 January 2025. It was attended by the commanders of various armed revolutionary factions that fought for the Syrian opposition coalition against the deposed regime of Bashar al-Assad, with the exception of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Southern Operations Room, and groups from Suwayda. It was organized by the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham-led Syrian caretaker government under de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

The meeting praised the successful Syrian Revolution which resulted in the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024. In the conference, Military Operations Command spokesman Hassan Abdul Ghani announced that al-Sharaa had been appointed the president of Syria for the transitional period and laid out the new government's priorities, most of which involved eliminating traces of the deposed Ba'athist regime and rebuilding Syrian institutions.