DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) \u2014 Syria \u2019s interim leader reshuffled several top government posts on Saturday and removed his brother from a key position that had drawn accusations of nepotism as his administration struggles to unite a divided nation after a brutal civil war.<\/p>\n
President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s brother, Maher al-Sharaa, had served as secretary-general to the presidency in Damascus. His initial appointment last year had triggered parallels with the practices under Syria\u2019s former President Bashar Assad and his father and predecessor, Hafez Assad.<\/p>\n
Ahmad al-Sharaa led an insurgent offensive that ousted Bashar Assad in December 2024 after a nearly 14-year civil war. During his rule, the younger Assad also placed family members, including his wife and brother, in influential positions.<\/p>\n
Assad’s brother, Maher Assad, was commander of the Syrian military\u2019s 4th Armored Division \u2014 a unit accused by opposition activists of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking. The former president’s wife, Asma Assad, headed the influential Syrian Trust for Development.<\/p>\n
In a decree on Saturday, al-Sharaa appointed Abdul Rahman Badreddine al-Aama \u2014 previously the governor of Homs province \u2014 as his brother’s replacement, state news agency SANA reported.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear what position, if any, Maher al-Sharaa would hold going forward. He is a physician who had also previously served as Syria’s interim health minister.<\/p>\n
Syria’s interim leader also appointed new governors for Homs, Latakia, Deir el-Zour and Quneitra provinces and a new information minister, Khaled Zaarour, an academic who was most recently the dean of the faculty of media at Damascus University. He replaces Hamza Mustafa, a former media executive who was head of the private Syria TV network before becoming information minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) \u2014 Syria \u2019s interim leader reshuffled several top government posts on Saturday and removed his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1828,36615,887,36614,3284,3285,3282,3283,95,36613],"class_list":{"0":"post-105860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-syria","8":"tag-ahmad-al-sharaa","9":"tag-asma-al-assad","10":"tag-bashar-assad","11":"tag-hamza-mustafa","12":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","13":"tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","14":"tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","15":"tag-product-32505-ap-online-middle-east-news","16":"tag-syria","17":"tag-syria-reshuffle-alsharaa-government"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116547075600082874","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}