Syria’s General Command on Tuesday officially announced the appointment of Major General Marhaf Abu Qusra as Minister of Defence in the new government.

Abu Qusra was previously the military commander of Tahrir al-Sham, one of the most prominent leaders of the military operations that toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad on 8 December.

Born in the town of Halfaya in Hama province, the new defence minister is known as ‘Abu al-Hassan al-Hamawi’ and ‘Abu al-Hassan 600’.

The official Syrian News Agency (SANA) reported that ‘the General Command announces the appointment of Major General Engineer Sayed Marhaf Abu Qasra as Minister of Defence in the new government of the Syrian Arab Republic’. Abu Qusra was promoted to the rank of ‘general’ two days ago in a decree issued by the new head of the Syrian administration, Ahmad al-Sharaa.