Tuesday Briefing: Syrian Rebels Rush to Establish Order

Syrian rebels are in control, but their plans are yet unclear

The rebels who took over Damascus announced yesterday that a new government would begin work immediately, as millions of Syrians and the wider world struggled to process the stunning end to the Assad family’s decades-long reign. Rebel fighters took up positions outside public buildings and directed traffic in a show of their newly claimed authority. Here’s the latest.

Times reporters in Syria yesterday saw abandoned Syrian military tanks, empty checkpoints and ripped-up posters of President Bashar al-Assad littering the ground. There were early signs of the lawlessness — broken windows of cars and shops — that many fear could spiral and grip the country, as well as euphoria at the ouster of a brutal leader.

The rebels now face the complex task of extending their control over a country with deep ethnic, sectarian and religious divisions.

I spoke to Alissa Rubin, a senior Middle East correspondent, for some context.

Can you explain the regional factors that played into the fall of the Assad regime?

This certainly happened in large part because of Israel’s weakening of Hezbollah, whose troops were supporting Assad. That made it more difficult for Iran, which is close to Hezbollah and worked with them in Syria, to operate there. Russia was also busy elsewhere. So there were all these international factors that created this moment, but those factors — and powers like Turkey — will also be part of creating the future.

What are the biggest challenges heading into that future?

There’s going to be an enormous number of military and security developments, and a lot of questions about how people will both be safe and also able to make it their country again.

There is no plan yet for how to rule or control the country. What happens in Damascus, which is pretty far west, has a limited amount to do with what happens in Aleppo, and certainly nothing to do with what happens out on the Iraqi border or down south near Jordan. All of that is going to be up for grabs, and there are a lot of different actors, including the Islamic State, which is present and has been resurgent there in the last couple of years.

Iran has actually broached the idea of a sort of national conference to figure all this out, which would include all Syrians. I hope there will be someone to come and organize that. But it sounds daunting at the moment.

A massacre in Haiti’s capital

Nearly 200 people were killed in a massacre over the weekend in Cité Soleil, one of the poorest neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, the U.N.’s human rights chief said yesterday.

A leading Haitian human rights group described the killings as the personal vendetta of a gang boss who had been told that witchcraft caused his son’s fatal illness. Older people who practiced Voodoo appeared to have been targeted: Nearly 130 of those who were killed were over 60, according to the U.N., which added that gang members had burned bodies and flung them into the sea.

Mass deportations: Desperate Haitians who fled to the Dominican Republic are now being sent back in cages. Dominican officials have said their goal is 10,000 deportations per week.

France’s first big #MeToo case goes to trial

Five years ago, the French actress Adèle Haenel shocked the country’s film industry when she accused the director Christophe Ruggia of grooming and sexually assaulting her when she was 12 and he was 36.

Yesterday, the case went to court, marking the first major #MeToo accusation in France to proceed to trial. Ruggia, 59, is charged with aggravated sexual assault against a minor. Ruggia has repeatedly denied the allegations. In his testimony, he characterized the accusations that he had touched Haenel sexually as “pure lies.”

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After Ling’er, an aspiring influencer in eastern China, came out as transgender, her parents sent her to a hospital to try to change her gender identity. She was held there against her will for three months and forced to undergo electroshock therapy. Doctors urged her to cut her hair short and wear men’s clothing.

She later sued the hospital and received a settlement. It’s China’s first known lawsuit over so-called conversion therapy involving a transgender person.

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Spying on students to prevent self-harm

In the array of A.I.-powered technologies entering American classrooms, few carry higher stakes than software that tries to detect self-harm and suicidal ideation. These systems spread quickly during Covid lockdowns as they were loaded onto the laptops sent home with many students. Now, close to one-half of U.S. schoolchildren, according to some estimates, are subject to surveillance that alerts school staff members if the students seem to be thinking about hurting themselves.

Interviews with parents and school staff members suggest that the alerts have, at times, allowed schools to intervene at critical moments. But there have also been unintended consequences, some of them harmful. Read more here.