Syria’s de facto leader announces possible four-year timeline for elections

Syria’s de facto leader said has said it could take up to four years to hold elections in Syria, and that he plans to dissolve his Islamist group that led the country’s insurgency at an anticipated national dialogue summit for the country. Ahmad al-Sharaa, who leads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group leading the new authority in Syria, made the remarks in an interview with a Saudi television network. It comes almost a month after a lightning insurgency led by HTS overthrew President Bashar Assad’s decades-long rule, ending the country’s uprising-turned civil war that started back in 2011.