All religious groups' rights 'guaranteed'

DAMASCUS, Dec 11 (AFP/BBC): Syria's new prime minister said the Islamist-led alliance that ousted president Bashar al-Assad will "guarantee" the rights of all religious groups and called on the millions who fled the war to return home.

Assad fled Syria after a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and its allies, which brought to a spectacular end five decades of brutal rule by his clan.

Syrians across the country and around the world erupted in celebration, after enduring a stifling five decades that saw anyone suspected of dissent thrown into jail or killed.

With Assad's overthrow plunging Syria into the unknown, its new rulers have sought to assure members of the country's religious minorities that they will not repress them.

Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syria's branch of Al-Qaeda and is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by many Western governments, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric.

Russia calls for rapid Syria

stabilisation, criticises Israel

The Kremlin said Wednesday that it wanted to see rapid stabilisation in Syria, criticising Israeli strikes and its creation of a "buffer zone" along the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

Russia also said its military offensive on Ukraine remained its "absolute priority" amid questions over whether Moscow's almost three-year campaign there meant it could not support long-term ally Bashar al-Assad in the face of the lightning rebel offensive.

"We would like to see the situation in the country stabilised somehow as soon as possible," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Kurdish-led force announces

US-brokered truce in Manbij

The Kurdish-led force controlling northeast Syria said Wednesday it had reached a US-brokered ceasefire with Turkish-backed fighters in Manbij, after Islamist-led rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad's government.

The clashes in Manbij, an Arab-majority city, have killed 218 combatants since Turkish-backed groups launched offensives in the north following the ouster of Assad on Sunday.