Who are Syria's foreign and defence ministers? Abu Mohammed al Jolani's friends in HTS hope to win world's trust

Weeks after Bashar al-Assad's ouster, Syria's new regime, which has been restructuring its government, has appointed new finance and defence ministers.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani (also spelt as al-Julani and al-Golani) is currently Syria's de facto leader. The ruling General Command headed by al-Jolani has named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as the foreign minister in the interim government. On the other hand, Murhaf Abu Qasra, popular as Abu Hassan 600, will be the defence minister.

Both al-Shibani and Qasra are close to al-Jolani, just like the 12 other ministers appointed previously. The caretaker government will have a validity of three months but it is still not clear if the new regime will be prepared for a democratic process immediately.

The appointment comes as the new regime headed by al-Jolani, whose real name is Ahmed al-Sharaa, hopes to win the trust of the world. Al-Jolani has been designated a terrorist by the US since 2013 when he was part of Al Qaeda and in 2016, his HTS broke away from the terrorist group.

Al-Jolani has been reaching out to world countries to resume diplomatic relations. And his efforts have seem to yielded some results after American officials said the US would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.

Turkey and Qatar have already opened embassies in Syria while the European Union expressed its readiness to reopen its mission in Damascus. France said its embassy will remain closed until security critera is restored but the French flag was raised over its mission in Damascus.