Syrian Christians protest Christmas tree burning as rebel factions disbanded

Dr H A Hellyer, senior associate fellow in international security at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) said that the incident should not be overplayed and that concerns around inclusivity were to be expected during a such a large scale transition. “We’re talking about a country that’s pretty big, and one burning of one tree in one place,” he told The i Paper. “Almost immediately, we saw HTS come out and condemn it. I find that positive, and I wouldn’t say that we’ve got evidence to suggest that anything else is going on. This is a country in transition. I think it’s more than justified for people to be worried about what happens in a transitional process. It would be naive not to. But I don’t there’s anything going on yet.” Dr Hellyer added: “There’s a lot of expectation that there’s going to be either a complete catastrophe immediately or everything’s got to be perfect immediately. And I think it’ll be more messy than that.”