Syria’s new Islamist leaders are undertaking a radical overhaul of the country’s broken economy, including plans to fire a third of all public sector workers and privatising state-run companies dominant during half a century of Assad family rule. The pace of the declared crackdown on waste and corruption, which has already seen the first layoffs just weeks after rebels toppled Assad on Dec. 8, has triggered protests from government workers, including over fears of a sectarian jobs purge. There is now a major shift to “a competitive free-market economy,” Syria’s new economy minister, 40-year-old former energy engineer Basil Abdel Hanan, told media.
