This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Andrew Peach and in the early hours of Monday the 23rd of December,

these are our main stories.

Siri's new leaders says he wants all weapons and armed factions to come under state control.

Germany promises a thorough investigation into the Magdeburg attack.

Also in this podcast?

We bumped into a bunch of young kids and they just decided to run with me for about seven kilometers all the way to their school.

In fact, we actually had to stop them to ask to tell them to go to school because they just wanted to keep going with us.

The Ugandan who's walked and run from Cape Town to London.

Let's start the podcast with the latest from Syria, where in the past few hours, we've been learning more about the new administration's plans for defence and security.

There have been concerns about the country's stability ever since the sudden fall of the

Assad regime two weeks ago, including fears of the so-called Islamic State Group growing in power.

Today, the new de facto leader Ahmed al-Shirar addressed those concerns in a news conference

with the Turkish foreign minister

Hakan Fidon. He said that armed factions would begin to be dissolved and incorporated into the Syrian army.

And he announced plans to bring all weapons in the country under state control, including those held by the mainly Kurdish SDF.

We will not, by any means, allow for weapons outside the control of the state,

whether from revolutionary factions or factions in SDF areas.

We need to close this chapter as quickly as possible,

because the presence of rogue arms in the country is what leads to chaos and unstable security. I think there is wide agreement among the factions. God willing, things will

work out well. Our Middle East regional editor, Sebastian Usher, is in Beirut and told me more

about Turkey's involvement. Hakan Fidane is the first foreign minister to go to Damascus into the toppling of Bashar al-Assad

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