Mysterious killings of Syrian régime operatives hint at inside jobs

 'On a rainy October in 2013, a Syrian military music band in red berets played a requiem at the funeral of one of the régime's top enforcers.

 Loyalists fired their guns in the air as a wreath-adorned ambulance carrying the coffin of Maj Gen Jameh Jameh, of military intelligence, drove through the Alawite Mountains overlooking the Mediterranean.

 Alawite rites were performed in front of the flag-draped coffin in Jameh’s home district of Jableh.

 The official news agency said he was killed by “terrorists” in the line of duty in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, and régime media broadcast footage of the funeral.



 ISIS, Nusra Front and at least one local rebel group all said they had killed Jameh.

 But a senior western security official said that seven years on, his agency was still unable to confirm whether Jameh was killed at all.

 Last month, six régime military and intelligence operatives were reported dead, but Jameh’s death shows the probable difficulty in discovering what happened.

 None have had as senior a position as Jameh, but the war economy, as well as Iranian and Russian patronage networks, have elevated them to power and wealth beyond what their official role would suggest.

 Their emergence as significant players is owing to changes in social dynamics and power structures in régime areas, driven from within and by outside powers, since the outbreak of the revolt against Assad family rule in 2011.



 The deaths were mostly reported by the opposition and by Arab newspapers.

 Régime sources corroborated reports of the deaths of two of the men: militia commander Nizar Zeidan and Brig Gen Suleiman Khalouf, head of the Military Signal College in the central city of Homs.

 Pro-Assad Facebook groups said Khalouf was “martyred” last month.

 One, named Souriya Habibati, said Khalouf was killed on the Jabal al-Zawiya front in Idlib.

 The same group blamed “dogs” of a militia called the Fifth Corps for Zeidan’s killing two weeks ago.



 The Fifth Corps was set up from former rebels who had surrendered to the régime, mostly in southern Syria, under deals brokered by Moscow.

 A defected Syrian army officer in contact with the Fifth Corps said the militia had nothing to do with Zeidan’s killing and that an inside job was more likely.

 The officer ruled out that Khalouf died in combat, saying that he may have died in a “car accident or of the coronavirus”.

 His importance, the officer said, had grown among the Alawite community in Homs because his officers played a major role in crushing the rebellion.

 Having an independent base among the Alawite community became increasingly frowned upon after the Russian intervention in 2015, which restored large areas of territory to the régime and sharply improved the outlook for survival of the Assads.

 Clues to the deaths of the two men may lie in the paths they took to rise in the régime’s ranks, which may have ultimately made them expendable.



 Zeidan was a commander of a Sunni militia attached to the elite Fourth Mechanised Division, commanded by Bashar Al Assad’s brother Maher, who is also the de facto head of the Alawite-dominated military.

 Like the Fifth Corps but smaller, the militia is comprised of former rebels in the Wadi Barada area, north-west of Damascus, who surrendered to the régime in a deal guaranteed by Russia in 2017.

 Although the régime regarded Zeidan’s group as cannon fodder, attachment to the Fourth Division was materially beneficial, partly because the division oversees many of the area’s once-lucrative roadblocks.

 But such illicit cash flows have been drying up.

 Income from monopolising supplies to besieged populations was lost when siege warfare against rebel regions mostly ended two years ago, after the régime prevailed in Damascus and the south.

 Sunnis, who contribute the core of day-to-day economic activity, were displaced or fled Syria en masse, lessening the potential to extort the civilian population.



 An economic meltdown in Lebanon resulted in November in bans on dollar withdrawals from Beirut’s banks, lessening foreign currency flows to régime areas and contributing to a renewed collapse of the Syrian pound.

 One régime officer wrote on Facebook that his monthly salary of 73,719 Syrian pounds (Dh117) is now worth $32 and can buy no more than one banana a day for his family.

 The same salary would have been worth $1,475 in March 2011, when the Syrian revolt began, and $123 before the Lebanese financial crisis at the end of last year.

 As a Sunni, the wages Zeidan tried to secure for himself and his subordinates were taken from a smaller pool of resources than that available to his Alawite superiors.

 While he owed his status as a local warlord to Russia, the Fourth Division was regarded as falling increasingly into the Iranian orbit, possibly contributing to his position becoming untenable.

 Two diplomats based in the Middle East said Zeidan and others who have been reported killed appear to have been casualties of régime consolidation.

 “The pie is getting smaller and the scene is too crowded,” one of the diplomats said.



 More mysterious was the death of Khalouf, whose reputation among the Alawite minority in Homs was enhanced by the war.

 Syrian political analyst Ayman Abdel Nour said he appeared to have been close to Assad’s maternal cousin, the oligarch Rami Makhlouf.

 Mr Makhlouf gained support among the Alawites of Homs by channelling money to their neighbourhoods.

 But a rift between him and the president emerged in May, with Mr Makhlouf making videos lamenting that some in the security force he had been financing were turning against him.

 Khalouf’s death coincided with reports that at least 15 proteges of Mr Makhlouf in security had been arrested.

 Regional bankers said the financial meltdown in Lebanon last year prompted scrutiny by the inner circle about Mr Makhlouf’s position as the money man of the régime.

 It was a role he inherited from his father, Mohammad, who moved to Moscow between 2012 and 2014.

 The tycoon was barred this year from leaving Syria and the government ordered his assets to be seized.

 But his relations with Russia are said to have been a major factor shielding him from physical retribution.

 Mr Makhlouf became a major player in the war economy. He financed pro-régime militias and paid compensation to families who lost members fighting for the régime.

 Mr Abdel Nour said Khalouf was a conduit for Mr Makhlouf to grease the wheels of the system.

 “Khalouf had a network among the officer corps and he owed allegiance to Makhlouf,” Mr Abdel Nour said. “For the régime, such officers are a time bomb."

 Muhammad Halhal, a cleric, said the brigadier general had “damaged his life for his homeland" in footage that appeared on a Facebook page for his home village, Tel Turmos, north of Homs.

 An unidentified army captain delivered a eulogy, saying Khalouf was “always optimistic about the future of Syria”.

 “He inspired his subordinates with love and high morals,” the captain said.



 Mystery shrouds the reported death of another four régime operatives, including Ali Jumblatt and Maan Idris, two lieutenants of Maher al-Assad.

 The other two were Brig Gen Somar Deeb, who oversaw interrogations at the notorious Sednaya Military Prison north of Damascus, and Brig Gen Thaer Kheir Beik of Air Force intelligence.

 Air Force intelligence is a main security organisation that was also believed to have come under strong influence from Iran.

 No corroboration or denial of their deaths was found on the pro-Assad social media.

 But the outlets said a fifth régime operative who was reported by the opposition and Arab media to have been killed, Brig Gen Jihad Zaal of Air force Intelligence, a Sunni, is alive and working.

 The officer with the opposition said it was highly plausible that the four were “liquidated”, given the internal upheaval in the régime.

 But Mr Abdel Nour was inclined to believe that the four are all alive and still active within the régime.

 “The régime wants to distract from the main issue, which is Rami Makhlouf,” he said.

 Mr Abdel Nour said it was usual for the régime to put out false information “to hide its patterns, or create false ones”.

 With the régime considered to be well versed in deception, it might never be ascertained whether the four are dead or alive, especially considering that their family names are Alawite.

 Unity among the Alawites in security has underpinned the régime since Hafez al-Assad took power in a coup in 1970.

 Direct shedding of blood by the régime of Alawites in the military and security organisations has been relatively rare.

 The praetorian military and intelligence units, overseen by layers of enforcers, maintained cohesion over decades.

 But turf warfare among the pro-Assad paramilitary increased in the past few years, and the régime has not hesitated to dispose of non-violent Alawite dissidents.



 The most important Alawite security figure believed by regional intelligence to have been killed by the régime was the president’s brother-in-law, Brig Gen Assef Shawkat.

 Maher al-Assad, in particular, hated Shawkat, and shot him in the stomach in the 1990s.

 Shawkat was transferred to France for treatment, survived, and returned to Syria.

 In 2012, a villa explosion in Damascus killed him and three other senior security figures, who were members of a “crisis cell” directing the crackdown on the uprising.

 Three rebel groups claimed responsibility. But regional intelligence officials said Shawkat's death was an inside job.

 A European diplomat described Shawkat as “everything Bashar al-Assad is not: charismatic, loved by the Alawites and competent militarily”.

 Shawkat and Jameh were among senior Syrian security officers implicated by a UN investigation into the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

 Hariri died in a lorry bomb blast in Beirut, along with 21 others.

 His assassination set in motion a series of events that forced the withdrawal of Syrian régime forces from Lebanon that year.

 UN investigators interrogated Jameh in Vienna in December 2005, along with four other Syrian officials.

 He was the de facto commander of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon when Hariri was killed.

 Rustum Ghazaleh, Jameh’s nominal superior in Lebanon, died in Damascus in 2015.

 The Lebanese pro-Assad al-Mayadeen TV said Ghazaleh, a Sunni from Deraa, died in hospital, but official media in Damascus made no mention of him.

 A regional intelligence official said Ghazaleh, who was also interrogated in Vienna, was looking to defect before the régime killed him, but “no one wanted him”.

 His one-time boss, interior minister Ghazi Kanaan, killed himself in 2005 at his office in Damascus, régime media said.

 But few believed the régime’s version at the time.

 Kanaan, an Alawite and the viceroy of the Syrian régime in Lebanon when Hariri was killed, became known as having been “suicided”.

 The régime resisted requests by the investigators to send Shawkat, head of Syrian military intelligence at the time, to Vienna to be questioned.

 A European official who covers Syria said although the details might never emerge, he had been expecting the régime to “embark on internal cleansing", given that it considers it has won the war.

 The régime’s cover-up operations have their roots in training by Russia’s KGB and Germany’s Stasi, and from at least one Nazi operative who fled to Syria after the Second World War.

 It might never be revealed how old and new symbols of the régime disappeared from the scene.

 But there is a saying among the vanquished Sunnis in Syria: “Only an Alawite kills an Alawite.” '

Syrian forces deploy scorched earth policy in newly-recaptured Idlib

 'Before his land was seized by forces loyal to the Syrian régime, pistachio and olive farmer Abu Jaber said he had a story to tell for every grain of sand.

 His farmland was near the northern town of Kafr Zita, which was among those captured during an aggressive offensive to reclaim territory in the northern provinces of Hama and Idlib last year.

 Almost a year later, much of the agricultural land in the area has either been plundered or burned.

 “Years of work have gone to waste,” said Mr Jaber. “I had to leave and will never be able to return back after the crops were stolen and land burnt.”

 “Every day I receive dozens of photos and videos … They burn our lands so we can’t return to cultivate for even just ourselves to live off the produce.”

 Together with his six brothers, Mr Jaber grew enough food across 450 acres to feed 79 members of the family, as well as providing enough funds to keep them going. They say they have lost crops worth $250,000.

 The family have now fled to Batbo in western Aleppo, where they are looking for jobs. Mr Jaber’s sons risk dropping out of university as he can no longer afford to keep them there, and finding work in a country ravaged by almost a decade of civil war is no easy feat.



 Syrians are also contending with a collapsing economy and sharp fall in the value of their currency, compounded by the spread of the global coronavirus pandemic.

 According to a Facebook statement by the local branch of President Bashar Al Assad's ruling Baath Party in Mahrada, northern Hama, proceeds from this year’s pistachio crop will be put towards a fund to assist the families of the régime forces' dead. Yet there is no system to compensate the farmers for the loss of their land or their income.

 According to Abdulnasser Hoshan, a lawyer from Kafr Zita, the proceeds from seized crops were likely to go to intelligence services officers rather than the “martyrs” fund.

 “The number of civilians affected is more than 50,000,” said Mr Hoshan.



 “It is not currently possible for civilians to claim compensation for their losses because the Assad régime’s judiciary is corrupt, and rights cannot be restored to its people.”

 This year’s fires began appearing at the beginning of June and were started by volunteers for state-funded militias. Mr Hoshan said that between 9,000 and 15,000 acres of land that hosted various crops, including pistachios, olives, wheat and lentils, have so far been burned.

 “These crimes must be documented for justice after the fall of the Syrian régime,” said Mr Hosham.



 Attacking crops in opposition-affiliated areas is a tactic the régime has used before, notably in 2018 and 2019 when huge areas of barley were incinerated. Critics say the attacks are designed to starve civilians, and the loss of food and income makes life very difficult, especially during the hot summer months.

 Extremist group ISIS also chose to burn crops in areas they retreated from or where they had recently been defeated.

 Idlib is the last rebel stronghold in Syria, with around half of the three million population having already been displaced at least once from other parts of Syria. Food and shelter is already scarce, with even the displacement camps are too full to take people.

 Mr Ghassan Aboud, engineer and head of Hama’s opposition agriculture department, said the burning of the fields could also impact the area’s chances of recovery.

 As well as killing the soil’s micro-organisms and exposing it to the damaging effects of the sun, the fires damage the ecosystem by killing the insects needed for pollination.

 “In the short term, pistachio trees are irreparable agricultural wealth because they need 12 to 15 years to enter the fruit phase,” said Mr Aboud, with olive trees needing between four and five years.

 For Mr Jaber, the future of his farm or his family’s whereabouts now seem uncertain.

 "I’m afraid that the Assad régime will transfer ownership of the land to another person, as he did with many displaced civilians from the rest of Syria,” he said.

 “I’m also afraid of being displaced again from Batabo – the news is spreading that Assad and Russia’s are planning to launch a new military campaign in the region." '

The latest updates on Idlib file

 'A violent explosion targeted a joint military patrol of Turkey and Russia on the international "Aleppo - Latakia" road (M4) last Tuesday, and after investigations it was found that the explosion was caused by a car bomb that penetrated the international road and targeted the twenty-first patrol, which was supposed to arrive in the village of "Ain al-Hoor" in the countryside of Jisr al-Shughour west of Idlib, according to the protocol signed between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin in Moscow on the 5th of March last year.


 The explosion was not the first on the road since the patrols began, but it was the most violent ever, and the Russian Defense Ministry admitted the wounding of three of its personnel, and a number of vehicles were damaged, and the Russian army was only able to unleash its planes to fire the lava on the heads of civilians In the Idlib countryside, in revenge for what it suffered.



 The file of the joint patrols between Turkey and Russia on the "M4" road in Idlib has passed four months, and just as its beginning was difficult it seems that the end of it will be so. With the first patrol that was to be run on the road, a number of groups in Idlib from hard-line factions threatened to take actions against it.

 The car bomb blast brought fierce attacks primarily on civilians, although such a car bomb did not achieve any significant results, Russia and its militias began a campaign of air and ground bombing of the villages and towns of Jabal al-Zawiya in southern Idlib, and reached the city of "Ariha", which lost two of civilians (father and child) as a result of the shelling, others were wounded.


 After the region's population hoped to live safe in light of the Turkey and Russia agreement that culminated in the joint patrols on the M4 road, they are now afraid of the collapse of the agreement completely, and a return to square one, and of course the return of the battles.

 Russia said after the bombing that the process of patrolling the road had stopped temporarily, while the Turkish Ministry of Defense stressed that it will continue alongside Russia to implement the agreement, and to continue the patrols and address the situation with full determination, which creates a ray of hope that escalation can be halted and calm return, which was relative and basically not permanent.



 Returning to the car bombing incident, a group calling itself "Khattab Chechen", an unknown group whose only previous action was detonating another explosive device on the M4 road, claimed responsibility for the car bomb which raises many questions about its true affiliation and its goals as well as the purpose of such attacks.

 Some observers argue that the beneficiaries of causing chaos and obstructing the implementation of the Turkey and Russia agreement are the militant groups represented by the factions of the operating room "Stand Firm" which in turn includes several organizations, most notably "Guardians of Religion" [Hurras al-Din], because it considers that any stability that Idlib could witness, would enable the Turkish army has expanded more and more in the province, and this will mean in one way or another that these groups will end or decline significantly.

 Others see that Russia, Iran and the Assad régime have an interest in the collapse of the agreement, especially Russia, which wants to evade the upcoming commitments with Turkey, after the success of the joint patrols, which is to ensure the return of the displaced to their homes, and to withdraw the Assad régime to the Sochi borders.

 Others expect that the Headquarters for Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham would be the mastermind of the bombing, in an attempt later to make it an excuse on the basis of which it would attack the militant factions, and portray itself to the states as the moderate faction committed to international agreements, and the sole controller in Idlib.

 The Syrian researcher, Abdullah al-Mousa, points out that the video broadcast by the agency "Rus vensa" (which accurately showed the moment when the car exploded) confirmed that the explosion actually took place with a car bomb and not an explosive device, which excludes many possibilities that the régime's agents and allies are who designed this play.



 The video itself, according to al-Mousa, was highly unlikely that the Headquarters for Tahrir Al-Sham was responsible for the bombing (the fact that some spoke of this scenario in the sense that [HTS leader] al-Golani wanted to create an argument to complete the attack on extremist organizations).

 Al-Mousa suggested that the organization Guardians of Religion was responsible for this operation, especially that "the organization had a military presence near the area where the bombing occurred before the Moscow agreement on March 5, and members from southern and western countryside of Idlib have joined in, and this process requires local members to plan and implement it."

 The Syrian researcher reinforces his belief by pointing out that the Guardians of Religion members are the most active - albeit in media - in attacking the "Turkish - Russian" agreement, and they have appeared several times with videos threatening to bomb, slaughter and kill.

 Others expect that it was Russia itself that conducted the bombing by its cells, and the spokesperson for the National Liberation Front, Captain Naji Mustafa, said that the biggest beneficiary of the bombing is the Russian occupation, the régime forces and the Iranian militias, since Russia has been seeking since the March 5th agreement to break the ceasefire and rteurn to the escalation in Idlib governorate.

 In turn, the Syrian researcher, Abbas Sharifa, suggests that the party responsible for the car bombing would be one of two, the cells of the Syrian régime and Iran, which are working to push Russia to start military action in Idlib, and the second cells remaining from the organization "Guardians of Religion" and the "operation room", "Stand Firm", to reinforce their position rejecting the international understandings.



 All possibilities remain open regarding the future of the ceasefire agreement in Idlib. During the past days, Russian hints indicating their unease with the current calm have been repeated, sometimes accusing the factions of preparing chemical weapons attacks with the aim of accusing the régime of it, and at times claiming that these factions are attacking the military Hmeimim base in the countryside of Latakia with drones, but on the other hand it can be said that the signs of the return of the battles have not been completed yet, as no media or military propaganda by the Assad régime was noted towards the return of the battles in Idlib as usual, and the National Front spokesman confirmed they "haven't monitored new military build-up of the régime and its militias in the Idlib area, and he indicated that the factions consider the worst possibilities, including the renewed Russian attacks, and continue to prepare their fighters and develop plans to face any possible attack." '