Andrew McGregor

Terrorism Monitor, November 17, 2011

The Syrian revolt against the Assad regime has been particularly intense in the city of Homs, as has been the regime’s violent response. Homs-based opposition leader and self-described “field coordinator of the revolution in Homs” Husayn Iryan recently described resistance operations in Homs in an interview with a pan-Arab daily (al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 12). An industrial city of 1.5 million, Homs is located 160 km north of Damascus. The majority of its residents are Sunni Muslims, though there are significant minorities of Alawis and Christians. Armed clashes began in Homs in May, with the anti-regime Free Syrian Army launching operations in Homs in October.

Iryan presents an optimistic evaluation of the resistance efforts in Homs despite the daily “horrible crimes and massacres” perpetrated by the regime in that city: “Homs has managed in the last weeks to exhaust the Syrian regime and to weaken it to the extreme limits through non-stop protest movements despite all the restrictions, the siege and the massacres that the regime commits in the city against its sons.”

Iryan explains the viciousness of the regime’s crackdown on the opposition in Homs by pointing to four factors:

• The city’s proximity to Lebanon and the government’s fears that this might enable Homs to become “like Benghazi” and slip from the regime’s control.

• The Khalid bin al-Walid battalion of the armed opposition was formed in Homs, where splits in the regular army first occurred. The battalion, named for the 7^th century Arab conqueror of Syria, is active in resisting the ongoing siege by loyalist forces. The formation of a second battalion of defectors called the Ali bin Abi Taleb Battalion (under the supervision of the Khalid bin al-Walid Battalion) was announced in the Homs Province city of Houla in late September (al-Jazeera, September 27).

• Homs was the first city to initiate civil disobedience, with citizens refusing to pay taxes and civil servants refusing to carry out their work.

• Revolutionary forces in Homs have inflicted casualties on the army, the intelligence services and government-sponsored “thugs” in the last few months.

For this resistance, Iryan says Homs, al-Qusayr and other towns and villages in the Homs Province had collectively suffered over a thousand dead, many of these consigned to mass graves. According to Iryan, even flight from Homs has become impossible due to the government cordon around the city: “Those who enter Homs can consider themselves doomed and those who manage to leave it consider that they have been given a new life.”

Unlike the militancy of the Homs opposition, a vastly different assessment of the Syrian revolution came in an interview with Hasan Abd-al-Azim, the general coordinator of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change in Syria. Al-Azim’s committee represents some fifteen political parties, including Arab leftist groups and some Kurdish political parties: “We have parties whose hands are not covered in blood and corruption. We are hoping to have a pluralistic, parliamentary, and democratic state and a new system that satisfies all the aspirations of the Syrian people…”

Syrian Government Patrol in Homs, 2013 (BBC)

Al-Azim, whose movement favors an “Arab solution” and opposes foreign intervention or the imposition of a no-fly zone, speaks of a “peaceful revolution in Syria which has not used weapons or violence as Al-Asad’s regime is claiming” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 11). In asserting the possibility that real change can be brought about in Syria by peaceful protest, al-Azim overlooks numerous reports of violence and the attempted assassination of the Yemeni president to cite “the peaceful Yemeni revolution that has entered its tenth month without the people using weapons, though weapons in Yemen are available in all houses and streets.”

A veteran of various left-wing Arab nationalist parties, Abdul Azim has rejected a militant approach to the resistance, backing a moderate package of reforms leading to democracy that does not necessarily involve overthrowing the Assad regime (al-Akhbar [Beirut], September 21).

The disparate approaches to revolution in Syria in these two statements reflect the wider divisions that have plagued the Syrian opposition, differences that boiled over when some Syrian opposition figures were assaulted by other opposition members when they tried to enter the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo for a meeting with the League’s secretary-general (al-Quds al-Arabi, November 11).

This article first appeared in the November 17, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.  

Andrew McGregor

October 14, 2011

Since the formation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) on July 29, the force led by  
Colonel Riyad Musa al-Asa’d (formerly an engineer in the Syrian Air Force) has become the core of a small but still largely ineffective armed opposition to the Syrian regime. [1]

Free Syrian Army Commander Colonel Riyad Musa al-Asa’d

The only visible part of the FSA is a camp inside Turkey’s Hatay Province containing roughly 65 former Syrian soldiers and officers. The camp is surrounded by troops of the Turkish military, which has been conducting an October 5-13 mobilization exercise in Hatay Province (Hurriyet, October 5; AFP, October 5). It is from here that Colonel al-Asa’ad attempts to recruit and direct defectors from the Syrian Army, which he says number some 10,000, spread all over Syria. The FSA also operates a press office from the camp which tries to rally international support for the FSA and its campaign of armed opposition to the regime of Bashar Assad. As part of this effort Colonel al-Asa’d has recently granted a series of interviews to regional and international news outlets describing the formation of the FSA and its intent to overthrow the Syrian regime.

Colonel al-Asa’d makes some bold claims about the FSA and its ability to control defectors from the Syrian military by creating a type of mirror force: “We have formed a complete army and distributed the regiments and companies according to the system operating in the regular Syrian army’s command… There is a need to create an army nucleus capable of controlling matters and which turns into an official army after the regime’s downfall” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 9).

While some defectors have joined the FSA, it seems clear that many other military defectors have simply gone home or into hiding. One group was recently involved in fighting with regime forces in Rastan in a battle in which 40 people are said to have been killed before the FSA was driven from the town (The National [Abu Dhabi], September 30).

Despite the claims of Colonel al-Asa’d and the FSA, the new armed opposition force is still a long way from mounting an effective campaign against the regime. The FSA remains poorly organized and lacks safe bases from which to mount attacks on the Syrian Army. The FSA has few weapons and admits it lacks external support. While Turkey appears willing at the moment to offer refuge to Colonel Asa’d and his small group of followers, this is still a long way from allowing a large resistance force to carry out cross-border military operations. According to the Colonel, “The Turks are the only ones standing with us now. The Arabs have let us down and therefore we have no one except them.” The FSA rejects foreign intervention, but is asking for an “air and naval embargo” against Syria and a “no-fly zone” in certain parts of Syria (al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 18; Hurriyet, October 10).

Colonel Asa’d maintains that until now, the FSA has refrained from carrying out operations against fellow soldiers in the Syrian Army, preferring instead to combat selected groups such as the non-military security forces, air intelligence and the Shabihah, an informal pro-regime militia. Now, however, shelling of civilians by the regular army and bombings by the air force have compelled the FSA to direct their attention towards the regular forces: “We excluded [the regular army] at first, but we are now forced to target it. We are going to strike with all our force” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 9). In an interview with a UK daily, al-Asa’d said he is coordinating a campaign of guerrilla attacks and assassinations through intermediaries that cross between Turkey and Syria (Independent, October 10).

Nevertheless, Colonel al-Asa’d told a Turkish daily that assistance of the type received by Libyan rebels from NATO would be essential to the FSA’s success: “If the international community helps us, then we can do it, but we are sure the struggle will be more difficult without arms… The international community has helped opposition forces in Libya but we have been waiting and suffering for seven months. The situation is less complicated in Syria than the situation in Libya but we haven’t received any help so far” (Hurriyet, October 8).

Note

1. For the founding statement of the FSA, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZcCbIPM37w

This article was first published in the October 14, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Andrew McGregor

June 9, 2011

With its central doctrines carefully guarded as religious secrets, the true essence of Alawism has proved elusive to many who have tried to define it. Alawism is primarily a syncretistic belief system that incorporates large doses of Middle Eastern Christianity with significant influence from Isma’ili Islam, Shi’a “Twelver” Islam and traditional pre-Islamic beliefs. French colonial administrators attempted to classify Syrian Alawism as a separate religion despite resistance from Alawi leaders who were more interested in identifying with Islam, a trend that has been resisted by many orthodox Sunni Muslims.

Syrian Troops on Operation in Northern Syria

The takeover of predominantly Sunni Syria by a group of Alawi military officers in 1966 and their ability to preserve Alawite rule for over four decades is truly one of the oddest political developments in the modern Middle East. Alawis represent, at best, only ten per cent of the Syrian population, yet their control of the levers of power in Damascus is almost total, including the military, internal security forces and intelligence units. Sunnis and other religious minorities participate in Syrian government institutions in large numbers, but there is no question as to which group holds ultimate power.

The political ascendency of the Syrian Alawis has not resulted in efforts to establish Alawi religious supremacy – on the contrary, it has spurred an effort to bring Alawism into the mainstream of Shi’a Islam (at least superficially) in order to minimize sectarian grievances over the rule of a distinct religious minority. Nonetheless, such efforts have had little impact on the views of the Sunni orthodox Muslim Brotherhood, who appear to have emerged in recent days from years of political repression to lead the armed resistance against the Alawi-dominated military.

The Brotherhood is reported to be smuggling arms from Turkey to northwestern Syrian province of Idlib (NOW Lebanon, June 7). Fighting between insurgents and army loyalists appears to be concentrated on the town of Jisr al-Shughur, where government reports describe “a real massacre” of over 120 members of the security forces (al-Watan [Damascus], June 5; NOW Lebanon, June 6).  There are also reports of a mutiny by local members of the security forces that began after some policemen were executed for refusing to shoot on demonstrators.

The repeated failure of conventional Syrian forces in clashes with Israeli forces led to a change in strategic direction in Damascus and a greater emphasis on unconventional warfare, including the development of ballistic missile capability, Special Forces units, chemical weapons and apparently unsuccessful forays into the development of a nuclear capability, the latter being largely deterred by direct military intervention by the Israeli Air Force. Much like Libya, the bulk of the Syrian Army consists of poorly trained and equipped conscripts, with most of the military budget being devoted to training and equipping the few divisions and other units believed most loyal to the regime and under the firm control of Alawi officers.

Much of the state violence seen so far in Syria has been carried out by Interior Ministry forces and units of the heavily-Alawite secret police. There may have been some hesitance so far in deploying the most loyal divisions of the army against protestors, as these divisions are largely Alawi in composition and their deployment might turn a political confrontation into a sectarian struggle that the Alawi minority might be able to win in the short term, but would be hard pressed in sustaining their dominance in the long-term.

Though there has been some speculation that the Alawi officer corps might abandon the Assad regime, this would be more in the style of the Egyptian military jettisoning an inconvenient ruler rather than running the risk of a comprehensive political transition that would definitely not conclude with the Alawi officer corps maintaining their ranks and privileges. Potentially, even their lives could be in danger in such circumstances. At the moment, there is no international encouragement – as in Libya – for commanders to defect, and no tribal incentive, as in Yemen.

The regular Syrian Army consists of 11 divisions, of which only two can be firmly said to be reliable supporters of the regime. The Republican Guard (an armored division) and the Fourth Armored Division are under the direct command of Maher Assad, brother of Syrian president Bashar Assad. Special Forces units of roughly 15,000 men are also considered reliable and are based close to Damascus. Unlike the bulk of the army, the rank-and-file of these units is largely Alawi. Most of the Syrian officer corps is Alawi; though some Sunni officers have succeeded in rising to senior positions, their appointments rarely place significant numbers of troops under their direct command (Reuters, April 6). The Republican Guards are the only Syrian military unit allowed to deploy within Damascus, reducing the risk of mutiny by non-Alawi troops in the most politically sensitive areas.

To reduce the risk of instability within the military, the regime is making intense efforts to portray the ongoing protests as armed insurrections by Salafist extremists or as attacks by externally inspired and funded terrorist groups (Reuters, April 18; see also Terrorism Monitor Brief, April 22). Even if demonstrators were to succeed in winning over the Sunni rank-and-file in the military, there is every chance that we would see, as in Libya, the same reluctance of such defectors to apply their arms against loyal units they know to be superior in almost every way.

This article first appeared in the June 9, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Andrew McGregor

April 21, 2011

Syria has implicated a leading Lebanese politician in the creation of a Damascus-based terrorist cell intent on discrediting the Syrian government by killing demonstrators and making it look like the work of the Syrian regime. The allegations were based on the confessions of three individuals carried on Syrian television. An array of weapons said to have been seized from the alleged terrorists at the time of their April 10 arrest were also displayed.

Focus of Demonstrations: The Ummayad Mosque, Damascus

The leader of the cell, Anas Knaj, a 29-year-old billboard worker, claimed to have recruited two of his friends, Muhammad Badr al-Qalam and Muhammad Ahmad al-Sukhneh, to form a terrorist cell under the name “The Syrian Revolution,” which he said aimed to “move the country from a bad situation to a better one” (Syrian Arab News Agency [SANA], April 13; al-Ba’ath [Damascus], April 13).

The formation and arming of the cell was facilitated by a mysterious individual, Ahmad Audeh, who claimed to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Audeh told the men that he was acting on behalf of Lebanese member of parliament Jamal al-Jarrah, a member of Sa’ad al-Hariri’s Mustaqbal (Future) movement, part of the anti-Syrian March 14 coalition. Audeh suggested that al-Jarrah was part of the Muslim Brotherhood and would provide generous rewards to the members of the cell for their work. In the event of their death, their families would receive large cash payments.

Kanj reported that the cell initially received orders to instigate demonstrations near the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus by recruiting a handful of young people to begin chanting “freedom slogans” near the mosque. As hundreds of other Syrians joined the apparently spontaneous demonstration, the provocateurs slipped away before police arrived.

The Umayyad Mosque has been a focal point for protests in Damascus since the demonstrations began on March 15. The mosque is one of the world’s oldest continually used holy places, with the site successively hosting a Bronze Age temple, a Roman Temple of Jupiter, a Byzantine basilica devoted to John the Baptist and the present mosque, founded by an Ummayad caliph in 706.

Though the men had little experience with weapons, Audeh was said to have provided them with sniper rifles and training in their use. Audeh claimed to have used bribery to ship the weapons from Lebanon across the border to Syria and said Kanj’s cell was only one of many he had equipped within Syria. According to Kanj, Audeh ordered the cell members to fire on the demonstrators with their sniper rifles. Photos of the carnage were to be taken and posted to the dissident al-Thawra (Revolution) Facebook site “to make the people believe that the Syrian security members are the ones who were killing the citizens.” Their efforts were regarded as a success within the cell when the al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera news networks reported Syrian security forces were shooting unarmed demonstrators in Damascus.

Just before the men were arrested they claimed to have received orders to attack the poorly-defended Sbeineh police station outside Damascus while disguised as members of the Syrian security forces. One individual was assigned to take photos of the attack and post them to the al-Thawra Facebook site.

The exiled leader of the Syrian chapter of the Muslim Brothers, Muhammad Ri’ad Shaqfa, denied that his movement had any role in promoting unrest in Syria, though it backed demands for greater liberty: “All tyrants play the same game. They accuse their own people of serving an outside conspiracy while using violence and cunning to survive” (Reuters, April 11). The movement was banned in 1963 and membership is punishable by death since 1980.

Iranian sources claim Syria is under attack by an alliance consisting of the pro-Israeli camp in Washington, anti-Iranian elements in Saudi Arabia and the Mustaqbal movement of Sa’ad Hariri in Beirut (Press TV [Tehran], April 15). Supporters of the Syrian regime have pointed to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks that suggest Sa’ad al-Hariri had proposed replacing Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad with a coalition that would include the Muslim Brotherhood, former Syrian vice-president Abdul Halim Khaddam and former Syrian Army chief-of-staff Hekmat al-Shahabi (al-Akhbar [Beirut], April 16; Ahram Online, April 16; al-Watan [Damascus], April 18). Khaddam has lived in exile in Paris since 2005 after accusing Assad of directing the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, father of current Mustaqbal leader Sa’ad Hariri. Al-Shehabi resigned after 24 years as Army chief-of-staff in 1998 and moved to California.

While confirming a personal relationship with Abdul Halim Khaddam, Lebanese MP Jamal al-Jarrah has denied any involvement in the alleged terrorist cell: “If [the Syrians] have any evidence, we call on them to present it to the Lebanese judiciary and let it rule” (iloubnan.info, April 13; al-Jadeed TV, April 13). Al-Jarrah later suggested the mysterious al-Audeh could have been an Israeli agent (Naharnet, April 16).

Syrian officials have accused the Muslim Brothers of pursuing a sectarian conflict by attacking Alawites and Christians in Syria. The Brotherhood, however, is apparently keeping a low profile in the unrest, unwilling to give Assad’s regime an excuse for a general massacre of suspected members.

This article first appeared in the April 21, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Andrew McGregor

October 16, 2007

As Dr. Mahmud al-Aghasi (a Kurdish-Syrian preacher better known as Abu al-Qaqa) left an Aleppo mosque after Friday prayers on September 28, an assassin stepped out of a car and opened fire with an automatic weapon. The controversial preacher received mortal wounds to the head and body, while three others were wounded.

Abu al-Qaqa

Little information on the case has emerged from the normally secretive and tightly controlled Syrian state. Most of what is known comes from al-Qaqa’s own followers in Ghuraba al-Sham (Strangers of Greater Syria), some of whom chased the killer for two to three kilometers before apprehending him. Al-Qaqa’s deputy, Samir Muhammad Ghazal Abu Khashabah, claims to have received information that the assassin was a member of a takfiri group (Salafi Muslims who declare other Muslims infidels) and had been released just recently after having been taken into U.S. custody in Iraq three years ago. Abu Khashabah also suggested that the gunman and his driver were recruited for the job by foreign (i.e. American) interests in Iraq (al-Jazeera, September 28; al-Watan, September 30; al-Hayat, October 1).

Sources in the Syrian security apparatus report that the suspect was a Syrian in his 20s and well known in Aleppo. Personal reasons were discounted as a cause for the murder by the sources, who noted that the accused was “a collaborator with the Americans” (al-Watan, September 30). Thousands of al-Qaqa’s followers attended the funeral of the 34 year-old ethnic Kurd near Aleppo on September 29. A Syrian flag on his coffin and the attendance of numerous members of the Baathist Party suggested that the deceased had closer ties to the Syrian regime than to the radical Islamist community.

Abu al-Qaqa is suspected of having played a major role in facilitating the entry of foreign fighters into Iraq through Syria. There were also apparently conflicting accusations of ties to al-Qaeda and/or Syrian intelligence. Although elements of the U.S. popular press enthused over the death of a “leading al-Qaeda member,” al-Qaqa was highly critical of Osama bin Laden’s methods and organization, describing the latter as a creation of the CIA. According to his deputy, Abu Khashabah, the preacher had been threatened by al-Qaeda and various takfiri groups due to al-Qaqa’s development of a “moderate trend that did not segregate between Sunnis and Shiites” (al-Hayat, October 1). Many of the fighters al-Qaqa is alleged to have funneled into Iraq were Saudis (Gulf News, October 2). In the wake of his death, al-Qaqa’s movement remains adamant that the preacher only provided guidance for young jihadis eager to fight in Palestine or Iraq.

Abu al-Qaqa was frequently criticized by Syrian opposition parties, some of which suggested he was an agent of the Baathist regime. At times, there seemed to be little effort to disguise al-Qaqa’s links to Syrian intelligence. The preacher moved freely around Syria with bodyguards whom many believed were supplied by one of Syria’s four main intelligence agencies. Al-Qaqa gave regular sermons at Aleppo’s al-Tawabbin mosque, something normally done only with the permission of Syria’s Al-Awqaf Ministry (al-Watan, September 30). At one point, al-Qaqa even suggested unifying the religious and security establishments in Syria (al-Rai al-Aam, June 14, 2006). Various mujahideen internet forums warned against dealing with the preacher, accusing al-Qaqa of working for Syrian intelligence or U.S. authorities. Although these types of accusations are common in the covert world, appearance can sometimes be as good as reality. Syria is now trying to act as a sponsor to the armed Sunni opposition in Iraq (including former Baathists), but suspicions in Iraq surrounding al-Qaqa’s loyalties might have necessitated his removal to advance the new policy.

Abu al-Qaqa’s death might also be related to accusations that he supplied Syrian-trained fighters to Fatah al-Islam militants inside Lebanon’s Nahr al-Barid refugee camp. Al-Qaqa’s role in the 106-day battle that ended on September 2 is difficult to confirm but is widely believed in Lebanon, where he has been referred to as the “Godfather of Fatah al-Islam” (Naharnet-AFP, September 29). A captured Fatah al-Islam militant claims that Syrian intelligence aided the organization in infiltrating Lebanon (al-Akhbar, October 3; Daily Star, October 4). These fighters were allegedly on their way to Iraq when Syrian intelligence diverted them elsewhere after deciding to close the pipeline for foreign jihadis in Iraq

Another theory suggests al-Qaqa abandoned his allegiance to Syrian intelligence in favor of employment by the Americans, a move that appears almost suicidal in view of the close monitoring given to the preacher by Syria’s efficient security services. Abu al-Qaqa made revolutionary changes in his message and lifestyle about a year ago that created new suspicions about his activities. Up to that point, members of the preacher’s movement bore the beards and traditional clothing typical of Arab Islamists. Suddenly, al-Qaqa issued a fatwa encouraging his followers to adopt Western clothes. Having sheared most of his once enormous beard, al-Qaqa donned a suit and gold watch and began to drive expensive cars and conduct business from pricey Damascus hotels. The source of al-Qaqa’s sudden wealth remains uncertain.

It is not inconceivable that the United States could have been involved in the preacher’s death, especially if it is believed that al-Qaqa continued to be an important link in the supply of foreign fighters to the insurgency in Iraq. Extraterritorial assassination has become a weapon in the security operations of countries like Russia and Israel and its usefulness has been much discussed in U.S. security circles in recent years. There is, however, no official confirmation of the allegations that the suspect was recently in U.S. detention.  Considering al-Qaqa’s erratic behavior, inconsistent political views and his almost certain involvement in the murkier depths of covert intrigue, it is quite likely al-Qaqa’s death will become one of the many unexplained deaths associated with the war on terrorism.

This article first appeared in the October 16, 2007 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Focus