Islamist Terrorists as Liberators

"Anxiety about being thrown in one of Assad's notorious prisons created wide mistrust among Syrians."

"Assad nurtured this culture of fear to maintain control and crush political opposition."

Lina Khatib, associate fellow, Middle East and North Africa division, Chatham House 

"This happiness will not be completed until I can see my son out of prison and know where he is."

"I have been searching for him for two hours. He has been detained for 13 years."

"They took away so many of us. They [the Assad government] burned our hearts."

Bassam Masri, Damascus, Syria

A man holding nooses for hanging prisoners   AP 

To the world's astonishment and that of experts in the military and uprisings, it took a mere ten days for a coalition of Islamist terrorist groups calling themselves liberators to remove a murderous despot from power in Syria where Bashar al-Assad's family had ruled for over half a century, as an Alawite-Shiite minority governing a majority Sunni population. A populist uprising that began 13 years ago in protest against unequal sectarian treatment saw Assad respond with bombs and bullets and a full-scale insurgency resulted.

Assad fought the insurgents with chemical weapons and barrel bombs, and when it appeared as though his regime was weakening and the insurgents were gaining the upper hand, help came in the guise of Iran's IRGC and its proxy militia Hezbollah. When that wasn't enough to turn the tide, Vladimir Putin stepped in with his warplanes to lead the aerial assault bombing schools, markets and hospitals in the Sunni-majority areas of the country in exchange for a deep sea Mediterranean port and an airbase in Syria.

 

People stand outside the infamous Saydnaya military prison waiting to see their loved ones freed.  AP

 

With the taking of Syria's major cities and finally Damascus, as the Syrian military backed down and backed off, overwhelmed by the insurgent Islamist Sunni forces, they claimed to be regrouping outside the cities, their withdrawal from conflict deliberately planned to avoid civilian deaths (this, from a military sufficiently loyal to Assad to help him slaughter close to a half-million civilians throughout the civil war), the insurgents broke into prisons and the regime's security facilities, freeing political prisoners and the tens of thousands who disappeared throughout the duration of the conflict.

Videos began appearing on social media of prisoners racing about in celebration after their release; some barefoot, others  wearing scant clothing, shouting in an ecstasy of feeling liberated, on the discovery that the government of Bashar al-Assad had fallen. And little wonder, given their decade of incarceration in prisons where torture was systematic and where secret executions took place at over two dozen facilities operated by Syrian intelligence.

 

A man breaks the lock of a cell in Saydnaya military prison   AP

 

A Syrian military defector ("Caesar") smuggled out over 53,000 photographs in 2013 showing clear evidence of rampant torture, as well as disease and starvation, critical components of Syria's prison system. The common knowledge of the fearful security apparatus and the prison torture both isolated opponents of the regime, and instilled fear in the population. The Saydnaya military prison (the 'human slaughterhouse') saw women detainees, some housed there with their children, screaming in fear as men broke through their cell doors.

Human rights groups bore testimony that dozens of prisoners were executed weekly in this prison; the estimate being that  up to 13,000 Syrians had been killed there, between 2011 and 2016 alone. "Don't be afraid ... Bashar Assad has fallen! Why are you afraid?! one of the rebels asked as he guided streams of women out of their packed, tiny cells. Aleppo, Homs, Hama and Damascus saw prisoners freed over the past ten days. Families of detainees and the disappeared waited outside prisons hoping to see their loved ones evacuate.

Associated Press