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The filthy corridors inside the headquarters of the general intelligence service lay dark and empty. Towering piles of boxes and plastic sit near the steps leading up to the imposing building, as well as torn posters of the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
On the road outside, hastily abandoned cars with smashed windscreens and bullet casings litter the ground – a reminder of the looting and destruction that took place a month ago as Syrians vented their anger at symbols of the Assad regime’s fearsome security state, built up over decades.
Today, the intelligence building is where the new Syrian authorities are asking those who served inside to turn in their weapons and themselves. Lines of men wait in the courtyard to receive slips of paper saying they have officially surrendered and reconciled with the new administration, as former insurgents clad in new military-style uniforms examine the handed-in pistols, rifles and ammunition. In one makeshift office, a poster of Assad’s face had been laid on the floor for those walking in to step on.
The settlement centres, as Syria’s new Islamist caretaker government has called them, are an attempt to dismantle the fearsome security bodies that enforced a regime of fear among the population and chart a new path forward.
Militants who once feared the Assad regime’s weapons and surveillance now greet the people who staffed the sprawling security state that targeted them. Former officers who could prove useful to Syria’s new administration are able to keep some of the trappings of their former lives, for now.
Abu Sariyeh al-Shami, a former fighter with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who oversees the settlement centre, says: “People come here as they fear revenge killings, but a lot of the officers will say they were working in the kitchen or driving.” The role of his forces, he says, is to show those from the former regime that they have little to fear, provided they cooperate.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of HTS and the de facto leader of the new administration, has pledged the new leadership will prosecute the highest ranks of the former military and security forces for war crimes, but what this could mean for the former regime’s foot soldiers, or where those lines may be drawn, remains blurry. Shami says he has come face to face with people he knew had committed crimes, but made an effort not to succumb to vengeance despite flinching at the memories of what he had seen.
He says: “I have the right experience, but also I can control myself. Maybe some of my friends here have seen people killed or they knew people in the areas that were attacked. I met officers responsible for attacking my town, Jabal Zawiya, and raping people. I dealt with them fairly.”
A former deputy commander in the Latakia police directorate arrived sharply dressed in a leather jacket and maroon silk scarf, squeezing Shami’s arm in a friendly gesture. After politely directing the former police official from Assad’s heartland towards a faster queue, Shami explained that he wanted formerly high-ranking officers to sense respect for their previous titles. They arrived by appointment, so they did not have to wait outside with the others, he says.
“Yesterday, for example, we welcomed a Syrian officer who was the liaison with Interpol into our office,” he says. “That man will keep his home and his car, and we want him to, because we can benefit from his help. We want to get the benefits from these kinds of people in running the new Syria.”
The former security official had let those from the new administration into his office, Shami says, and it was believed he could provide it with information on individuals sought by the transnational police organisation.
Officers who could assist the new government “can stay in their houses unless we receive new orders”, he says.
Some of the thousands who once worked inside the general intelligence building and had returned to surrender appeared keen to downplay their former roles, even if their furtive glances and whispers with former colleagues suggested they knew more than they were willing to admit.
One man says he worked as a mechanic, and later as a driver for the intelligence service. He grew visibly uncomfortable when asked about his former job title. “It was just a job,” he says, clasping his manicured hands nervously.
Syria’s general intelligence services oversaw a sprawling domestic surveillance network as well as a prison where former detainees testified they were tortured by Anwar Raslan, a Syrian colonel convicted of crimes against humanity at a trial in Germany three years ago and sentenced to life in prison.
“My job was just to gather information on the foreigners who visited Syria,” says another man who gave his name only as Tony. “I didn’t do anything … we didn’t take part in any military operations.”
Tony’s eyes dart around anxiously as some of his former colleagues walk past him, including a man he says was a former general in the intelligence directorate. He says his pleas for help from the Greek, Lebanese and Russian embassies he once had ties to were ignored and he believes he and his wife could be targeted.
His wife had worked at a Syrian research centre long associated with the military – one considered by defence analysts to be a site that manufacturedthe chemical weapons that Assad deployed against his own people – and Tony says the new administration “could see us as people who supported the Assad regime”.
He attempted to put some distance between what he had witnessed during his two decades working in the general intelligence headquarters and the widespread accusations of torture and abuse committed by the security services.
When the state security arrested someone, he says, “the charges were real; they had documents. But I can’t say whether they abused anyone or not. I don’t want to cause problems for anyone.
“But the Assad regime was so corrupt. We couldn’t complain or we would be abused like the others.”
Standing in the shadow of the deserted building in the winter sun, his eyes glancing towards the place where he had worked for half of his 40 years, Tony was anxious about what might come next.
He no longer has a salary and is out of a job, he says, and the sense of fear and instability means he expects to return to his village near the Lebanese border before figuring out how to flee the country.
“What job am I going to do after this, with my experience? Drive a taxi?” says the former intelligence officer. “There are thousands like me who worked here.”
