BEIRUT - Just the mention of the word would send shivers down the
spine of Syrians: "mukhabarat", or secret police. Abuses by President
Bashar al-Assad's feared security units were among the reasons Syrians
took to the streets in March 2011, leading to an uprising that has
become a civil war.
But now some of the opposition fighting Assad say they have set up a
mukhabarat of their own to "protect the revolution", monitor sensitive
military sites and gather military information to help opposition plan
attacks against government forces.
"We formally formed the unit in November. It provides all kind of
information to (opposition) politicians and fighters. We are independent
and just serve the revolution," said a opposition intelligence officer
who goes under the name Haji.
Opposition commanders had put Reuters in touch with Haji, who is
based in Syria, via Skype on condition he not be identified. Haji said
most of the opposition mukhabarat's members were army defectors and
former intelligence officers, and that the information they gathered was
distributed to all anti-Assad factions and opposition brigades without
discrimination.
However, the organization appears to operate independently from the
main opposition Syrian National Coalition and the Free Syrian Army,
effectively answering to itself. Haji was careful to distinguish between
its methods and those of the secret police under Assad, saying he was
aware of the feared reputation of the government's internal spy
services.
"Our work is organized, we have an internal law and we are committed
to international laws and human rights," he said, speaking briefly over
Skype.
The new opposition body has operated secretly for months, Haji said,
helping fighters carry out attacks on government targets. He did not
specifically claim credit for a bomb attack on a security headquarters
in Damascus in July that killed five of Assad's top security officials,
including his defense minister and his brother-in-law, who was an
intelligence chief.
"We have our spies among the regime who are providing us with information that we need, including military information."
The most ruthless
Syrians have long exchanged horror stories of the dungeons of the
intelligence branches where dissidents were incarcerated, often tortured
and sometimes killed. Opposition activists insist their own mukhabarat
will be nothing like those Assad inherited from his father, the late
President Hafez al-Assad.
"The word security should mean the security of the people," said an opposition activist using the name Abu Hisham in Aleppo.
In the Arab world's many past or present police states, Syria's
mukhabarat has long had a reputation as one of the most ruthless. It
consists of at least five powerful agencies who spy on each other, tap
phones of dissidents and vie for power.
Created under French Mandate rule of Syria from 1923-43, the secret
police became ever more powerful under Hafez al-Assad, who ruled with an
iron fist from 1971 until his death in 2000.
Corruption, personal interests and a lack of communication among its
branches might appear to offer avenues for rebels to infiltrate Assad's
mukhabarat, but the security services are dominated by the Syrian
leader's tight-knit Alawite minority.
The Alawites, who make up about 12 percent of Syria's 23 million
people, have rallied behind Assad, fearing revenge by the mostly Sunni
Muslim rebels if he is toppled. Other minorities, which include Druze,
Christians and Shi'ites, fear for their freedoms if the armed revolt
brings Sunni Islamist hardliners to power.
