Torture chambers, landmines and secret files: what did the BBC see in the offices of Syria's security agencies?
Prisoners were held in these cells for months
Article descriptionFiras KailaniPosition, BBC NewsDecember 25, 2024
BBC Arabic correspondent Firas Kailani has gone to the secret basements of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, which the Syrian people fear are used to imprison and torture people. It is a world that very few people have been able to access.
In the basement is the headquarters of the Syrian state security agency, where we saw the country's secret intelligence network that has allowed the Assad family to rule Syria for decades.
The doors of each cell here are made of thick steel. There are rows of small cells where prisoners were kept chained.
We peeked inside one of them and it was just two meters long and one meter wide. The black spots on its walls reflect the dirty walls.
The light that comes here is the sun's rays that pass through the iron lattice installed on the high walls and reach the ground below.
BBC Arabic's Firas Kailani has visited the secret basements of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.
These cells are located below street level in the busy Kafr Susa district of central Damascus.
Every day, thousands of ordinary Syrians pass by, going about their daily lives, where their compatriots were held and tortured.
The corridor is now lined with tattered old photographs of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It also houses files used by intelligence agencies to monitor millions of Syrians.
Prisoners were held here temporarily before being transferred to prison camps such as the infamous Saydnaya prison on the outskirts of the capital for long-term detention.
The prison was part of a wider network run by the former Syrian government.
The prison walls are adorned with portraits of former Syrian ruler Hafez al-Assad, who was also the father of Bashar al-Assad.
According to the independent Syrian monitoring group SNHR, 15,102 people died in torture in these prisons since the uprising against Bashar al-Assad's government in July 2011 until July last year.
An estimated 130,000 people were being held in detention as of August this year.
Amnesty International says that for decades, the former Syrian government used torture and enforced disappearances to suppress dissent.
This shows that the country's intelligence agencies are beyond accountability.
A few hundred meters from the Syrian security headquarters, we arrived at the General Intelligence Directorate, another network of agencies that spy on Syria.
Opponents of the Assad regime allege that it is one of the organizations that spy on all the details and activities of Syrian civilians.
Inside, we found a computer server room. Its walls are white and black data storage is also located here.
Much of Damascus has been cut off from electricity, but this place seems to be very special because it has a separate power supply system for it.
Despite the digital system, there are also a lot of paper records kept here. Apparently, it is all still safe.
There are notebooks and records scattered around, while the broken iron cabinets along the wall are filled with files.
It seems that the people who were assigned here did not have time to destroy these records before leaving.
These records span many years and none of them have been destroyed or discarded. We have also seen boxes here in which cartridges are kept.
The second section contains mortars and other weapons, including landmines.
We were accompanied by a fighter from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that now rules Damascus. I asked him why the weapons were there.
He said that during the Assad regime, with the support of Russia, all government institutions were turned into headquarters to carry out operations against Syrian citizens and keep them under pressure.
This mountain of documents and computer records at the General Intelligence Directorate could help reach those who were involved in violence and brutality.
According to Reuters, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, said in a statement that anyone who was involved in the torture and killing of prisoners during the previous regime will be found and there is no question of pardoning them.
“We will pursue them in Syria and we will also ask other countries to hand over those who have fled here so that we can ensure justice,” he said in a message on Telegram.
But the security network here can have effects beyond the border.
We have also found several files that contain a lot of information about Sudan, Lebanon and Iraq.
If these documents are made public and the connections of leading figures from these countries to Assad’s security services are revealed, it could cause a shockwave throughout the region.
If this record reveals the details of Bashar al-Assad’s security personnel, then they will have to suffer a lot.
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#Syria #Middle_East
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