DAMASCUS: The new head of Syria’s intelligence services announced on Saturday a plan to dissolve the institutions that were so feared under the rule of ousted dictator Bashar Assad.
“The security establishment will be reformed after dissolving all services and restructuring them in a way that honors our people,” Anas Khattab said, two days after being appointed to his post by the country’s new leadership that overthrew Assad in early December.
In a statement carried by the official Sana news agency, he stressed the suffering of Syrians “under the oppression and tyranny of the old regime, through its various security apparatuses that sowed corruption and inflicted torture on the people.”
Prisons were emptied after Assad’s fall as officials and agents of the deposed regime fled.
Most of these installations are now guarded by fighters of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that led the armed coalition that seized power in Damascus.
Numerous Syrians have rushed to former detention centers in the hope of finding traces of relatives and friends who went missing during the 13 years of a devastating civil war that left more than a half million dead.
“The security services of the old regime were many and varied, with different names and affiliations, but all had in common that they had been imposed on the oppressed people for more than five decades,” Khattab continued.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), more than 100,000 people died in Syrian prisons and detention centers during the conflict.
On Thursday, a general who ran military justice under the former regime was arrested in the west of country, accused of being responsible for sentencing to death thousands of people held in the notorious Saydnaya prison.
And in Europe, several former senior Syrian intelligence officers accused of torture and other abuses have been convicted and jailed since 2022.
Syria’s new intel chief vows reforms to end abuses
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Syria’s new intel chief vows reforms to end abuses
- Most of these installations are now guarded by fighters of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that led the armed coalition that seized power in Damascus
Rubio pushes for New Year’s humanitarian truce in Sudan
- “Ninety-nine percent of our focus is this humanitarian truce and achieving that as soon as possible,” Rubio said
- “And we think that the new year and the upcoming holidays are a great opportunity”
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the new year offered a chance for a humanitarian truce in war-ravaged Sudan as he urged outside countries to exert leverage.
“Ninety-nine percent of our focus is this humanitarian truce and achieving that as soon as possible,” Rubio told a news conference.
“And we think that the new year and the upcoming holidays are a great opportunity for both sides to agree to that, and we’re really pushing very hard on that regard,” he said.
Sudan has been devastated since the army and rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) went to war in April 2023, with tens of thousands of people killed, millions displaced and widespread abuses and hunger.
Rubio said both sides have violated commitments as he voiced alarm at new reports of humanitarian convoys being struck.
“What’s happening there is horrifying. It’s atrocious,” he said.
“One day the story of what’s actually happened there is going to be known, and everyone involved is going to look bad.”
“Someone is allowing it to be shipped in, and someone is actually shipping it. So we’ve had the right and appropriate conversations with all sides of this conflict,” he said.
“We’re hopeful that we can make some progress on this, but we know that in order to make progress on this, it will require outside actors to use their leverage,” Rubio concluded.
