Syrian Dirty War's Secret Origins

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On November 27th, ultra-extremist militants Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a vast offensive in Syria. Within days, the Turkey-backed faction seized significant swaths of Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, and advances elsewhere continue. While disinformation on the scale and success of HTS’ incursions abounds on social media, establishment news outlets remain a redoubtable source of manipulation and deceit. No context to the current upsurge of violence is provided, although reference has been widely made to supposedly “peaceful” protests in 2011 that produced the decade-long Syrian civil war.

According to this narrative, righteous pro-democracy demonstrators were brutally attacked by Syrian authorities for taking a public stand against dictatorship. Yet, the reality of what happened during that fateful time is very different - and amply revealed by the Syrian government’s own internal documents. Namely, records of the Central Crisis Management Cell, created in March 2011 by Damascus to manage official responses to mass rioting that began weeks earlier.

Mainstream outlets and international rights groups have previously reported on this trove, dubbing them The Assad Files. However, their contents have been universally misrepresented, distorted or simply falsified, in order to wrongfully convict Syrian officials of horrific crimes. In some instances, quite literally. In reality, the documents show Assad and his ministers struggled valiantly to prevent the upheaval from escalating into violence on either side, protect demonstrators, and keep the situation under control.

Meanwhile, sinister, unseen forces systematically murdered security service officials, pro-government figures, and protesters to foment catastrophe in a manner similar to many CIA regime change operations old and new. This shocking story has never before been told. Now, with dark insurrectionary clouds again pullulating over Damascus, it must be.

‘Brutal Violence’

Over the first months of 2011, the Arab Spring spread revolutionary fervour throughout North Africa and West Asia. Mass protests dislodged long-reigning dictators Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Libya was plunged into civil war, and even hyper-repressive, British-created Gulf monarchies appeared threatened. There was one exception, however. For the most part, the streets of Syria remained stubbornly calm.

This was despite relentless calls for upheaval by local opposition elements. Repeated demands for a “day of rage” against Assad’s government were widely publicised in the Western media, but locally unheeded. As Al Jazeera explained in February of that year, the overwhelming majority of Syrians had zero appetite for regime change. For one, the country’s ethnically and religiously diverse population cherished their state’s secularism, and feared unrest would create potentially violent tensions between them all.

Inconveniently too, Assad was extremely popular, particularly with younger Syrians. He was widely perceived as a reformer who encouraged and protected diversity and inclusion, while overseeing a system that, while far from perfect, delivered comparatively high standards of education, healthcare, and much else besides for average citizens. Moreover, Assad’s refusal to accommodate Israel, unlike many other leaders in the region, was also greatly respected.

Syrian ‘pro-democracy’ protesters, March 2011

Peace in Damascus finally shattered in mid-March 2011, when massive demonstrations broke out in several major cities, following weeks of sporadic, small-scale bursts of public disobedience across the country. Reports of thousands arrested and an uncertain number of protesters killed spread widely. This was the spark that ignited the West’s secret dirty war in Syria. Ominously, mere days earlier, a truck carrying vast quantities of grenades and guns was intercepted at Syria’s border with Iraq.

Pater Frans was a Jesuit priest from the Netherlands who, in 1980, established a community center and farm near Homs. Ever after, he preached harmony between different faiths, and cared for people with disabilities. When the Syrian crisis erupted, he began publishing regular observations of events, deeply critical of both the government and opposition. It is unknown whether such problematic insights motivated Frans’ murder by armed militants in April 2014. This was not long after he refused an offer of UN evacuation.

Before his death, Frans repeatedly noted that “from the start,” he witnessed armed demonstrators fire on police. “Very often,” he once recorded, “the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.” In September 2011, he wrote:

“From the start there has been the problem of the armed groups, which are also part of the opposition…The opposition of the street is much stronger than any other opposition. And this opposition is armed and frequently employs brutality and violence, only in order then to blame the government.”

‘Unidentified Bodies’

If peaceful protesters were killed in the initial stages of the Syrian “revolution”, the question of who was responsible remains unanswered today. The Central Crisis Management Cell records indicate in the days leading up to the mid-March protests, government officials issued explicit instructions to security forces that citizens “should not be provoked”:

“In order to avoid the consequences of continued incitement…and foil the attempts of inciters to exploit any pretext, civil police and security agents are requested not to provoke citizens.”

Similarly, on April 18th that year, the Cell ordered the military to only “counter with weapons those who carry weapons against the state, while ensuring that civilians are not harmed.” Four days later though, “at least” 72 protesters were allegedly shot dead by authorities in Daraa and Douma, the highest reported daily death toll since the demonstrations began. Condemnation from rights groups and Western leaders was instantaneous, and fiery.

Then, in July, a number of Syrian Arab Army officers defected, forming the Free Syrian Army. They claimed to have become disaffected and thrown their weight behind the opposition due to the April 22nd slaughter, alleging the mass shooting was expressly ordered by their superiors, which they refused to fulfill. However, if orders to execute protesters were given, they evidently weren’t approved by Assad or his ministers.

Syrian government defectors

Cell records show the Syrian government’s highest echelons were extremely distressed about the killings in Daraa and Douma. One official cautioned this “difficult day” had “created a new situation…pushing us into circumstances we are better off without.” They further lamented, “if the directives previously issued had been adhered to, we would have prevented bloodshed, and matters would not have come to this culmination.”

An obvious suspicion is the use of lethal force was directed by Army commanders planning to defect, who wanted to concoct a valiant pretext for their desertion, while creating significant problems for the government. This interpretation is amply reinforced by defectors claiming soldiers who refused the order to kill civilians were themselves executed.

That narrative was eagerly seized upon by mainstream media, rights groups, and the Syrian opposition as proof of Assad’s maniacal bloodlust. Yet, even the Western-funded Syrian Observatory of Human Rights has dismissed it as entirely false “propaganda”, intended to create divisions within government forces and encourage further defections. More sinisterly, this narrative also provided a convenient explanation for why Syrian security operatives began dying in large numbers immediately after the “peaceful” protests began.

From late March onwards, targeted killings of security officials and soldiers by unknown assailants became routine, before the military was even formally deployed in Syria. By early May, the Cell was requesting daily updates on casualties among “our own forces.” Publicly though, the government initially remained silent on the slaughter. The Cell records suggest Damascus was afraid of showing weakness, inflaming tensions, and encouraging further violence.

It was not until June, with the slaughter of at least 120 security forces by armed militants who’d taken over the town of Jisr al-Shughour, that Damascus - and the Western media - finally publicly acknowledged the killing spree. Meanwhile, Cell records show by this time, government supporters were routinely being abducted, tortured, and murdered by the dozen, by opposition actors. One weekly incident report, for example, refers to how “a refrigerated vehicle was found on the Homs-Zaydal highway, containing 27 unidentified bodies displaying gunshot wounds and signs of torture.”

The fall of Jisr al-Shughour

This bloodletting led to the Syrian military’s formal deployment, and eruption of all-out civil war. Every step of the way, authorities were keen to identify individuals who “incited demonstrations and those who had contacts with foreign bodies, whether they are media bodies or plotters, or bodies which took part in funding and arming demonstrators [emphasis added].” Still, despite the carnage, the Cell’s instructions remained steadfast, and unambiguous.

“Ensure that no drop of blood is shed when confronting and dispersing peaceful demonstrations,” an August memo stated. The following month, an order to “prohibit harming any detainee” was issued. “If there is evidence” that any security official “fell short in carrying out any mission,” the Cell dictated, the “officer, head of branch or field commander” in question would have to explain themselves to the government personally, “to hold them accountable.”

‘Some Chaos’

Several striking passages in the Cell documents refer to unidentified snipers lurking on rooftops and buildings adjacent to protests from the upheaval’s beginning, firing on crowds below. One memo records how in late April 2011, a sniper near an Aleppo mosque “shot demonstrators, killing one and injuring 43,” and “the situation of some injured is still delicate.”

As such, “arresting inciters, especially those shooting at demonstrators,” was a core priority for the Assad government for much of that year. The Cell also hit upon the idea of capturing “a sniper, inciter or infiltrator”, and presenting them publicly in a “convincing” manner. One official suggested, “surrounding and catching a sniper alive or injured and exposing him in the media is not impossible,” which would “restore public trust in security agencies and the police.”

Yet, this never came to pass. Damascus also neglected to publish a bombshell document circulated among “the so-called Syrian opposition in Lebanon”, which its intelligence services intercepted in May 2011. The remarkable file, reproduced in full in the Cell records, lays bare the opposition’s insurrectionary plans, outlining a clear blueprint for precisely what had occurred since March, and what was to come.

The opposition proposed convening mass demonstrations, so security forces “will lose control of all regions,” be “taken unaware,” and become “exhausted and distracted.” This, along with “honest officers and soldiers” joining “the ranks of the revolution”, would make “toppling down the regime” straightforward, it was believed - particularly as any crackdown on protests would encourage a Western “military strike,” a la NATO’s destruction of Libya. The opposition foresaw mainstream news outlets playing a significant role in making all this happen:

“Everyone should be confident that with the continuation of demonstrations today, media channels will have no choice but to cover the events…Al Jazeera will be late due to considerations of mutual interests. But we have Al Arabiya and Western media channels who will come forward, and we will all see the change of tone in covering the events and demonstrations will be aired on all channels and they will have wide coverage.”

The document is the most palpable evidence to date that the entire Syrian “revolution” unfolded over the next decade according to a pre-prepared, well-honed script. Whether this was drawn up in direct collusion with Western powers remains to be proven. Still, the presence of snipers picking off protesters is one strong indication among many this was the case.

Unidentified snipers are a frequent fixture of US-orchestrated colour revolutions and CIA coups, such as the attempted overthrow of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in 2002, and Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan “revolution”. In both cases, the shooting of unarmed protesters by snipers was pivotal to unseating the targeted government. In Kiev, demonstrations that began months earlier had started running out of steam, when scores of anti-government activists were abruptly slain by sniper fire.

This turned the vast crowds occupying Kiev violent, while triggering an avalanche of international condemnation, making President Viktor Yanukovych’s downfall a fait accompli. In the years since, three Georgian mercenaries have claimed they were expressly ordered by nationalist opposition actors and a US military veteran embedded with them to carry out a massacre, and “sow some chaos.” That foreign actors are involved in sowing the current chaos in Syria couldn’t be more unambiguous, or writ larger. But there’s more.