Rebuilding Security in New Syria: Week 19

Tracking the spread of new security forces and security incidents in post-Assad Syria from April 14 to April 20

Announcements of security deployments mostly in western Syria, with an emphasis on the minority regions. Content is categorized as deployment, crime, statement, arrest, operation. This weekly update is intended to provide base level data for more holistic research into the rebuilding of the security and governance structures of post-Assad Syria. Direct links to primary sources provided throughout.

• Aleppo

• Damascus

• Coast

• Homs

• Hama

Weapons seizures continue at an accelerate pace across the country this week, particularly in Dara’a following the dismantling of Ahmed Awdeh’s 8th Brigade on April 11. Seizure operations have also begun in the Salamiyah countryside and renewed in western Homs. Most of these are likely to have been done through negotiations with village notables rather than the raids used in February. There has also been an uptick in announced arrests of regime criminals - Sunni and Alawite - including three generals arrested in Latakia, Tartous, and Deir Ez Zor - the first such cases in weeks. However, the lack of any trials or substantive arrest campaigns have left many Sunnis angry and heightened the risk that individuals will take ‘justice’ into their own hands.

Killings in Alawite areas remain limited for a second week in a row, but kidnappings continue to be reported regularly. There are daily reports of people going “missing” while traveling to or from major towns, and while many of these end up being false claims (the people just losing service during their travels but making it safely home) there have been near-daily confirmed cases of kidnapped men and women. The case of one woman who was kidnapped near her home in Tartous City and mysteriously released several days later has fueled social media claims that Idlib Sunnis are stealing Alawite women to force them into marriages. These rumors and real cases are only deepening the fear in Alawite areas and the online divide between Alawites and pro-Damascus Syrians.