Syrian Intelligence Chief Anas Khattab Announces Plan to Dismantle Institutions Under Assad's Rule

Syrian Intelligence Chief Anas Khattab Announces Plan to Dismantle Institutions Under Assad's Rule

The new head of Syria's intelligence agency announced plans on Saturday to dismantle institutions that were under the control of ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Reporting from Damascus, AFP stated that after Assad's ouster in early December, Anas Khattab, the newly appointed chief of Syria's intelligence agency, declared just two days into his tenure: “All services will be dissolved and reformed. The security agencies will be restructured in a way that upholds the dignity of the people.”

In a statement issued by the official news agency SANA, Khattab emphasized the hardships faced by Syrians under Assad's rule, saying, “The former regime planted seeds of corruption within various security agencies through oppression and abuse, perpetuating suffering among the people.”

Following Assad's downfall, government officials and agents from the ousted regime fled, leaving prisons emptied.

Currently, most of these facilities are being guarded by fighters from the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which leads the armed coalition that seized control of Damascus.

The 13-year-long devastating civil war came to an end on December 8 with the fall of Bashar al-Assad. During this time, countless Syrians rushed to prisons and detention centers in search of missing relatives and friends. Reports suggest that more than 5 million former detainees lost their lives.

Under the previous regime, there were several types of security services, many of which, along with their affiliated entities, oppressed and abused the populace for over five decades. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), over 100,000 people died in Syria’s prisons and detention centers during the conflict.

On Thursday, a general who had been involved in military judiciary proceedings under the former regime was arrested in the western part of the country. He is accused of being responsible for sentencing thousands of detainees to death in the infamous Saydnaya prison.

In Europe, since 2022, several former senior intelligence officials from Syria have been convicted and jailed for crimes such as torture and other abuses of power.