News & Views

“The Syrian army is the army of the Syrian security services”, said Muhammad (1), a senior Sunni Muslim army officer. To understand how this happened, you have to go back to the 1960s, when the current political structure was created during four coups. The Alawite minority came to political power and the army dominated the Ba’ath Party. When Hafez al-Assad (father of Bashar) seized power in 1970 in the last coup, he finalised this authoritarian system, tightly weaving Syrian society around the army, the security services, the party and the administration. The regime also used family, clan, regional and sectarian loyalties to form a clientele, who were rewarded with civil service jobs. The combination of religious connections and an obsession with security allowed the Alawites to dominate the army and security services. Fear is the cement of the security edifice, and it is this that the current revolt (2) has swept away. Under Bashar al-Assad, in power since 2000, the party, administration and army have all come under the direct control of the security services, which are in the hands of the Assad family. Syrians consider the Ba’ath Party as the fifth organ of the security services (3). I asked Muhammad how many men there were in the army and the security services. He told me there were more than 700,000 — 400,000 in the regular army, 100,000 in the police and intelligence, and tens of thousands employed part-time by the security services...