Damascus has adopted many methods throughout its decade-long conflict in an try to adapt to and overcome critical opposition beneficial properties and worldwide interventions. Essentially the most ubiquitous of those are the brutalizing of dissident civilians whereas asserting substance-less reforms, legalizing loyalist militias as official forces, besieging and forcibly cleaning anti-regime neighborhoods, and eventually utilizing the guise of “reconciliation” to reimpose its will over destroyed areas and folks. All of those approaches had one factor in frequent: the usage of violent coercion dressed up as political diplomacy. As we speak, with a lot of the nation again beneath Assad’s management, Damascus continues to attempt to strong-arm its remaining enemies into “negotiated settlements,” akin to the so-called reconciliation agreements that noticed 1000’s of households expelled from their houses and 1000’s extra males forcibly conscripted into the armed forces. However the Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria and the Turkish-protected zones in northwest have proved way more troublesome to threaten than besieged insurgent cities.
The method of negotiating the handover of those two remaining impartial areas has to this point been assigned to Ali Mamlouk, the 76-year-old director of the Ba’ath Social gathering’s Nationwide Safety Bureau. A veteran of the Ba’ath outdated guard, Mamlouk theoretically oversees all 4 of Syria’s intelligence companies and enters negotiations with the burden of the regime behind his phrases. Nevertheless, in line with those that have met with him, he’s unimpressive and powerless. Damascus’ current makes an attempt to reclaim the remainder of Syria have, likewise, been a failure.
With this in thoughts, Damascus could start on the lookout for a brand new man to impose its will on the remaining obstacles to complete victory. The corrupt and paranoid nature of the regime’s safety and navy management means few males as we speak have the competency, standing, and belief to take over Mamlouk’s place. But regardless of his rural Sunni roots, one normal has managed to play an element in almost each step of the regime’s counter-revolution, all whereas constructing an online of networks throughout a lot of Syria as he labored his means up the complicated inner ladders of the mukhabarat.
Maj. Gen. Hussam Luka was born in 1964 within the small Circassian farming city of Khanasir, some 30 miles southeast of Aleppo metropolis. Luka’s mukhabarat resume has been effectively coated by pro-opposition media, but it solely reveals a part of his story. As The Syrian Observer wrote in 2019, Luka started his profession as a police lieutenant in Aleppo in 1984, finally transferring to the Political Safety Directorate after attaining the rank of colonel. After spending a while within the small intelligence directorate in Afrin and Damascus, Luka was appointed to go Political Safety’s Homs Department in 2004. The now brigadier normal was transferred to go the Hama department on the onset of protests in 2011, however was rapidly moved again to Homs because the protests and the regime crackdown intensified. Luka would play a central position within the preventing in Homs metropolis for 5 years, throughout which period he’s accused of orchestrating a number of massacres of civilians and for which he was sanctioned by the USA. In July 2016 the now main normal was promoted to assistant director of the Common Intelligence Directorate, often known as the State Safety Department, which performed a central position within the reconciliation offers Damascus started pursuing throughout the nation. It’s on this place that, in line with pro-opposition media, Luka personally led the negotiations to expel the final remnants of the Syrian opposition from Homs’ al-Waer neighborhood in Could 2017. In November 2018 he was appointed director of the Political Safety Directorate, and eight months later the director of the Common Intelligence Directorate, the place he stays as we speak.
The regular rise of Hussam Luka by way of the ranks of Syria’s mukhabarat obscures the extra difficult position he performed all through the conflict, and the precise attributes that can doubtless see him propelled even additional. Luka’s rise from police lieutenant to the top of considered one of Syria’s 4 mukhabarat directorates is outstanding in itself. That he achieved this as a Circassian from rural Khanasir, bereft of the privileges and patronage networks accessible to most Alawites and concrete Sunni elite, much more so. People who know him or have met him describe Luka as a sensible man and expert speaker, whose youth in rural Aleppo makes him significantly adept at negotiating with opposition leaders in a means old fashioned Ba’ath and Alawite officers are sometimes incapable of. Luka’s ruthless, smooth-talking nature has netted him highly effective allies from Aleppo to Latakia to Damascus, reportedly incomes him the nickname “the spider.” Now, his efforts and successes over the previous 10 years in reimposing regime authority in opposition communities make him a major candidate to switch Mamlouk and take over the bigger negotiation file.
A brand new Sunni military
All through 2011, Damascus tried to pursue a coverage of escalatory violence in opposition to protesters and nascent insurgent factions, relying nearly completely on trusted, elite navy items. Institutional mistrust of the bulk Sunni conscripts within the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) meant the navy management relegated most of those brigades to their bases whereas deploying the Alawite-heavy Republican Guard, 4th Division, and Special Forces throughout the nation. To bolster the ranks of those items, regime leaders mobilized and supported armed gangs generally known as shabiha, initially largely based mostly round Alawite communities in ethnically numerous areas. As Ugur Umit argues, the creation of those Alawite militias initiated a brand new patronage system, opening hitherto sidelined (Alawite) communities to unfettered state entry. However the revolution grew and the military crumbled, rank-and-file SAA defected whereas praetorian items have been decimated. It was clear in 2012 that Damascus wanted extra our bodies and an excellent additional decentralized safety method. It’s on this context that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps started working with the SAA command to kind the Nationwide Protection Forces (NDF), a country-wide militia system designed to merge Alawite shabiha with newly mobilized Sunni communities into native auxiliary forces to help SAA operations in susceptible Sunni or combined areas.
It’s the creation of the NDF and the flip to Sunni communities that gives Luka together with his first vital alternative. Leveraging the shut relationship he had constructed with the Baniyas Oil Refinery administration earlier than the conflict, Luka diverted funds within the metropolis to assist kind the Baniyas Middle of the NDF. Luka has reportedly been essential in persevering with to safe funding for the unit since then. As such, he was capable of order the Baniyas NDF to deploy to Khanasir when his hometown got here beneath menace in late July 2013, marking the primary deployment for the group outdoors of the coastal area. A minimum of 18 NDF fighters died in just some days of preventing, triggering inner protests and the withdrawal of the group again to Tartous. On the identical time, Luka gained the help of Army Intelligence to arrange his personal militia in Khanasir, generally known as the Circassian Regiment, which stays within the city as we speak.
The creation of the Baniyas NDF on the behest of Luka underscores the way in which the overall utilized the safety disaster to develop his networks and energy throughout the nation. In accordance with these inside his networks, Luka labored for years to attach highly effective males and communities from Aleppo — the place he first served as a regional mukhabarat director — with Homs, the coast, and Damascus. Luka thus established roots in each energy heart within the nation, constructing relationships with the pre-war energy brokers in Damascus whereas additionally gaining the loyalty of the brand new era of Sunni and Alawite leaders throughout “helpful Syria.” Luka’s ability as a speaker and skill to community is such that he has reportedly constructed up extra loyalty in a few of these areas lately than even the previous Minister of Protection Abdullah Ayoub.
Luka takes over the reconciliation course of
Hussam Luka’s patronage community and work supporting pro-regime Sunni militias didn’t go unnoticed by Damascus, which appears to have seen in him a worthwhile device for reintegrating dissident Sunni communities. This course of started with Luka’s first appointment to the State Safety Department, which oversees most reconciliation offers, and his private position within the reconciliation in al-Waer. The reconciliation course of, generally known as taswiya, entails civilians and armed combatants formally registering with regime safety and navy forces upon their give up, agreeing to a set of negotiated phrases in alternate for the state forgiving their crimes. The regime has utilized this course of, which was formalized beneath Decree 15 in July 2016, extraordinarily successfully, alongside brutal navy sieges, to power the capitulation of opposition-held cities throughout the nation.
Because the conflict wound down and the Russian and Syrian navy instructions started to look to the long run, the SAA leveraged Luka’s relationships and its belief in him to assist rebuild the military. In Could 2019, Luka, then the top of Political Safety, was appointed to guide a fee to rebuild the military’s seventh Division, which, whereas spending the conflict largely deployed in southern Syria and Damascus, had not too long ago started incorporating some Aleppo-based militias.
Luka’s position within the regime’s reimposition of authority after the top of the all-out part of the conflict would solely develop from right here. In late 2019 Luka was appointed the top of the Daraa Army and Safety Committee, a physique composed of the area’s most senior navy officers and tasked with coordinating the regime’s safety method to the burgeoning insurgency within the south. Luka would spend the following two years assembly with ex-rebel commanders and native notables, utilizing the presence of insurgents and ISIS cells to step by step reassert the regime’s place in reconciled areas. Luka’s emphasis on the safety state of affairs prevented Russian mediators from taking a agency stance in help of the 2018 settlement that that they had created, permitting Luka to step by step erode the limitations it had erected.
He additionally met routinely with members of the assorted Daraa negotiating committees, the place a lifetime of interacting with poor, rural Syrians set him sharply other than the opposite, principally Alawite navy officers. One native supply who has listened in on lots of Luka’s conferences and spoke to the writer on situation of anonymity described him as such: “Luka is kind of good and an excellent speaker. He deliberately wears plain garments to specific his closeness to the general public. He is aware of talk what he needs to the general public utilizing a mushy voice and a smile on his face — be it a traditional dialogue or a menace with a navy offensive. The truth that he was accountable for the safety committee for a comparatively very long time implies that he was, within the eyes of Damascus, a profitable safety officer with a file of achievements.” The picture of a ruthless but cordial regime official matches that shared by a pro-regime Sunni officer who knew Luka from his militia days, describing him as a person who excels at utilizing his background to realize the belief of others.
Luka’s two-year venture in Daraa culminated within the August 2021 navy operation, backed by Russia, to impose full regime authority over a number of communities that had been granted a semi-independent standing by Russian negotiators throughout the 2018 reconciliation course of. The preliminary reconciliation agreements allowed many insurgent cities to retain mild weapons whereas stopping regime safety forces from establishing positions inside the cities themselves. As EUI researcher of wartime and postwar micro-dynamics in southern Syria Abdullah Jabassini writes, “Whereas the regime’s use of armed power coerced rebels to give up and allowed it to reassert itself, the Russian-led negotiations prevented a full restoration of regime authority.” The regime had lengthy accused these cities of harboring the insurgents, which had been focusing on regime checkpoints and transports with rising frequency. The 2-month operation, which left not less than 22 civilians lifeless by way of indiscriminate regime shelling, culminated in renewed reconciliation agreements designed to deal with the gaps left within the unique 2018 agreements.
Shortly after Luka imposed the regime’s will in Daraa he initiated a brand new country-wide reconciliation course of, opening new taswiya facilities in not less than eight governorates. The intent of this new initiative seems to be two-fold: first, to strengthen Damascus’ management over peripheral, rural Sunni areas that it recaptured after 2017, and second to undermine the authority of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria and the insurgent Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in northwest Syria. Luka and the chief of workers of the 4th Division, Maj. Gen. Ali Mahmoud, opened the primary of a number of new facilities in Deir ez-Zor in November 2021, adopted by facilities in southern Raqqa in January 2022. By March, these had succeeded in reconciliating greater than 1,000 Syrians who had been residing in SDF-held areas. In late January 2022, Luka opened a taswiya heart in Daraa Metropolis to additional facilitate the method of demobilizing ex-rebels and settling the standing of civilians who had for years lived outdoors regime management. In late February one other heart was opened in Deir Hafir, within the jap Aleppo countryside, and in early March Luka and Mahmoud appeared within the Safira countryside of southeast Aleppo on the ceremony for one more new reconciliation heart. Each of those have been designed to reimpose the regime’s affect over the agricultural east Aleppo area that was liberated from ISIS in early 2017, however which has since been stricken by safety points. Whereas it’s not clear if Luka personally attended their openings, new taswiya facilities have been additionally established throughout the Damascus countryside from late January till June, allegedly reconciling 1000’s of males. The marketing campaign continued once more within the fall of 2022, with the 2 generals opening facilities in Khan Sheikhoun, Hama, and Suwayda in September and October. The Khan Sheikhoun heart is reportedly supposed to attract internally displaced individuals (IDPs) from southern Idlib at the moment residing in HTS-held territory, although it’s unclear how these households would cross the frontline because the regime has up to now refused to open a brand new civilian crossing.
Shaping Damascus’ future
Hussam Luka’s profession encompasses the brutal path the Syrian regime has set out for itself. From killing peaceable protesters to creating felony militias to forcibly reconciling dissident communities, he has taken half in each step of Damascus’ counter-revolutionary technique. Now, with the frontlines showing frozen and the nation divided, Damascus goes all in on its twin violent coercion-diplomatic method to its political rivals within the northeast and northwest. The October 2019 return of SAA forces to northeast Syria heralded a brand new stage of Damascus-Democratic Union Social gathering (PYD) relations, with the previous trying to make use of the looming menace of a Turkish invasion and the unclear standing of U.S. help to wring political concessions out of Qamishli, all whereas undermining the Kurdish authority’s legitimacy within the economically essential Arab areas. For northwest Syria, Damascus is aware of it solely must erode Ankara’s willingness to implement the Idlib ceasefire to recapture the symbolically essential area.
Regardless of what current reporting could counsel, the regime has made little headway in both of those endeavors. Each Ankara and the PYD know they can’t belief any deal made with Damascus, and neither management sees the regime as able to addressing their core wants. Even now, with the looming menace of an imminent Turkish operation, the SDF stays adamant that there could be no take care of the regime with out vital protections for each their navy and administrative establishments — an unacceptable proposal for Damascus. But till now these discussions have been led by Syria’s Ali Mamlouk, an aged veteran of the Ba’ath occasion perceived by each Ankara and Qamishli as having no actual energy. Maybe Damascus sees a greater slot in Hussam Luka, a person who has confirmed his loyalty to the regime in addition to his potential to construct connections with these communities usually ignored by the regime’s outdated guard. But even when Luka does take over Mamlouk’s place as head of the Nationwide Safety Bureau, it’s unclear how his smooth-talking negotiations will translate into actual diplomatic adjustments.
Gregory Waters is a Non-Resident Scholar on the Center East Institute, a marketing consultant for the Worldwide Disaster Group, and a analysis analyst on the Counter Extremism Mission. His analysis focuses on the Syrian regime’s safety forces, primarily using open-source analysis to evaluate the capabilities and construction of the Syrian Arab Army and allied militias. You’ll be able to comply with him on Twitter @GregoryPWaters.
Predominant photograph: Maj. Gen. Hussam Luka (standing) at an occasion for the not too long ago opened Reconciliation Middle in Safira, Aleppo, in March 2022.
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