Syria’s new rulers say they will spare conscripts of Bashar al-Assad and pursue those who oversaw his regime’s abuses. Hundreds are lining up to learn which promise applies to them.
Hundreds of soldiers and police officers converged this week on a former security compound in the western Syrian city of Latakia, heeding the call of the country’s new rulers to relinquish their ties to the ousted regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
During its decades-long rule, the Assad government built a brutal security apparatus, detaining, torturing and executing opponents. Last week, the rebel coalition that overthrew him said it would hunt down senior officials implicated in crimes, while rank-and-file conscripted soldiers would receive amnesty.
More than 600 people came when the so-called reconciliation center first opened on Sunday in Latakia, in a province that has been an Assad stronghold. Many more followed on Monday, the line extending the length of the large security compound.
They hoped to clear their names and settle their status, though the centers are just the starting point and the full process to do so remains unclear.
Online and on television, the Syrian transitional government, led by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, called for former soldiers, military officers and even medical workers in the military to hand over their IDs, weapons and vehicles.
Supervisors at the Latakia center, one of the first in the country, said similar ones had opened or would open in provinces across Syria.
After hours of waiting — and jostling to get a number — some of the men finally made it inside.
Each person reporting in received a numbered ticket.
At a desk near the front entrance, a police officer with the new Syrian government wrote down each person’s name and a number in blue ink to create a temporary ID. After that, each arrival was told to stand against the wall and hold the number in front, for a mug shot.
And each was eventually photographed with the number.
The former soldiers and police officers handed in their weapons through two windows along a wall, protected by metal security bars. One man had brought a Soviet-era machine gun, but it was too big to fit through the opening so he had to hand it over at the front door.
Every few seconds came the sound of men cocking guns and checking to ensure their bullet chambers were empty.
Mohammad Mustafa, a 26-year-old security officer with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s interior ministry, dressed all in black, including a beanie and a face mask, stood in the middle of a room that under Mr. al-Assad was used for interrogations. Now, it had become an impromptu weapons depository.
The new authorities had collected dozens of AK-47s, handguns and other weapons, sorting them in piles by type.
After sorting this was just part of the process. Inside one of the intake rooms, Warrant Officer Othman Karoom, 40, until recently a traffic police officer in the rebel-controlled city of Idlib, filled out spreadsheets with the details of each person.
“What was your specialty?” he asked, as 28-year-old Mohammad al-Jarrah sat down in a ratty chair in front of his desk.
“Cannons,” Mr. al-Jarrah said, adding quickly in his defense: “I was a conscript.”
“How much did you shell Maraat Misrin and Jebel al Zawiyah?” Mr. Karoom said, mentioning his hometown and a nearby town. “He whose hands have blood on them … ”
“I swear to God, those who have blood on their hands,” Mr. al-Jarrah replied, “They will all be known.”
As the former rebels worked inside gathering information, the lines grew longer outside, the men — and a few women — hoping for their chance at amnesty.
Waiting hours in the cold, a group of men yelled and pushed forward, trying to force their way into the security building. A police officer of the new government rushed toward them, his rifle pointed. Soon order was restored, as police officers pushed many back outside the main gate.
Pushing back the line. Several people were injured in the crush. They were allowed to stay inside the complex to get processed.
After the crush it could be a while before any of the former police officers and soldiers know their fate. Mr. Mustafa of the interior ministry said each person would need to report back in three months to a security headquarters to be fully investigated. “Right now, we don’t have time,” he said.
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Raja Abdulrahim reports on the Middle East and is based in Jerusalem. More about Raja Abdulrahim
Ivor Prickett is a photographer based in Istanbul. He covered the rise and fall of ISIS in Iraq and Syria while on assignment for The Times. More recently he has been working on stories related to the war in Ukraine. More about Ivor Prickett
Handing over weapons.
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