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Syria: local agreements, regional rivalry and a global pandemic [1]

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Date: 2024-02 

On 22 May, Haradh al-Mu’minin operation room – a jihadi coalition affiliated to al-Qaeda – released three “militia members” against two women and their children. One of the women was the wife of a leader of Tahrir al-Sham and had been captured two years before. She reportedly divorced her husband upon her return and left the jihadi group.

Given the COVID-19 pandemic, the three exchanges were subjected to particular hygiene guarantees. The opposition factions were reportedly anxious about the potential infection of the prisoners released by the Syrian regime. According to private sources, they had stipulated in the negotiations that they would cancel the exchange if any prisoners had been injured or if their health was not carefully checked beforehand.

The Head of the Free Doctor Union in Idlib told the authors that the prisoners released by the Syrian regime – of whom some were kept in Sednaya and Adra prisons in the north of Damascus and other intelligence military branches – were evacuated to an area under the Directorate of Health around Ma’ara to be sterilized and quarantined for two weeks. Once their health condition was checked, they were then allowed to go back to their families.

As it is often the case in Syria, the three exchanges were logistically supported by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Several activists interviewed in Idlib governorate pointed to the ambiguous status of this humanitarian organization. The latter is the (only) official government partner through which all UN and international agencies must work in Syria. Formally affiliated with the ICRC, it is perceived to be affiliated with the Syrian regime and under the tight control of the air force intelligence.

Local agreements to ensure key internal and external support

These kinds of local deals are interesting because they serve a number of purposes for the Syrian president. Most importantly, Bashar al-Assad is under pressure from his ally Iran. The latter systematically insists to recover the bodies of soldiers who died on the battleground. Those soldiers belong to Iranian-backed militias and Hezbollah-affiliated groups. They are Iranian, Iraqi or Lebanese and at the centre of a propaganda strategy framed around their martyrdom and the sacrifices of the Shi’a Muslims to free the Syrian land from (Sunni) terrorism.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/syria-local-agreements-regional-rivalry-and-global-pandemic/

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