For years, a terrifying place existed just under the surface in Syria, a secret hidden from the public eye. 🕵️♂️ This underground site, part of Syria's state security headquarters in Damascus, was a place where countless people were detained, tortured, and disappeared. 🏚️ The BBC's Arabic Service correspondent, Feras Kilani, had the rare opportunity to step inside this grim location, which few outside of Syria have ever seen.
The site, located in the basement of Syria’s state security headquarters, revealed a chilling scene of confinement. 🚪 Rows of small, steel-walled rooms were used to hold prisoners. One of the rooms was shockingly tiny, measuring just two meters long and one meter wide. The walls were filthy, stained from years of neglect and abuse. 😷 The only light in these dark rooms came from tiny, high-up mesh windows, offering only a faint glimmer of sunlight. 🌞
Inside these cramped spaces, people were held for months, subjected to intense interrogation and brutal torture. 😔 The secret complex was located just a few meters under one of Damascus's busiest streets in the Kafr Sousa area, where everyday Syrians walked by, oblivious to the horrors happening beneath their feet. 🚶♂️
On the floors of one corridor, discarded photographs of the ousted president lay scattered, alongside piles of files that were used to monitor the activities of millions of people. 📄 These files, found in the same building, documented the surveillance of the citizens for years, contributing to the fear and oppression that Syrians lived under.
After being detained in this underground prison, many prisoners were sent to infamous facilities like the Saydnaya prison, a notorious site where the regime’s brutal tactics continued. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has recorded more than 15,000 deaths due to torture in prisons since 2011, when the uprising against Bashar al-Assad began. 🏚️ It’s believed that by August of this year, over 130,000 people were illegally detained or forcibly disappeared.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have long accused the Syrian government of torturing and forcibly disappearing people for years, with no accountability from the intelligence agencies. 🕵️♂️ According to these groups, the intelligence services operated without oversight, systematically targeting anyone deemed a threat to the regime.
Just a few hundred meters away from the main state security headquarters is another secretive intelligence office, the General Intelligence Directorate, which also played a key role in monitoring Syrians’ daily lives. 📡 Inside this office, servers and computers hummed quietly, storing massive amounts of data. Despite the constant power outages in much of Damascus, this facility had its own power supply. ⚡ The data stored here was paired with paper documents, some of which were shockingly old, showing years of meticulous record-keeping. 📚
It seems that when the regime collapsed, those who worked here didn’t have a chance to destroy any of the sensitive materials before they fled. Even the walls of one room were lined with old metal cabinets, packed with files, while shelves of notebooks stretched from floor to ceiling. 🗄️ There were even empty bullet casings and weapons like mortars and land mines found in various rooms, revealing the dark history of state-sponsored violence.
During an interview with a fighter from the HTS (Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham), who now controls parts of Damascus, the fighter explained that this intelligence network was once central to Syria’s crackdown on its own people. 🇸🇾 “During Assad's rule, with the help of Russia, all state institutions became tools for oppression,” the fighter said, adding that these offices were the epicenter of the regime’s cruelty.
The thousands of files and computer records stored in these secret locations could play a crucial role in bringing those responsible for the torture and detainment of Syrians to justice in the future. ⚖️ They may serve as key evidence in holding accountable anyone involved in Syria's widespread human rights abuses.
The former leaders of Syria's intelligence agencies now face an uncertain future. Some hope to find those responsible for the torture and killings and bring them to trial. The leader of HTS, Ahmad al-Jolani, has made it clear that no one involved in these crimes will go unpunished. “We will hunt them down, and we will ask other countries to help bring them to justice,” he stated in a Telegram message. 💬
As Syria’s intelligence network falls apart, the impact extends far beyond the country’s borders. Documents have been found linking Syria's intelligence to countries like Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. 🌍 If these files are made public and connections to important figures in these countries are revealed, it could shake the entire region.
The more information that comes out about the Assad regime’s intelligence agencies, the more profound the consequences will be. ⚡ This could reshape not only Syria’s future but also have lasting effects across the Middle East, as governments and citizens alike confront the dark legacy of a brutal regime.
📢 Join our Telegram channel