Russia is protecting Syria’s former strongman. But it’s also talking to the rebels who ousted him

Russia is protecting Syria’s former strongman. But it’s also talking to the rebels who ousted him

The three-starred flag representing Syrian rebel groups was hoisted up a pole atop the Syrian embassy in Moscow on Monday — even as Bashar Al-Assad, Syria’s brutal dictator, is believed to be in exile in Russia after President Vladimir Putin granted him and his family asylum. 

“This is politics,” said Ahamad Al-Gafra, a Syrian national who spoke to Reuters outside of the embassy. “I think Russia has the right to its interests.”

Over the past decade, Russia has spent billions of dollars propping up Al-Assad’s regime, which gave it a foothold in the Middle East and leases for two strategically important military bases. In exchange, Russia’s airforce launched tens of thousands of deadly airstrikes against opposition groups and Syrian cities.

With Russia’s help, Al-Assad crushed his opponents, killing hundreds of thousands of Syrians, and forced millions of others to flee. 

Now that the regime has crumbled, the Kremlin finds itself sheltering its one-time strongman and trying to manage ties with the rebel groups that quickly swept in to defeat him. 

Sudden political shift

The rebel push toward the Syrian capital, Damascus, was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Islamist group whose origins included links to al-Qaeda.

Russia, along with several other countries, including Canada, consider HTS a terrorist group. But the language being used in Russian media to describe them has softened nearly as quickly as the collapse of the Al-Assad regime. 

Near the beginning of his show on Sunday, Russian television host Dmitry Kiselyov referred to HTS as a terrorist group and former al-Qaeda cell. But by the end of the broadcast, he was referring to the rebels as the “armed opposition.”

“Since yesterday, [the language in Russian media] has been pretty unflattering towards Assad,” said Anna Matveeva, a visiting senior research fellow with Kings College London. “They are not calling him a bloodthirsty dictator — but not saying that he was a white knight in shining armour, either.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t elaborate on the whereabouts of Al-Assad or his wife, Asma, and their three adult children. But Russian state media have reported the family has been granted asylum in the country. 

Al-Assad and his wife, who was raised in London, are sanctioned by several governments, but have strong ties to Russia. 

Russian connections

According to an investigation by the Financial Times, Al-Assad’s extended family previously bought at least 18 luxury apartments in a single complex in Moscow in an attempt to safeguard their money during the civil war and rounds of international sanctions.

Al-Assad’s three children vacationed at a seaside resort in Crimea as teenagers, after Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014. In 2023, Al-Assad’s oldest son, Hafez, graduated from a masters program in mathematics at Moscow State University. His mother, the now former first lady of Syria, was part of a special delegation that travelled to Moscow for the ceremony. 

Matveeva told CBC she met Al-Assad’s oldest son in 2019 at a cultural event in Damascus, and recalls speaking to him briefly in Russian.

She says it’s not surprising the Kremlin granted Al-Assad’s family asylum. The arrangement gave him a quick exit from the country and allowed him to escape the fate that befell Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was hanged in 2006, and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, who was shot by rebels after being ousted from power in 2011. 

“Russia, of course, would be able to control what he does or doesn’t do. He wouldn’t engage in any political activity unless Moscow thinks it is in their interest.”

Any moral argument that Russia shouldn’t be harbouring a wanted war criminal is “completely lost” on the Kremlin, Matveeva says. 

“Putin himself is wanted by the International Criminal Court,” she said. The Russian government regards “it as just a political label.”

On the streets of Moscow, a journalist working for Reuters spoke to a handful of residents. All publicly supported the actions of their government. 

“There is a slogan — ‘We do not dump our [allies].’ I understand that politics is a complicated and delicate business,” said one man, who would only be identified by his first name, Leonid. 

Russia has granted high-profile political asylum before, including for Viktor Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president who has been convicted of treason for aiding Russian aggression in 2014.

Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor accused of leaking classified documents on U.S. government surveillance programs, was granted asylum, too (and got Russian citizenship in 2022).

Russian military and investment in Syria

While the Kremlin hasn’t disclosed when Al-Assad arrived or even the last time he met with Putin, officials say everything is being done to try to secure two Russian military bases that it leases from the Syrian government.

Russia has an airbase stationed at Hmeimim in Syria’s Latakia province and a naval facility at Tartus on the coast, which is Russia’s only repair hub in the Mediterranean.

Moscow frequently uses Syria as a staging area to move its military contractors in and out of Africa. It had an agreement with the now-deposed Syrian regime to lease the spaces until 2066. 

“Now we see that we are in a time of transformation, of extreme instability, so, of course, it will take time and a serious conversation with those who will be in power,” Peskov said during a Monday morning press call with journalists. 

Aside from the military bases, Russia has around $20 billion US worth of investments in Syria, including in oil and gas projects.

Matveeva says if Moscow were to lose them, it would claim the Syria endeavour was a setback, but not “catastrophic.”

During the civil war, Matveeva says there were few Russian troops inside Syria. Instead, paid fighters from the mercenary Wagner Group were on the ground. 

She says average Russians don’t really see Syria as their war, with the military and much of the economy mobilized toward the battle in Ukraine. 

Nikita Smagin, an independent expert on Russia and the Middle East, said that when Russia joined the Syrian conflict in 2015, the Kremlin saw it as a chance to secure a presence in the region amid other global players, such as the U.S.

“Russia saw Syria as a very important asset that helps them to talk with the Western countries, to talk with Middle Eastern countries, to increase their power, to increase their authority,” said Smagin, who spoke to CBC News by Zoom from Baku, Azerbaijan.

Now, he says, Russia is trying to build connections with HTS, in a relationship that Smagin says would likely be mutually beneficial. 

“I think that generally HTS needs Russia … because I don’t think that there will be a lot of countries that are ready to recognize them as a legitimate power, at least in the short term.”

Political pivot

Matveeva says while Moscow officially backed the Al-Assad regime, it would have also had communication channels with various factions in Syria’s rebel forces. 

Just as Russia is now strengthening its ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan �— which it removed from its lists of terrorist organizations earlier this fall — Matveeva says Russia will pivot its Syria policy as the situation on the ground changes. 

“Russian officials will try to work out a new political line,” she said. 

Putin, like other heads of state, is watching to see whether HTS can marshal Syria toward a stable government. If so, the Kremlin may say it didn’t like the way the group came to power, but will move to form diplomatic ties, as it is in Russia’s interest. 

If the sudden political change creates a power vacuum where violence ensues, Matveeva says Russia will probably claim Al-Assad was the best of a bunch of bad options. 

“If they all start fighting each other, then Russia will say, ‘Hey, OK, our bastard was still a bit better than … when nobody has any control.'”

Published at Sat, 07 Dec 2024 15:44:10 +0000

Scores slain in weekend attacks in Haiti’s Cité Soleil, observers say

Scores of people were killed over the weekend in Haiti’s Cité Soleil area, Haiti’s prime minister’s office said on Monday, after attacks that the state and two non-governmental groups allege were ordered by a gang leader.

“A red line has been crossed,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement posted on X, adding it would “mobilize all forces to track down and annihilate” those responsible, including gang leader Monel “Mikano” Felix, whom it accused of planning the attack.

The statement from the prime minister’s office said the number of dead was roughly 180, a total that was significantly higher than what several observer groups were citing in the wake of the reported violence.

The National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), an NGO in Haiti that monitors state institutions and promotes human rights education, said on Sunday at least 110 people — all aged over 60 — had been killed in Cité Soleil over the weekend.

It later said the death toll could be higher and cited witnesses as saying that “mutilated bodies were burned in the streets, including several young individuals who were killed attempting to save residents.”

The Cooperative for Peace and Development, a local rights group, meanwhile, said in a statement Sunday that its monitoring unit found that around 20 older people were killed. But it noted that unidentified residents in the community claimed there were more than 100 victims.

Murky information

The murky information was a worrying sign in a country in the grip of widespread gang violence.

“The fact that we have so many doubts about what happened days after the massacre is a signal that clearly indicates the level of control (gangs) have on the population,” said Diego Da Rin, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

RNDDH said Felix, the gang leader, had ordered the violence after his child became sick, and after seeking advice from a Vodou priest who accused elderly people in the area of harming the child through witchcraft. The group said Felix’s child had died on Saturday afternoon.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the events outlined by RNDDH. Felix did not comment on the accusations.

The Cooperative for Peace and Development said information circulating in the community suggests that Felix accused people in the neighbourhood for causing his son’s illness.

“He decided to cruelly punish all elderly people and (Vodou) practitioners who, in his imagination, would be capable of casting a bad spell on his son,” the group said in a statement cited in reporting by The Associated Press.

The group said gunmen rounded up well-known community leaders and took them to the gang leader’s stronghold, where they were executed. Also killed were motorcycle drivers who tried to save some victims.

It also noted that there’s a ban on people leaving the community “in order to continue to identify (Vodou) practitioners and the elderly with the aim of carrying out the silent killing.”

Da Rin, of the International Crisis Group, noted that usually killings in Haiti are documented and posted on social media, though they can be difficult to verify. “In this case, there was not even a message on WhatsApp or a video on TikTok, which is very unusual,” he said.

The Cooperative for Peace and Development said Felix has previously targeted Vodou practitioners, killing a dozen older women and Vodou leaders “wrongly accused of witchcraft” in recent years.

It’s not unusual for Haitians to seek medical and other advice from Vodou priests.

Cité Soleil, a densely populated area near the port of the capital Port-au-Prince, is among the poorest and most violent areas of Haiti.

Tight gang control, including the restriction of mobile phone use, has limited residents’ ability to share information about the massacre.

The government, riven with political infighting, has struggled to contain gangs’ growing power in and around the capital. The armed groups are accused of indiscriminate killings, gang rapes, ransom kidnappings and fuelling critical food shortages.

In October, the Gran Grif gang took responsibility for the killing of at least 115 people in Pont-Sondé, a town in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite region. They said it was retaliation for residents helping a self-defence group hinder their road toll operations.

Calls for peacekeepers

A UN-backed security mission was requested by Haiti in 2022 and approved a year later but so far has just partially deployed and remains deeply under-resourced.

Haitian leaders have called for the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission to be converted into a UN peacekeeping force to ensure it is better supplied, but the plan stalled amid opposition from China and Russia in the Security Council.

“The Secretary-General reiterates his pressing call to Member States to provide the Multinational Security Support mission the financial and logistical support required to successfully assist the Haitian National Police,” said Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, in a statement.

A White House security spokesperson echoed the call for urgent international support for the mission and said the United States was “appalled.”

Dujarric also called for an acceleration of the political transition within Haiti. Haiti’s transitional government has said it plans to hold long-awaited elections in 2025, provided there is sufficient security for a free and fair vote.

The security situation has, however, continued to deteriorate, and many countries have yet to deliver on pledges of support.

Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged countries to improve efforts to stop arms trafficking to Haiti. The UN estimates the gangs’ increasingly modern arsenals are largely trafficked from the United States.

“These latest killings bring the death toll just this year in Haiti to a staggering 5,000 people,” he said.

Published at Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:02:03 +0000