A Bitter Feud over Power and Money Erupts in Syria
The hashish was packed in milk cartons, a total of four tons
of the stuff, carefully packed in 19,000 individual Tetra Paks. Customs
officials discovered the cargo in mid-April on a ship in the Egyptian port of
Said. It had come from Syria, and it was presumably bound for Libya, another
country torn apart by civil war.
It's not the first time that drugs produced in Syria have
been discovered in one of the region's ports. Indeed, such cases are no longer
out of the ordinary. In Dubai, investigators have confiscated several payloads
of amphetamine pills, most recently in January. And in Saudi Arabia, customs
officials in late April found 45 million Captagon pills, likely produced by
laboratories in Syria. Most of the tablets were hidden in packages intended for
mate tea from a company with connections to the family of Syrian dictator
Bashar Assad.
The ships all put to sea from Latakia, the Syrian city on
the Mediterranean whose port Iran leased last fall. The drug discoveries show
just how desperate Assad's regime and his allies in Tehran have grown when it
comes to finding new revenue streams. The country, after all, is essentially
broke. According to the United Nations, 80 percent of Syrians are living in
poverty, and it is estimated that gross domestic product has fallen to just a
quarter of its prewar level. The currency continues to collapse and prices are
rising, while wages have remained largely stagnant. Iran is unable to help and
Russia is no longer willing.
A Family Feud
The drug trade is one of the few remaining routes to
obtaining hard currency. Already in 2013, Hezbollah - Iran's proxy in Lebanon –
conquered the Syrian city of Qusayr and its surroundings and declared the
region a restricted zone. The militia established dozens of small production
sites for amphetamines known as Captagon. At the same time, the group forced
farmers to cultivate cannabis. According to several sources, Maher Assad,
Bashar's younger brother and commander of the 4th Division of the Syrian army,
took on the task of protecting Qusayr and the transportation routes to the port
of Latakia on the Mediterranean. Maher Assad's division is one of just two
halfway battle-ready units left in the badly deteriorated Syrian army. And it
belongs to that faction of the Syrian army that is largely controlled by Iran.
The consortium of companies belonging to the Syrian
billionaire businessman Rami Makhlouf, the dictator's cousin, is responsible
for concealing and exporting the drugs. The four tons of hashish that appeared
in Egypt were packed in cartons from the company Milkman, which belongs to
Makhlouf. He has denied involvement.
Assad's nine-year-long campaign against his own people has
largely resulted in victory for his regime, despite destruction on a vast scale
in the country. But the ongoing terror and economic collapse in the country has
weakened his regime, with the fight for money and power within the tightest
circles of Assad's family now escalating.
In the center of that battle are the two families
surrounding Bashar Assad and Rami Makhlouf, the dictator and the businessman.
The dispute has been so heated because even though the two families are
related, they don't really like each other. They complemented each other for as
long as there was enough plunder to go around. But that is no longer the case.
Now, Syria's richest man has launched a public offensive
against those in power. On April 30, and over the next days, Rami Makhlouf
posted a total of three videos on Facebook in which the tycoon complained
bitterly that demands from the financial authorities, according to which he had
to pay the equivalent of around 100 million euros, had been
"manipulated" by a "cadre" of officials. Looking pained, he
also expressed outrage that employees of his had been arrested by the secret
service, calling it "a violation of the law and the constitution,"
particularly since, he claimed, he had been "the biggest sponsor of the
security apparatus during the war." He pleaded to Assad, saying: "Mr.
President, do not allow it!"
Rejecting the Humdrum of Domesticity
Many Syrians have nothing but contempt for Makhlouf, and he
has long been referred to in some quarters by his nickname "Rami,
al-Harami," or "Rami, the criminal." At the beginning of the
uprising, he was the wealthiest man in Syrian, estimated to have been worth $5
billion at the time, and he was in the habit of having all his competitors
either kicked out of the country or thrown in prison. He controlled the highly
profitable telecommunications company SyriaTel. He also owns construction and
oil companies and has a stake in almost everything that generates a profit.
Assad's problem is that the power of his family, which has
ruled Syria for the last five decades, is rooted in the religious minority of
the Alawites, despite the fact that prior to the war, around three-quarters of
the population were Sunnis. Bashar Assad's mother Anisa, who married the
founder of the dynasty Hafez Assad in 1957, is also from the Makhloufs, a
powerful Alawite family. She and her family weren't pleased when, in 2000,
Bashar Assad married the Sunni banker Asma al-Akhras, who he had met in London.
In the region around Latakia, which has a strong Alawite presence, many people
even wore black on the day the two exchanged vows.
Bashar's mother Anisa felt that the wife of a president should
be a homemaker, but Asma is anything but, preferring glamour to the humdrum of
domesticity, and she can speak English even better than her husband. But Asma's
feud with Rami Makhlouf is primarily due to economic reasons. Each of them
founded charitable organizations that have been among the last means of
accessing UN aid money since the imposition of international sanctions.
Starting in 2011, Makhlouf added an armed wing to his
charitable foundation, called Bustan, with its up to 20,000 militia fighters
not shying away from mowing down their Syrian compatriots. Last fall, though,
Assad turned on the private army. Following an assassination attempt on the
Bustan commander, arson attacks on its vehicles and dozens of arrests, the
foundation has fallen silent.
Now, Asma has allegedly set her sights on taking over
Makhlouf's crown jewel. Last fall, the Syrian telecommunications authority
announced that a new mobile service would soon be taking over an existing
network. The company, according to an unnamed source, is to be called Ematel,
and it allegedly belongs to Asma Assad.
Ratcheting Up the Pressure
Rami Makhlouf's Facebook videos are dangerous. No mere
mortal would ever survive such a thing in Assad's empire. Ultimately, though,
these direct challenges to the president's authority could prove to be a
life-saving maneuver. Those who fall out of favor with the regime, after all,
tend to be removed via "suicide," in the form of several bullets in
the back of the head. But after these videos, it is unlikely that anyone would
believe that Makhlouf took his own life, should he turn up dead.
Makhlouf, in any case, is still living in Syria, allegedly
having moved from his estate in Jaafur, near Damascus, to his hometown of
Latakia. But his videos also haven't yet triggered an uprising by loyal
Alawites or among the thousands of people on Makhlouf's payroll. At least not
yet. The authorities have recently been ratcheting up the pressure. Not only
did the Finance Ministry order the seizure of assets belonging to Rami and to
his wife and children, but he has also been slapped with a travel ban.
A member of one of the most powerful oligarch families in
Damascus, who contacts this reporter every few weeks via encrypted
communication channels, believes, however, that the turmoil between the two
cousins is not of primary importance. "What are they supposed to do? If
Rami were to get his followers to march on Damascus, everyone would fall together."
Plus, he adds, someone whose son is fond of showing off on Instagram with his
villa and Ferrari collection isn't particularly popular among poor Alawites who
are happy if they can just put food on the table.
More important, continues the oligarch family member from
Damascus, is a different arena, one in which Rami Makhlouf also plays a key
role, just with a slightly different familial constellation. That conflict
involves the immense drug trade, in which a suspicious number of shipments have
recently been intercepted. According to the oligarch family member, Makhlouf
himself isn’t the target here, but his Iranian partners.
A Threat to Israel
The whole thing, he says, is a clever rouse. Moscow has
slowly had enough of the Syrian regime and its insubordination. "Russia
wants to consolidate, it finally wants a peace deal so that the billions in
recovery funding from abroad can finally start flowing in. But for that to
happen, the Iranians have to go." Because they want to continue to use
Syria as a threat to Israel.
Moscow, the oligarch family member says, isn't interested in
a military confrontation with the units under Iranian control, but is pursuing
a more elegant solution. With its Iranian allies on the brink of bankruptcy,
Moscow, he says, is seeking to cut off Tehran's revenue streams, including
large-scale drug production.
For a long time, the Russians were apparently not opposed to
the export of illicit goods. But that changed last year when they directed
Syrian authorities to investigate Maher Assad's right-hand man for his
involvement in the drug business. A brigadier general and a mafia kingpin were
sidelined as a result. As Maher himself admitted, they were his most important
operatives. The president's brother was so furious that he withdrew all units
under his command right in the middle of the Idlib offensive. Moscow was not
amused.
Maher then announced that he was no longer willing to divert
a portion of the hard currency earned by the activities of his 4th Division to
the central bank. It was a clear indication of his lack of understanding for
Russia's abrupt interference. Why, he seemed to wonder, should the army
suddenly no longer be part of a drug cartel?
Moscow is not fundamentally opposed to one of its vassals
engaging in torture or illegal business practices at home, as long as they remain
loyal. But when a puppet dictator proves ungrateful and continually stands in
the way of the Kremlin's plans - well, that is a different matter.
Russia, it would seem, is currently in the process of
showing Rami Makhlouf, Maher Assad and Hezbollah exactly where the power lies.
The drug shipments that have been uncovered are one indication of that, and
that is also the interpretation in Damascus, says the oligarch family member:
"The Russians want to destroy Iran's business." When investigators
are waiting every time a ship sails into port, or even intercepts them at sea,
it is hardly an accident, he says.
Already, Kremlin subcontractors, such as the company
Stroitransgas, have positioned themselves perfectly to profit from
reconstruction, with contracts for phosphate mines, fertilizer production, the
port of Tartus and gas and oil exploitation. Now, they are just waiting for
things to get started. "The Russians are running out of time," says
the member of the oligarch family. He adds that at dinners of lackies and
generals, there is fear that Russian patience may be wearing thin on the
question of who is to rule the country in the future. "They are in the
process of giving up on Assad. They just don't know yet how."
"Afghanistan-Like Scenario"
That, at least, would explain the drastic criticism of the
Damascus regime that has recently been coming from various sources in Moscow.
It began in April with articles in Russia media outlets about widescale
corruption in Syria and about a survey in the country according to which just
32 percent of Syrians would vote for Assad in the next election. Then, the
state news agency TASS wrote that Assad is "not only incapable of
governing," but could even "plunge Moscow into another
Afghanistan-like scenario."
The newspaper Gosnovosti topped them all by writing that
Assad had purchased the pop art painting "The Splash" by David
Hockney from Sotheby's for the equivalent of 26 million euros as a gift for
Asma – even as his people are suffering and Russia is fighting his war.
The fact that the story was likely a fake makes it all the
more interesting: Even Moscow's troll army is turning against Assad, who had
always been described as Syria's "legitimate president." One could
read such criticism as a warning – or as a way of preparing the Russian and
Syrian populations for the fact that the "legitimate president" may
suddenly no longer be president one day.
Something is changing in the geopolitical fabric on which
Assad's fate depends. Since April, Israel has launched six airstrikes on
Iranian positions in Syria, apparently with Moscow's approval. The S-300 and
S-400 batteries, which are operated by the Russian military and which represent
Syria's most modern air defense systems, haven't fired a single rocket at the
increasing number of jets flying into the country. The U.S. special
representative for Syria, James Jeffrey, said in a briefing at the U.S. State
Department: "In terms of getting Russia out of Syria, that has never been
our goal."
Meanwhile, ranks are closing in Damascus. Recently, the
palace allowed an apparatchik to issue an open threat to Russia. If Moscow
continues heaping pressure on Assad, he said, then the Syrian ruler would
unleash a war on the "Russian occupiers" that would "forever
strike Putin's name from Russian history."
Within the ruling family, Maher Assad is likewise seeking to
distance himself from his cousin and smuggling partner Rami. But just how close
they once were can be seen in the history of the Facebook account Rami used to
launch his plea to Assad: The account used to belong to Maher.
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