Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:06memories and formed a Syrian and neutralizing it from the struggle
00:00:35to control
00:00:39The partisan division that existed then in
00:00:45We had three coups
00:00:48from March 30th until
00:00:50December 18th. December,
00:00:54we had three coups:
00:00:57Husni al-Za'im's coup, Sami al-Hinnawi's coup,
00:01:00and Adib Shishakli's coup. From
00:01:041963 until
00:01:07immediately 1966, they established a police state.
00:01:12In every corner of this They established a police state. There were
00:01:16military institutions
00:01:20all subject to loyalty
00:01:23and entrenched in a sectarian body. At the same
00:01:27it is true that on the one hand, time, they were also able
00:01:30to, يعني, the whole state
00:01:33was placed under their control.
00:01:37Hafez al-Assad decided that he would be
00:01:40the ruler of this country for a long
00:01:43time at least, and then he would discover that he had
00:01:47and partisan polarization, specifically the ability to bequeath power to his sons, meaning to transform the republic
00:01:50into a
00:01:52kingdom. Military
00:01:55and
00:01:57the Syrian army and reflected on authoritarian influence led to economic
00:02:02was led by a group of influence as well. A social class was created parallel to the authority and intertwined
00:02:07ended an era of with it, forming an economic
00:02:27Alawite officers and two system.
00:02:33After four decades of the Assad family seizing power
00:02:37Ahmed al-Mir and Abdul Karim al-Jundi, they are from in Syria, and at this very moment, Syrians
00:02:41broke the barrier of fear, announcing the start
00:02:44of a real revolution in the country, despite
00:02:47the outbreak of demonstrations before that. The day before they stormed
00:02:50Daraa, the Minister
00:02:53order to control of Defense called me and said, "What's wrong with Daraa governorate, Muhammad?" I told
00:02:56him, "Do you want me to tell you the official version, or do you want
00:02:59the truth?" He said, "No, I want
00:03:01the truth." I told
00:03:04him, "Honestly, people have reached a stage
00:03:07where they exploded. People can no longer
00:03:10endure it."
00:03:12And I gave him several examples, you know. So I'm containing it. He told me, "I can
00:03:16storm and search, but I don't want blood, Muhammad. I
00:03:21Hafez al-Assad initially relied don't want blood." This is what
00:03:24General Ali Habib said. This is, you know, this is a story. Okay,
00:03:28them led by what's the solution? I told him, I presented him with 12 proposals at the time for a solution
00:03:31in Daraa governorate,
00:03:34because the crisis was, to some extent, confined to some
00:03:37other pockets, but Daraa was
00:03:39the basis. So he
00:03:42ideals. What is expected of told me, "Tomorrow
00:03:44the army is not to at 12 o'clock, be
00:03:45other staff. Meaning, the division interfere in at my place." We told him, "God willing." His office manager called me
00:03:48at 11 o'clock and told me not to come to him. He had a meeting at the regional
00:03:51command.
00:03:54They met at the regional command and decided to storm
00:03:57Daraa with the army.
00:04:01The revolution was met with violent intervention from the numerous
00:04:05security agencies that fill the country. After the failure
00:04:08of the security solution, the regime
00:04:11attracting officers based on resorted to the military solution
00:04:13loyalty, not on by deploying its army to cities and towns. The peaceful
00:04:16revolution turned into a brutal war, and the military
00:04:20establishment fought a fierce battle
00:04:22against civilians.
00:04:28their only goal was to maintain against were removed, which was mostly It is clear that the authorities in Syria were pushing for the army to enter this conflict and be a major part of it. The intervention came in
00:04:32stages. In military terms, the intervention came
00:04:35in stages. However, the more
00:04:40towards security over building the army, the core of the army, from legal way to understand this intervention is that it came with clear military orders and clear authority
00:04:43from the top of the pyramid to the bottom, as
00:04:47we are talking about the President of the Republic and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Armed Forces. This
00:04:50came
00:04:52with orders, whether oral or written. We are not
00:04:56trusted by the regime.
00:04:59and intelligence establishment became Of course, all Sunni sons without exception are not trusted,
00:05:02and therefore they pose a problem in leaking
00:05:05information and executing orders.
00:05:09would control So anyone who wants to defect will defect anyway. It wasn't a big deal for him.
00:05:15The regime marginalized the army before the revolution, creating
00:05:19parallel military formations to the security
00:05:21agencies, which became more prominent during
00:05:24the war, such as the National Defense Militia, composed
00:05:28of volunteers from Alawite areas, after the army was heavily
00:05:32depleted and its numbers halved
00:05:35by 2014,
00:05:38due to the killing and defection of tens of thousands of its soldiers
00:05:40and officers.
00:05:43I announce my defection from the army and my joining the ranks of the Syrian
00:05:47youth, along with a number of elements of the Free Syrian
00:05:50Arab Army. I announce my defection from the ranks of the Syrian
00:05:53Arab Army. I am Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Sattar Younes, commander of the
00:05:57Martyr Hamza Al-Khatib Battalion, affiliated with the Syrian Army. There was no widespread
00:06:00defection movement. The regime was able to
00:06:04foresee movements of discontent and crush them in
00:06:08their infancy. For example, Ali Habib was removed in the first
00:06:11months. He is from the Mutaura tribe,
00:06:14and he, you know, held high
00:06:18positions in the command of the Syrian army and was
00:06:20removed.
00:06:22The assassination of the crisis cell senior
00:06:25officers, Assef Shawkat, Turkmani, and Daoud
00:06:29Rajha, and so on. As soon as the regime felt that
00:06:32these individuals could have a different opinion, they were completely
00:06:36liquidated. This depletion,
00:06:39Syria did not witness the depletion of a complete
00:06:42military unit in the sense of
00:06:45social and sectarian engineering, but these
00:06:48units, the main nerve
00:06:51of the main forces in them was the Sunni
00:06:55component, in quotation marks.
00:06:58It leaked from within, meaning it remained structures, but
00:07:01in terms of human power, it decreased within this. This
00:07:05army used sectarianism as a suicide belt, and it showed that it was a suicide
00:07:09belt, that if you move, with what
00:07:12I have and the cohesion of the agencies I have, I will destroy the country
00:07:16and detonate the suicide belt when
00:07:19necessary.
00:07:20In the army,
00:07:24they were able to convince people
00:07:27because political sectarianism became institutionalized
00:07:30in governance. They started convincing them that their existence was linked to the existence
00:07:33of the regime, so it was a defense of existence for some,
00:07:37and others were forced. When you are
00:07:40in the army for military service, or as an officer, you have to execute.
00:07:44I'm not justifying this,
00:07:47but this is the reality.
00:07:50And unfortunately, the army stage has changed,
00:07:54in my opinion, in the revolution. Today, one of the most dangerous
00:07:58consequences for the regime is that the army has turned into
00:08:00a militia.
00:08:05The regular army, the numerous security agencies, and the local
00:08:08militias all failed to quell the revolution.
00:08:12So the regime resorted to using allied sectarian militias
00:08:16from Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan,
00:08:19and others. This further complicated
00:08:22the scene of sectarianism and militias within the country,
00:08:25and their dominance increased until the army became a facade behind which the militias
00:08:29hid. The army belongs to the Assad family,
00:08:33not a national army. I mean, look at
00:08:36the course of the Syrian revolution from
00:08:392011 until now. When you see a pilot
00:08:43bombing people, bombing civilians, bombing children, bombing
00:08:47women, you say this is not an army, this
00:08:50is a ruling gang with no values whatsoever, no morals, and no
00:08:57politics. The situation in Syria was
00:09:01different. The conflict between civilian and military began
00:09:05with the core formation of the Special Forces
00:09:08of the Levant, which the French established from Syrian
00:09:13forces. We are now talking about approximately 1920.
00:09:16French colonialism in
00:09:201920 destroyed the core of the national army
00:09:23that was formed with the first independent state in Syria
00:09:27under the leadership of King Faisal bin Hussein, and established
00:09:30military institutions loyal to it after it
00:09:34crushed the volunteers of the national army led by the then
00:09:37Minister of War, Yusuf al-Azma, who fought the decisive
00:09:40Battle of Maysalun, near
00:09:42Damascus.
00:09:47France adopted
00:09:51minorities because they had a colonial
00:09:53and orientalist view that Syria
00:09:57was a diverse mix of sects
00:10:01and so on. The Sunnis and Sunni Muslims were
00:10:04their primary enemy. They could attract
00:10:07minorities in different ways because
00:10:11in the past, during the Ottoman era and old times,
00:10:14the methods
00:10:17of governance involved discrimination against
00:10:21small sects like the Alawites and
00:10:24the Druze. So France exploited these existing
00:10:27discriminations and painful
00:10:31army core from minorities.
00:10:34The army, as one of the pillars of the state, which is,
00:10:38let's say, the Syrian French
00:10:41mandate in Syria, or the Syrian
00:10:44state built by the French, the army in it is pivotal,
00:10:48first of all, and its goal is not to express the will of
00:10:52the people or the will of a nation.
00:10:56Its goal is to help the mandate authority
00:11:00the people. The primary mission of these
00:11:04forces was to suppress
00:11:07the national movement,
00:11:10and thus here we had a great
00:11:13friction between local
00:11:15armed
00:11:18elements from ethnic groups and minorities
00:11:21and the national forces that were demonstrating in the main
00:11:25areas.
00:11:30In response to French colonialism and to obstruct its goals
00:11:34of dividing Syria into mini-states, the Great
00:11:37Syrian Revolution erupted in
00:11:381925 and ended with Syria gaining
00:11:42its independence with the withdrawal of French forces in
00:11:451946.
00:11:51When the process of independence began and the national
00:11:55authority took over the army, the
00:11:58national leaders started thinking about
00:12:02how we would deal with this army.
00:12:06Should we build upon it
00:12:07or
00:12:10remove it and replace it entirely
00:12:14with a national institution?
00:12:17So they decided to
00:12:21keep what existed and build upon it. They gathered these
00:12:25different forces, the gendarmerie, the Desert Patrol,
00:12:28the Army of the Levant, and so on, which the French were using from different regions
00:12:32and for different purposes to consolidate their control over Syria.
00:12:35They gathered them and formed a national army
00:12:39that lacked sufficient cohesion,
00:12:43a true message, ideology, and a clear
00:12:46idea of its function, what is the function of a national
00:12:48army? After independence,
00:12:52Syrian political elites entered into conflict and infighting
00:12:56among themselves, which weakened the already fragile political life
00:12:59and created a power vacuum that the military
00:13:03establishment, represented by the army, rushed
00:13:06to fill. The political structure in the Syrian state
00:13:09was not solid, meaning it was not deeply rooted. The political
00:13:13structure, plus the conflicts that existed, because
00:13:16the ruling class was a bourgeois class or a feudal
00:13:19class, essentially. So their main concern
00:13:23was
00:13:26to gain power by any means. At the same time,
00:13:29you don't have a military institution that is also
00:13:32national in the known national
00:13:36sense, with its true national function, which is to defend
00:13:39the homeland and protect the constitution. All these
00:13:42factors led to the military establishment overstepping the political
00:13:46institutions that existed in Syria. The problem was not in
00:13:49the army's structure, but in the structure of the republic. The biggest
00:13:52victim of what happened in Syria was the fragility
00:13:56of the republican structure. There was no conviction among
00:14:00the military establishment that the republican
00:14:02system and civilian rule were viable or
00:14:05sustainable. Consequently, the republic
00:14:08was subjected to, the republic became a plaything,
00:14:11and its positions became playthings in the hands
00:14:13of the military.
00:14:22Less than a year after the Nakba in Palestine,
00:14:25Syrian officer Husni al-Za'im led the first
00:14:28military coup in contemporary Arab history, thus
00:14:31opening the door to a long series of coups in
00:14:35Syria and to military rule in the entire
00:14:38region. The process of frustration
00:14:41that occurred during the Nakba in Palestine, in the 1948
00:14:44war, with the Salvation Army, played
00:14:47a role in inciting people
00:14:52the ruling class or rulers. Husni
00:14:56al-Za'im carried out a coup
00:14:58with American assistance, or at American
00:15:02instigation, and with the aim of his expectations, and it went
00:15:05well. Then came the next coup, and so on. So, within
00:15:09one year, we had three
00:15:11coups. From March 30th
00:15:15until December 18th,
00:15:18December, we had three coups:
00:15:21Husni al-Za'im's coup, Sami al-Hinnawi's coup, and
00:15:25Adib Shishakli's coup. I mean, all of them were
00:15:29and each coup had a political goal
00:15:33behind it.
00:15:37Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, the wheel
00:15:41of governance in Syria turned at a tremendous speed, marked by successive
00:15:44military coups. The successive
00:15:47military regimes were interspersed with some years of civilian rule
00:15:50and democratic manifestations, such as the spread of newspapers, public
00:15:54freedoms, and diverse pluralistic party
00:15:58activity, which created a kind of intense competition among parties for power
00:16:02and political
00:16:03roles.
00:16:07Due to the post-independence period, it was also a period of political
00:16:11testing for all social components, as they would enter the political
00:16:13field.
00:16:17Syrian society, which was on the one hand important and good diversity,
00:16:21but this also reflected on the issue of the army. So the army was
00:16:24a platform for political competition,
00:16:27meaning the essential element in any army should be neutrality. This element was
00:16:30lost in the post-independence period. There were leftist
00:16:34tendencies, Nasserist tendencies, and communist tendencies. Each one tried
00:16:38to use the army to increase
00:16:41its power against the other political party, meaning
00:16:44also the weakness of the political
00:16:48class pushed some parties to use the army and divide
00:16:51the army even further, meaning they tried to use
00:16:54the army in competition among themselves, and this is what gave
00:16:57the army, in the end, greater value,
00:17:01that instead of the army intervening
00:17:05within political forces, political
00:17:08forces started using the army
00:17:11to protect themselves. From here, the issue
00:17:15of politicization entered
00:17:17the army.
00:17:21At the height of political
00:17:24on March 8,
00:17:261963,
00:17:29a military coup occurred that was the beginning of a major change that affected
00:17:35the entire state. The coup
00:17:39officers who had served in Egypt during the Syrian-Egyptian
00:17:42unity, which later became known as the Military
00:17:46Committee in the Ba'ath Party. Praise be to God,
00:17:50who fulfilled the hopes of the Syrian people and the people
00:17:53of Egypt and united their hearts
00:17:57and united their state. Of course, this
00:18:00committee consists of three
00:18:04Ismaili officers.
00:18:07Hafez al-Assad, Muhammad Omran, Salah Jadid are from the Alawite sect.
00:18:11As for
00:18:15the Ismaili sect. These formed
00:18:18a political party committee within the armed
00:18:21forces in Cairo when they were serving in that
00:18:25region. So they started forming this core in
00:18:30power or to, let's say, transform
00:18:34the Syrian army from a military state
00:18:38to a sectarian state or to
00:18:41an ideological state. From '63 to
00:18:44'66, they established the police
00:18:47state.
00:18:50They established the police state.
00:18:53There were military
00:18:57institutions
00:18:58all
00:19:02subject to loyalty and entrenched in a sectarian
00:19:05body. At the same
00:19:09time, they were
00:19:12also able to, you know, the whole
00:19:14state was placed under
00:19:18their control.
00:19:20The military committee soon led another coup against
00:19:24the Ba'ath Party's political leadership and ousted it from
00:19:27the formal facade of power. The coup was led by the Alawite
00:19:31officer Salah Jadid in February 1966
00:19:33and was called the February
00:19:38movement within
00:19:41the party. After '66, they started forming
00:19:44a sectarian army of their own, and they started
00:19:50competence. This is the difference that led to
00:19:54the weakening of the Syrian army. Loyalty before
00:19:57competence. So a large number of officers who were not
00:20:00loyal to the Ba'athist group minorities.
00:20:04This is Salah Jadid,
00:20:08Hafez Assad, Muhammad Omran,
00:20:12Hatoum, etc. All of them are minorities, and Abdul
00:20:14Karim
00:20:17al-Jundi. And their goal was to overthrow the Ba'ath only to
00:20:20consolidate power for their group, but
00:20:23in the end, a sectarian bloc emerged in the heart
00:20:27of power from minorities.
00:20:29Therefore, the top of the pyramid
00:20:33for the military from minorities.
00:20:38Then the purges began within the minorities,
00:20:41because until
00:20:44it was settled that the Alawite bloc
00:20:47power.
00:20:49After a struggle and purges on sectarian
00:20:53bases and the Alawite bloc's monopolization of power,
00:20:56differences soon erupted within it. The two poles of the Alawite
00:21:00bloc, Salah Jadid and Hafez al-Assad, engaged in a bloody
00:21:03conflict that intensified and flared up after the Palestine setback in
00:21:061967.
00:21:09Each side tried to blame the other for
00:21:12the defeat. Slowly, the balance shifted towards Hafez
00:21:15al-Assad, the Minister of Defense at the time, and the one with the strongest
00:21:19authority in the military establishment.
00:21:22He was the Minister of Defense and started planning from '66 to
00:21:25'70 how to place loyal people
00:21:28in key positions, which are considered crucial
00:21:31for the army and its units. He started the process of conflict
00:21:35with Salah Jadid. Of course, Salah Jadid
00:21:38became the Assistant Regional Secretary,
00:21:42so he exploited his party position
00:21:46as power. So at that time, of course,
00:21:50his departure from the army weakened Salah Jadid, making
00:21:54the entire arena, the entire army stage,
00:21:57under the control of Hafez al-Assad. Hafez al-Assad is the master
00:22:01of coups. He participated in the March 8th coup
00:22:03and participated in all the coups from March 8th.
00:22:07Several coups occurred until 1970, and he was involved
00:22:11in all of them. Therefore, he knew where
00:22:14the weaknesses were. He took over the Ministry
00:22:16of Defense in 1966.
00:22:20And he started preparing himself for this matter by
00:22:23bringing closer everyone
00:22:27who was absolutely loyal to him.
00:22:29He started bringing them closer to him, relying on them,
00:22:33and entrusting them, regardless of competence, regardless of qualifications,
00:22:37regardless of all other matters. The important thing was that they were primarily
00:22:41loyal to him. And this is what he benefited
00:22:44from when he turned against his colleagues in
00:22:471970.
00:22:53Hafez al-Assad's seizure of power
00:22:57military coups that lasted two decades.
00:23:00After that, he imposed his control over all state institutions
00:23:04and restructured them to ensure his continued rule.
00:23:07From '66 to
00:23:11'70,
00:23:12the accumulation
00:23:15of repressive institutions continued and grew.
00:23:25It doubled
00:23:28and expanded. By 1970, the state that was looking for a totalitarian
00:23:32dictator was ready.
00:23:34Hafez al-Assad was ready.
00:23:38So Hafez al-Assad took over the previously established state,
00:23:41built upon it, and developed the octopus-like
00:23:45intelligence agencies they built from
00:23:48'63 to '70.
00:24:11on the Alawite sect and formed all
00:24:14the forces, most of
00:24:18the Alawite sect. For example,
00:24:20military divisions were led by Alawites, with some formations
00:24:24allowing, for instance, the Druze sect to have one division commander.
00:24:28The Sunni sect might have one or two divisions, but they were controlled
00:24:31by security officers and by
00:24:35commander could not move anything. Also,
00:24:38the military leadership of the army, for example, the Minister of Defense, the Chief
00:24:42of Staff, were from the Sunni sect, serving as a Sunni facade
00:24:46in order to do what they wanted through a person.
00:24:50Someone named Hafez al-Assad decided that he
00:24:52would be the ruler
00:24:55of this country for a long time at least, and then
00:24:59he would discover that he had the ability to bequeath power to his sons,
00:25:03meaning to transform the republic into a
00:25:06kingdom. Now, this cannot happen unless he does
00:25:09two things: he has a military power
00:25:12base that is 100% loyal, and that's where
00:25:16he got involved with sectarianism. And he needs a very
00:25:20strong military force that can control society. That's why he,
00:25:24I mean, he took over the army with 60,000
00:25:28by 1980, the number of the army was half a million.
00:25:31So, I mean, this half a million,
00:25:35is this army ruling? No, here the army is no longer
00:25:39ruling. Here, we can say that
00:25:42we have moved from a military rule to Hafez al-Assad's rule. Hafez
00:25:46al-Assad's rule is a family rule, and the army is subordinate to him,
00:25:50not the army. I mean, he is the one who rules. He uses the army
00:25:54as a means for
00:25:56his rule. The Syrian armed forces
00:26:00witnessed significant changes during Hafez al-Assad's era,
00:26:03aimed at subjugating the military establishment
00:26:08for power by creating new military
00:26:11formations within the army that received extensive
00:26:15armament, training, and privileges.
00:26:32The truth does not always lie in what
00:26:34we see, but in what
00:26:38was absent or made absent from
00:26:42the scene. Among the ruins of documents and the shadows
00:26:45of maps, we trace the smallest
00:26:49clue. We listen, we explore,
00:26:52we investigate, we search, and we discuss,
00:26:56striving to highlight what was missing from the details
00:26:59of the picture. The Explorer on Syria TV.
00:27:15country,
00:27:20there is a story worth
00:27:22telling, and perhaps you will be the one to see
00:27:26it first. We at Syria
00:27:30TV are launching.
00:27:42In people's camera, your lens makes the news.
00:28:05Since the early 1970s, after
00:28:08taking power, Hafez al-Assad left the regular
00:28:12armed forces
00:28:14to their own devices and began organizing new
00:28:18forces to protect
00:28:20his position. First, the Defense Companies were formed
00:28:24by his brother Rifaat al-Assad. The Defense Companies were
00:28:28formed in
00:28:291971.
00:28:32They started with 20,000 sectarian
00:28:35Alawite elements from the Mutaura
00:28:39tribe,
00:28:42which belongs to the Assad family. Some of them are from the Assad family,
00:28:45some from the Mutaura tribe. Then, a new number of these
00:28:49Defense Companies were formed until the Defense
00:28:52Companies reached 55,000 fighters after many from
00:28:56the Murshidiyya sect joined them. They received
00:29:00a large share of weapons and equipment,
00:29:04becoming an army within an army. Hafez
00:29:07al-Assad started through his brother in the matter of the Defense
00:29:11Companies, which he considered the reserve
00:29:14force, the reserve force to protect the regime.
00:29:18This developed after the dispute that occurred regarding
00:29:21Rifaat al-Assad's attempt to seize
00:29:25power. It developed in that
00:29:28they started with the idea of the Republican Guard and the establishment
00:29:31of the Fourth Division. And
00:29:35then, during Bashar's era, it developed to become
00:29:38the main force, meaning it is the main striking force
00:29:41within both armies.
00:29:45Hafez Hafez
00:29:48the military establishment as a military
00:29:51institution was almost completely marginalized
00:29:55under Assad and even more so under Bashar,
00:29:57in favor of, let's say, militias loyal
00:30:01to the family. What are these militias? They are an army,
00:30:04called an army, but in practice, they are not subordinate to the military establishment.
00:30:08They are independent under the authority of
00:30:11the family. First, the Defense Brigades, the Struggle Brigades, these are
00:30:15all marginalizing the army. On the contrary, these are all excluding the army
00:30:19and weakening it. Then the Republican Guard,
00:30:22the Fourth Division, all of them. They built
00:30:25armies whose goal was to maintain power. These
00:30:31power and protect the president.
00:30:37One of the most important changes included in the military restructuring
00:30:40in Syria was the tilting of the balance
00:30:43military affairs, as Hafez al-Assad established multiple
00:30:46security agencies and branches, most of which
00:30:50had higher authority than the armed forces.
00:30:53He strengthened his presence through intelligence
00:30:57agencies that he gave.