"Doing honor to the people"

Intelligence services to be dissolved in Syria

Tens of thousands of people were detained and tortured behind the walls of the horror prison Saidnaya in Syria.(Bild: APA/Associated Press)

Syria's new intelligence chief Anas Khattab has announced the dissolution of all intelligence organizations and a fundamental reorganization. The secret services, which were feared as an instrument of oppression under the ousted long-term ruler Bashar al-Assad, would be completely dissolved, Khattab declared.

As reported by the state news agency SANA, the security services were to be restructured "so that they bring honor to our people," Khattab promised.

Security apparatus had caused "severe suffering"
In a statement published by SANA, Khattab lamented "the oppression and tyranny of the old regime" under Assad. This regime had caused severe suffering to the population with the help of the security apparatus. "The security services of the old regime were numerous and diverse, but what they all had in common was that they were imposed on the people to oppress them for five decades," explained the new intelligence chief.

In the torture prison, the flag used until the fall of the Assad regime was painted on the wall.(Bild: APA/Associated Press)

Intelligence services an important power and repression factor under Assad
During the decades-long rule of Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez, countless people disappeared in prisons run by the secret services. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 100,000 people died in Syrian prisons during the Syrian civil war alone in the past almost 14 years, many of them under the influence of torture.

Fighters led by the Islamist HTS militia conquered Damascus on December 8 and ended Assad's decades-long rule in Syria. Assad, who is accused of kidnapping, torturing and murdering dissidents, fled to Russia.