Osman al-Osman shows Anita McNaught secret files salvaged from intelligence headquarters [Al Jazeera]
In the ransacked and burnt-out remains of various security headquarters in al-Bab lie many clues to the means used by Bashar al-Assad's government to stay in power, revealing why life under the regime had become increasingly intolerable for its citizens.
In the widely-hated building of military security, the formerly locked cupboards containing files on the town's "suspect” citizens and how to "manage" them are now all emptied of their contents. The caretaker there, a man who used to work in the Post Office and telephone exchange that is located on the ground floor - probably to faciliate alleged routine phone tapings - told us that some Free Syrian Army fighters had taken the files and burnt them.
But in the office of Political Security, the situation is different. There, the cupboards are still stuffed with manila files and brown envelopes containing years of records documenting government-condoned snooping.
Mostly handwritten, the files are the fruits of an East German style surveillance state. In Syria, it is believed that one third of the adult male population was in one way or another working for the government as "intelligence” agents. Informants were vetted for their loyalty to the regime, either because they were card-carrying members of the Ba'ath Party, or they proved themselves "helpful" by carrying out acts for the security services.
Many of the documents have the same format: So-and-so "is a good man because he told us" such-and-such. So-and-so "can be relied upon to provide us with information".
In the ransacked and burnt-out remains of various security headquarters in al-Bab lie many clues to the means used by Bashar al-Assad's government to stay in power, revealing why life under the regime had become increasingly intolerable for its citizens.
In the widely-hated building of military security, the formerly locked cupboards containing files on the town's "suspect” citizens and how to "manage" them are now all emptied of their contents. The caretaker there, a man who used to work in the Post Office and telephone exchange that is located on the ground floor - probably to faciliate alleged routine phone tapings - told us that some Free Syrian Army fighters had taken the files and burnt them.
But in the office of Political Security, the situation is different. There, the cupboards are still stuffed with manila files and brown envelopes containing years of records documenting government-condoned snooping.
Mostly handwritten, the files are the fruits of an East German style surveillance state. In Syria, it is believed that one third of the adult male population was in one way or another working for the government as "intelligence” agents. Informants were vetted for their loyalty to the regime, either because they were card-carrying members of the Ba'ath Party, or they proved themselves "helpful" by carrying out acts for the security services.
Many of the documents have the same format: So-and-so "is a good man because he told us" such-and-such. So-and-so "can be relied upon to provide us with information".
Syria files reveal regime espionage - Features - Al Jazeera English
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