An investigation has uncovered a growing and dangerous power struggle playing out far from Syria’s battlefields one driven not by the country’s new government but by remnants of the old Assad regime now operating in exile.
Former loyalists who once stood at the heart of Bashar al-Assad’s rule are secretly funnelling millions of dollars into efforts to build private militias hoping to ignite uprisings regain territory and reclaim some of the power they lost when Assad fled to Russia last December. While Assad himself is said to have accepted a life in exile sources close to the family say other powerful figures including his brother Maher have not.
Two of Assad’s closest former allies Maj. Gen. Kamal Hassan and billionaire businessman Rami Makhlouf are now locked in a tense competition. Each is racing to recruit new fighters from the Alawite community in coastal Syria and parts of Lebanon the same sect that formed the backbone of Assad’s support for decades. Together these rival factions are funding more than 50,000 fighters as they scramble to build loyalty and muscle on the ground.
One major target in this struggle is control of a network of 14 secret underground command centers built during the final years of Assad’s rule. Senior Syrian officials confirmed their existence along with large hidden weapons caches nearby. Hassan once the regime’s feared military intelligence chief has been calling and messaging former commanders venting about his lost influence and laying out sweeping visions of how he would rule coastal Syria.
Makhlouf meanwhile once one of Syria’s richest men is casting himself as a prophetic figure destined to return to power after a climactic final battle. Both men are operating from exile with deputies spread across Russia Lebanon and the UAE.
To counter them Syria’s new government has turned to another former regime insider: Khaled al-Ahmad a childhood friend of new President Ahmed al-Sharaa who later became a militia leader. His mission now is to convince Alawite communities that their future lies with the new government not with exiled power brokers trying to drag Syria back into chaos.
Experts say the infighting is an extension of the Assad regime’s long running internal battles only now the struggle is over who will control the Alawite heartland in a fractured post Assad Syria.
Reuters pieced together the plot through interviews with 48 people with direct knowledge of the plans as well as documents financial records and leaked voice messages offering the clearest look yet at the shadow war underway among Assad’s former inner circle.
