Syria's silenced voices

By Patrik Paulov

"A merciless revelation of the lies from media and politicians and the concealed facts... anyone who think they've heard the truth from the media and the politicians should read it!"
Arbejderen, Danish daily

"A comprehensive, independent analysis done because the book has so much focus on Syria's own people - ordinary people that always disappear in the media watching for the benefit of the leaders - and at the same time, Paulov dismantles the official media picture, revealing the game of the world powers... He contributes to public education, diversity, and debate."
Jan Oberg, Swedish Peace researcher and director of Transnational Foundation

Syria's Silenced Voices by Patrik Paulov depicts a decade of war in Syria through the eyes of Syrians who do not agree with the media image in the West. It is, simultaneously, a critical review of the Western countries and their allies' involvement and interests in the war.
Syria's Silenced Voices also examines the unknown role played by Sweden, a country which has declared itself a "humanitarian superpower". Sweden has in fact been backing a Syrian opposition movement allied with terrorist organizations.
Patrik Paulov concludes that what has happened in Syria and why is important to discuss since it is not just about Syria and the Syrian people. It is about examining the role of the Western governments in causing death and destruction in the other parts of the world, under the disguise of promoting democracy and human rights.
Syria's Silenced Voices (Syriens tystade röster in Swedish) was first published by Karneval publishing house in Stockholm in 2019. The English edition is updated and with a newly written chapter added in May 2021.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: May 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9789179690847

Patrik Paulov

Patrik Paulov is a freelance writer based in Göteborg, Sweden, specializing in international affairs, mainly the Middle East. He has published several articles about the war in Syria in Sweden's largest newspapers, as well as in alternative media in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. In 2015, he made a well-publicized revelation about Swedish foreign aid to opposition groups in Syria, that were cooperating with al-Qaeda terrorists. Until 2018, Patrik Paulov worked as international editor of the weekly newspaper Proletären.

Book preview

Syria's silenced voices

About the author

Reviews of Syria's Silenced Voices

Preface

Introduction: At last someone wants to talk to us

1. The arab spring comes to Syria

2. The protests quickly became violent

3. Truth is the first casualty of war

4. When the EU sparked dissatisfaction

5. With al-Qaeda against 
shia extremism

6. The Syrian war in miniature

7. We are the real opposition

8. Peace plan pushed into sinking

9. Weapons flow into Syria

10. Women's freedom becomes restricted

11. Chemical attack in whose interest?

12. When The United States released the leaders of ISIS

13. Natural resources, power struggle and Israel

14. Russia steps in – the war is turning

15. A Swedish aid scandal

16. A Swede keeps silent

17. The Swedish jihadists

18. A Nobel Peace Price Laureate travels to Syria

19. Occupied Aleppo

20. Swedish foreign minister receives a letter from Syria

21. Who supplies the news?

22. Torture report against peace?

23. A radical law proposal

24. The incalculable Trump

25. No friends but the mountains and the US

26. Who is supplying the evidence?

27. Calls for peaceful change

28. Liberation sweeps across Syria

29. European aid scandals

30. Swedish Foreign Ministry avoids answering

31. Thieves, torturers, and oppressors

32. Syrian voices 2019

33. Syria and the world 2021

References

Copyright

About the author

Patrik Paulov is a freelance writer based in Göteborg, Sweden, specializing in international affairs, mainly the Middle East. 

He has published several articles about the war in Syria in Sweden’s largest newspapers,  as well as in alternative and independent media. In 2015, he made a well-publicized revelation about Swedish foreign aid to opposition groups in Syria, that were cooperating with a-Qaeda terrorists. Stop Sweden's aid to the allies of al-Qaeda in Syria

Until 2018, Patrik Paulov worked as international editor of the weekly newspaper Proletären.

Reviews of Syria's Silenced Voices

A merciless revelation of the lies from media and politicians and the concealed facts… anyone who think they've heard the truth from the media and the politicians should read it!

Arbejderen, Danish daily paper

A comprehensive, independent analysis, because the book has so much focus on Syria's own people and at the same time, Paulov dismantles the official media image, revealing the game of the world powers…  Actually, Paulov does what a journalist should do: he asks questions, digs where he stands, and seeks documentation instead of cutting and editing mainly US news agencies. He contributes to public education, diversity, and debate. One can only be surprised that so many have not done what he does here… Buy the book! Read it! And tell others! Then you might also help others in the media industry to do like Paulov.

Jan Øberg, Swedish Peace researcher and director of The Transnational Foundation (TFF).

Syria’s silenced voices… is easy to read and follow the war until early 2019. The most important thing is that he [Paulov] puts Swedish media reporting about the war against voices from Syrians inside of Syria. He has met and interviewed them and maintained contact with them.

Folket i bild/Kulturfront, Swedish monthly Magazine

A sharp reckoning of the actions of the Western world in Syria, as well as with the media coverage.

Jämtlands Tidning, Swedish weekly paper

Patrik Paulov's important book deserves a large readership. What is deeply tragic is that those who have most to learn from reading it are Swedish journalists and politicians.

lindelof.nu, Swedish blog

Preface

Syria’s Silenced Voices depicts a decade of war in Syria through the eyes of Syrians who do not agree with the media image of Syria generally presented in the West. The book is, simultaneously, a critical review of the involvement of Western countries and their allies’ in the war and their interests in it.

Syria's Silenced Voices (Syriens tystade röster in Swedish) was first published by Karneval förlag in Stockholm in 2019. Unfortunately, the situation in Syria has not changed significantly since then. The fears expressed by people interviewed in 2019 have instead become a reality. 

With few exceptions, the military war on the ground has been increasingly replaced by an economic war, in which the United States and the European Union are brutally stifling Syria’s bruised economy. Even though the war has changed, it is still the civilian population that is being sacrificed.

Something that has not changed is the silence in the mainstream media concerning the role of the Western world and its allies in adding fuel to the ten-year-long war. Sweden’s involvement in the regime change war, for instance, still seems to be a no-go zone for the media. 

However, there is at least one exception. In the Netherlands, some in the mainstream media have extensively examined the Dutch government’s involvement in the Syrian war and highlighted the fact that aid from the Netherlands and other countries to alleged moderate opposition actually benefited armed extremists and terrorists. 

This is a huge scandal, one that should be acknowledged and widely discussed in all Western countries involved in the destabilization of Syria.

The reason why Syria's Silenced Voices is being published in an English edition – updated and with a newly written chapter added in May 2021 – is due to the fact that the content of the book, as well as the discussion of what really happened in Syria and why, remains relevant to the current circumstances. 

Also, it remains important since this is not just about Syria and the Syrian people. It is about examining the role of our governments, in causing death and destruction in the other parts of the world under the disguise of promoting democracy and human rights. 

It is about learning from what has happened so that we do not have to face similar catastrophes in the future.

Patrik Paulov, 

May 8, 2021

Göteborg, Sweden

Introduction: At last someone wants to talk to us

May 2016. I’m calling the number. 0096321… Waiting for a while. It is quiet, yet noisy on the phone. Nothing is happening. I try again. After all, we have an appointment for an interview. This time things are working better. The silence turns into a familiar but faint noise on the phone.

There is a crackle and someone answers.

Hello…

I introduce myself and ask to speak to Doctor Tony Sayegh. He comes to the phone and we exchange some courtesy phrases. I express my appreciation that he is taking the time to talk to a journalist from a small country in northern Europe. Then he interrupts me.

I am the one to say thank you to you. Finally someone wants to talk to us. We know that Western media always report about the other side. But we who live in the government-controlled part of Aleppo can never tell our view of what is happening. We have lived under the terrorists' fire for almost four years…

Tony Sayegh is a surgeon and works in Aleppo, Syria's largest city. When I call him, it has been less than a week since I established contact with the Syrian Medical Association's local department with a request to interview one of their English-speaking doctors.

Events in Aleppo have, throughout the year, been among the headlines in the Swedish and Western media reporting of foreign affairs, over and over again.

• Syria exterminates its population (February 8)

• Hospital bombed in Syria – several dead (February 15)

• A quarter of a million children under siege in Syria (March 15)

• Many killed in hospital attack (April 28)

The list could be made much longer.

The strange thing is that I am the first journalist from the West to contact the Medical Association in Aleppo for an interview. No one has ever asked to speak to Tony Sayegh or any other doctor living and working in the part of the city where the overwhelming majority of residents live. No one has bothered to listen to their testimonies concerning how they get through the ravages of war.

In 2016, the media in Sweden and the rest of the Western world pay attention mainly to the eastern part of Aleppo. That is the part of the city which, according to Western politicians and the media in 2016, is liberated territory in the hands of the opposition.

I talk to Tony Sayegh for over an hour. The call is sometimes disconnected and I have to call again. Still, it feels strangely simple and trouble-free to contact and talk to someone in a country that has been ravaged by war and destruction for more than half a decade.

He is quiet and calm, formulating his words well. Throughout the conversation, however, there is a tone of despair in his voice. Feeling despair about the fact that parts of his hometown have been ruined. That the residents on the eastern side are forced to live under imposed Sharia law and are ruled by groups that, according to him, are criminals and terrorists rather than moderate rebels.

Despair about being isolated and silenced. About belonging to the people of western Aleppo – an enclave controlled by the Syrian government and surrounded. Despair about belonging to a group of people that the Western world treats almost as non-humans.

I understand his despair. I remember my own visit to the bustling million city of Aleppo. The narrow alleys in the old city's large market area. The modern, vibrant metropolis. The hospitality. The narrow, crooked streets of the Palestinian refugee camp. At that time, neither I nor my friends in the city had any idea that war would soon strike Syria and cause death and destruction on an almost unimaginable scale.

I also understand Tony Sayegh’s despair about not being able to make his voice heard. Because there are always others who speak in the name of Aleppo, or in the name of the Syrian people. Despair about the fact that the vast majority of people in Sweden and the rest of the Western world will never hear his version of what is happening and who is responsible for the disaster that has hit Syria.

Tony Sayegh is not a unique voice. During the years of war, I have regularly interviewed and listened to what residents in Syria and Syrians in exile say. There have been many meetings, conversations, and written interviews.

They have been with people from different cities and with different backgrounds. Several are from the opposition and opponents of the regime. Others are dedicated supporters of president Bashar al-Assad, who, at the same time, advocate democratic reforms, or who are critical of the security services’ excesses and other well-documented abuses.

What unites these voices is that they feel silenced, just as Tony Sayegh does. They do not agree with the picture of Syria or of the war as it is depicted in the media in Sweden and the rest of the Western world. Yes, they have sometimes reacted with dismay when I informed them about how events in their everyday life and reality were presented in Sweden.

For instance how the term civil war was used over and over again over the years. They firmly claim that it has never been a civil war. Already when the first clashes took place in March 2011, foreign powers from the Middle East and outside the Middle East were involved in what was happening on the ground.

To see the conflict through the eyes of Syrians whose picture of reality has rarely or never appeared in the major Swedish or Western media is one of the purposes of this book.

It does not mean that their experiences and opinions are the whole truth. As we all know, there are many Syrians in the country and abroad who have a diametrically opposite view of many if not most things. We have heard testimonies from those Syrians and have heard their descriptions of reality over and over again since the war began.

But even the most convinced opponents of Syria's current rulers, those who testified about torture and abuse and who demanded that Bashar al-Assad be brought to justice, should also – in the name of democracy, freedom of speech, and the future peace – be in favour of breaking unilateralism and giving the diversity of voices and perceptions that actually exist in Syria a chance to be heard.

This is because Tony, Aliaa, Rima, Bashar, May, Elissar, and others that you will meet in the following pages are people living in Syria who dream of being able to live in peace soon and of seeing everything that has been razed rebuilt.

To depict the foreign intervention in the war is another central part of the content in the following pages. The dirty game behind the conflict is so massive and has had such horrific effects that it most certainly should be studied and discussed for a long time.

The situation is a daunting example of how things can end up when wealthy, powerful countries in the West, along with what many describe as medieval-like kingdoms in the Middle East, decide to overthrow another country's government – by providing weapons and making sure that money flows to forces following in the footsteps of the al-Qaeda founder, Osama bin Laden.

In Sweden, the most silenced part of this intervention have been some of the actions of Sweden itself. Besides the assistance Sweden provides for vital UN humanitarian operations and the support it extends to a large number of refugees from Syria, there are other less known and less flattering efforts made from the Swedish side. As have representatives from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf state kingdoms, Swedish government representatives have attended conferences that planned to create democracy in Syria, and Swedish aid has been given to forces that carried out ethnic cleansing alongside Jabhat al-Nusra, an organisation designated as terrorist by the UN. 

The foreign intervention is a topic that comes up in my conversation with the Aleppo doctor Tony Sayegh in May 2016.

I ask him: What should the outside world do to help Syria and the Syrian people to overcome the ravages of war?

I'll give you a short answer. Leave us alone. Don’t worry about us, forget that we exist…

It becomes quiet, and I almost think the phone call is disconnected again. I ask if he is there. I get a gentle reply and ask him to explain what he means that we should forget about the Syrians.

Well, what we need is that the US, Europe, Turkey, and the Gulf states leave us in peace and stop supporting the terrorists. It should be decided in the UN Security Council that other states stay away from Syria and that all those who supported the terrorists should be punished. When you leave us in peace, when you forget about us, then I am convinced – like most Syrians are – that the Syrian army can achieve peace.

I cannot forget Syria. I cannot forget the testimony of Tony Sayegh and other Syrians about the tragedy that has been going on for over ten years.

But I am not Syrian, hence it is not my job to point out which way forward is right or wrong for Syria; it is not up to me to point out who is most suitable to lead the country on the road to peace and reconciliation, towards reconstruction and better living conditions, and to democracy and increased respect for human rights.

The right to decide the future of Syria belongs only to the Syrian people. Several UN Security Council resolutions have repeatedly stated this.

The disaster in Syria is largely due to the fact that this right has not been respected, that the leaders of other states acted over the heads of the Syrian people and that they acted against the interests of Syrians.

Providing thousands of tons of weapons to extremist groups that bombed schools and bus terminals, destroyed infrastructure and industries, and silenced opponents – this has not contributed to democracy, nor has it strengthened respect for human rights or created better living conditions.

The war and its horrors cannot be undone; however, there are opportunities to reduce the suffering in Syria. There are opportunities even for an individual small country like Sweden to make a positive effort quickly and by simple means.

When this was written, emergency calls were being heard from Syria about the acute shortage of fuel, medicines, and other vital necessities. This is in addition to the destruction and emergency situation caused by eight years of war. 

The Swedish foreign minister could listen to the demands of the Syrian people to lift the EU's economic sanctions. The foreign minister could veto an extension of the sanctions.

Such action would rapidly contribute to improving the humanitarian situation in Syria and facilitate reconstruction. It would enhance the possibilities for Syrians to get underway with the reform process, hence, for creating a better future.

1. The arab spring comes to Syria

All of us have seen photos and film clips from Syria’s demolished cities. Homs, Aleppo, Damascus, Palmyra, Kobane, and Raqqa are some of the names that are engraved in our minds. During the years of war, parts of Syria have been transformed into places that resemble ruined Iraqi cities after the US-led invasion in 2003 or Gaza after one of Israel’s recurring bombing campaigns. 

Before the war began, a large part of the Syrian population was living a life that resembled ours. An example of Syria´s former level of development and well-functioning healthcare was given by Marit Halmin, from Doctors Without Borders, in an article from Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå (TT) on January 7, 2018. 

A country that almost was equal to Sweden in development and prosperity has been bombarded 100 years back in time. We received patients who, before the war, had been as accurately and regularly monitored as in Sweden, and who now died of myocardial infarction due to lack of treatment.

How could things have ended up this way? And what was it that actually happened during the dramatic spring of 2011 when it all began? 

The first months of that year were both bewildering and hopeful. The eyes of the world were directed at Arab countries and the mass protests that had flared up so suddenly. Streets and town squares were filled with people. 

That there was a pent-up frustration with corruption, misuse of power, oppression and poverty is a fact. The spark that ignited the wildfire was Mohammed Bouazizi’s dramatic protest in Tunis in December 2010. He was a 26-year-old vegetable seller that became tired of harassment by the police and their recurrent demand for bribes. On December 17, he stood outside the town hall in his home city of Sidi Bouzid, poured petrol on himself and then set himself on fire.

After the young Tunisian’s death, it was as if the dams burst: people all over Tunisia hit the streets to demand changes and the departure of president Zayn al-Abidin Ben Ali. Pressure became so great that parts of the internal power apparatus turned against the president. On January 14, 2011, Ben Ali fled the from Tunisia to Saudi Arabia; his twenty years plus in power was over.

Even before Ben Ali fled his post, the people in Egypt were inspired by their Tunisian sisters and brothers. Town squares were occupied. Factories stood still as the workers went on strike. The result was the very same. After days of contradictory information came the dramatic announcement on February 11: after nearly 30 years in the post as president Hosni Mubarak had been forced to depart. 

What had happened in Tunisia and Egypt was a sensation. Two leaders that had been practically cemented to power for decades were removed in a short time.

There was more to the upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt than the above-mentioned facts. The picture of what happened in the Arab world during the first months of 2011 is often simplified and romanticized. The people’s dissatisfaction and the mass movement in which it was expressed are one side of the story. Another side of the story is that there were powerful actors involved, whose agendas did not at all originate in the demands of the people for democracy and social justice. This became evident when the Spring spread across the Arab world. 

In Libya, the movement was not at all as massive as in the neighbouring countries, and the leading oppositional forces soon turned out to be various rebel groups that, with arms in hand, had decided to take power. Nevertheless, it was the military actions of other countries that forced Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s leader since 1969, away from the capital city Tripoli and hence caused the loosely organized government to collapse.

On March 20, 2011, the operation led by the NATO military alliance commenced. Officially, it was described as the setting up of a no-fly zone with the purpose of preventing the Libyan military forces from massacring the citizens that were fighting for democracy. Later it became obvious that it was a massive bombing campaign that resulted in widespread casualties as well as great destruction to Libya's infrastructure. It was a bombing campaign in which NATO member states and non-aligned Sweden participated side-by-side with dictatorial kingdoms such as Qatar and the UAE. We were soon, also, to see a similar cooperation take place in regard to Syria. 

That several member states in the Gulf Cooperation Council played a prominent role during the Arab Spring was something that citizens of another Gulf country were soon to become aware of. In the small island nation of Bahrain, hundreds of thousands of people had hit the streets during February and March 2011, protesting against King Hammad al-Khalifa’s rule. This meant that the demonstrations in Bahrain, a country with 1.4 million citizens, gathered a considerably larger proportion of the people than the demonstrations did in Tunisia and Egypt. 

When the king’s security forces shot and imprisoned demonstrators who demanded democratic reforms and a better life, parts of the outside world did not react at all the way they had done previously that spring. 

On March 11, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived in Bahrain to meet with King al-Khalifa. It was an official visit that was reported in the media. According to the opposition in Bahrain, Gates gave the all-clear to what was soon to happen. Two days later thousands of soldiers from Saudi Arabia and the UAE disembarked in the territory of the small island state. A blatant occupation, declared the Bahraini opposition in a statement cited by the British Independent on March 15. 

With tanks and heavy arms, the two Gulf countries managed to assist King al-Khalifa in quelling the Bahraini people’s mass protests and keeping him on his throne. In this case, it was evident that a regime change similar to that in Egypt and Tunisia, and the one that was soon to happen in Libya, was not at all appreciated by the West and Bahrain’s neighbours.

In March 2011, the Arab Spring came to Syria. A recurring description of how the Syrian protests for democracy developed into war sounds today like this: 

In March 2011, demonstrations for democracy began in Daraa. The government’s utilization of deadly violence as response triggered nationwide demonstrations that demanded president Bashar al-Assad´s departure. As disorder was spreading, crackdown on dissidents intensified. Supporters of the opposition took to arms, initially to defend themselves, and later on to expel government forces from local areas. Violence escalated and turned into a civil war when rebel groups were formed to fight against the government forces for control of the country.

The quote is from the Swedish daily Aftonbladet (December 28, 2018), and refers to the British Guardian and The National Encyclopedia as sources. 

A similar picture had been conveyed by the Swedish media during the spring and summer of 2011. Military shot demonstrators in Syria – several dead, was the headline of an article on April 29 by news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå (TT). It described how security forces had killed 48 people during Friday’s protests alone, according to a Syrian human rights organisation. This human rights organisation, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), was soon to become one of the most cited sources in the media coverage of Syria. At that time, nobody was informed that the SOHR consisted of one person in London with connections to a banned oppositional group in Syria: the Muslim Brotherhood. 

In the TT-article, a witness in besieged Daraa, a city in southern Syria, is cited. There are corpses on the streets of the city that are lying there and rotting since no one dares to go out to take care of them, says a citizen to TV-channel Al Jazeera. During the Arab Spring, Al Jazeera had increasingly supported the political interests of its financier and owner, namely the Gulf country Qatar’s royal family.

A few single reports that broke this pattern had surfaced during this period and gave a counter image. The Israeli National News reported on March 21 that four demonstrators and seven policemen were killed in Daraa during the weekend. Also, demonstrators had burned down the courthouse in the city as well as the ruling Ba’ath Party’s headquarters. This suggests that the Syrian authorities were confronting not just peaceful demonstrators in Daraa. 

Two months later, the British Times reporter Martin Fletcher travelled around Syria. He sharply criticized the Syrian government and its actions against popular protests. However, in an article published on May 12, he wrote that he was surprised by the large support Bashar al-Assad had and by the size of the demonstrations critical of the government in Syria; they could not be compared to the uprising that overthrew Egypt’s Mubarak. 

Such news was not covered by the media in Sweden.

Soon reports followed that Syrian officers and soldiers had deserted in protest against the massacres. In July 2011, it was reported that these had formed the Free Syrian Army, a name that, henceforth, was commonly appearing in the media coverage. Syria’s government was presented as a regime dependent on an isolated and increasingly desperate small sect. The only factor that allegedly enabled Bashar al-Assad to remain in his position of power was the sheer violence used against his own people.

On July 12, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that Assad had lost his legitimacy as Syria’s President, and she promised to support a transition to democracy. The following day, the very same standpoint was expressed by President Barack Obama: it was a clear signal to the outside world. Soon many leading politicians would be doing the same, and the call Assad must go echoed around the world. 

During the autumn, after Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi ultimately was captured and killed, demands increased that the outside world should take military action against Syria, as they had against Libya. On December 13, 2011, Aftonbladet’s editorial stated that it was time to remove Syria’s dictator. It concluded that the bombing of Libya was an example to follow. 

"According to the UN, over 4000 people have now been killed since the opposition began its work for democracy in Syria. More than 14,000 have been arrested. The regime has struck ruthlessly, but the uprising has continued. 

"Before the military intervention in Libya, the Security Council referred to its responsibility to protect the civilian population. Reasonably, the same thing should be applied today to Syria. 

The outside world cannot silently watch a dictator committing mass murder on his own people any longer. According to the UN, this is a ’crime against humanity’.

The editorial pointed out that firstly diplomatic and civil means should be used. The editor then continued: 

"But a military intervention from the UN Security Council should not be ruled out any longer. France has raised the question of internationally monitored buffer zones along Syria’s borders, where civilians would be offered protection. It is an interesting idea. 

Until now Russia and China have been highly critical of an intervention in Syria. But as criticism in the region is increasing, it should also be possible to put pressure on them to change their policy, just as they did in Libya.

This is how it would sound during the first years of the Syrian war. This is also roughly the version that was generally accepted in the Western media and publicly accepted by Swedish politicians. 

However, there are those who firmly dismiss this description of reality, namely Syrians that were themselves present during the dramatic year of 2011.

2. The protests quickly became violent

Syria’s contemporary history is closely connected to the development in the rest of the Arabian Peninsula. During the First World War the Ottoman Empire moved towards its collapse. In the midst of a full-scale war, France and the UK were holding secret negotiations concerning sharing the areas of the collapsing empire between themselves. According to the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, areas that were later to become Syria and Lebanon came under French mandate. The Brits claimed Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait. 

The borders which the European colonial powers drew in the Middle East during the 1920 San Remo conference were as arbitrary and artificial as the borders that had been drawn on the map of Africa a couple of decades earlier. 

According to the Statute of the League of Nations, administering the mandates in the Arabian Peninsula would take the affected areas to independence. This did not at all align with the plans that France had. 

The Swedish diplomat Ingmar Karlsson writes in The Root of Evil (Historisk media, 2016):

For Paris, the purpose of this task was to serve the strategic, economic, and ideological interests of France… These aims would be accomplished by addressing Arab nationalism in the mandate of Syria with a classic divide and rule strategy. Dividing and separating became, therefore, the linchpin of French politics. 

The ruling power sought to create and add fuel to antagonisms between the many ethnic and religious groups there were in the area – a method that was to be re-used in Syria less than a century later. 

Syria’s period as a French mandate was full of uprisings, strikes, and protests against the colonial rule. France’s reaction was often violent. During the uprising of 1925-27, Damascus was exposed to what was until then history’s largest daily bombardment, from the air, against a civilian population, according to Ingmar Karlsson. The same method was used in May 1945 as a desperate – and unsuccessful – final attempt by France to break the nationalist movement. 

Syria became formally independent in 1946. During the following chaotic years the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party emerged as the strongest and most organized power. Through a military coup, the Baath Party took power in 1963. It took another seven years of internal fighting and cleansing until the situation was stabilized with Hafez al-Assad – father of the current President Bashar al-Assad, at the helm. 

Taking firm measures against both Islamist and Marxist oppositions, Hafez al-Assad