To elude his enemies, he hid among them, at a friend’s chalet just south of Tartous, in regime heartland, where there were fewer checkpoints. It was winter, off-season, the beach resort practically empty. He was communicating with Rastan’s new tansiqiya and the few surviving members of the old one. His cousin, the lawyer Samer Tlass, was still there. He wasn’t in the farmhouse that morning, either. Samer had a new task now—to send information and footage to Suleiman to edit and upload. Suleiman used his own money and also gathered donations to buy cameras, satellite equipment, and food and to pay men who could get into Rastan to smuggle it inside. He waited for the videos of blood and shelling and tanks and death to disseminate them to a world he wasn’t sure cared.
He then moved to Aleppo, which was also regime held, with fewer checkpoints and lower chances of raids. He got a job at a branch of QNB bank through an uncle who was a board member and shareholder. One of his cousins rented an apartment for Suleiman, keeping Suleiman’s name off the lease. In February, one of the videos Suleiman received from Rastan showed his family home being shelled. His parents were in Homs at the time, visiting one of his sisters. Suleiman had to tell his father the news. “My father said he was prepared to lose everything as long as his children were safe,” Suleiman said. His father repeated a common Arabic saying: “Kuloo be yit’awad [Everything can be compensated].” Suleiman’s parents moved in with him in Aleppo.
He started work on February 1, 2012, in the bank’s customer support office, keeping a low profile and not socializing with his coworkers. He thought he could resume the double life he once led in Rastan. He was wrong.
A CUSTOMER at the bank was asking for Suleiman by name. It was early, around 10 a.m. on May 23, 2012. Suleiman was at his desk, sipping coffee. He ushered the customer in and served him a strong Turkish brew. The man was in his early thirties, clean shaven in a suit and tie. He said his name was Mohammad al-Homsi, a Syrian expatriate living in Saudi Arabia, who wanted to open a US dollar account.
“Why did you ask for me by name?” Suleiman said. “How do you know me?”
A mutual acquaintance, the customer replied. The name was unfamiliar. Suleiman asked for the customer’s identification papers to open an account. They were in his car, the man said. He would come back tomorrow with the paperwork. The day ended like any other. Suleiman offered to drive two female colleagues home. They were still in the car when he slowed to stop at a cigarette stall by the side of the road. As he did so, a white Kia Rio swerved in front of him. Four armed men in civilian clothing, including his visitor that morning, rushed toward him.
Suleiman didn’t have time to lock his door. A hard rifle butt slammed into his face. Dragged out of the car. Arms twisted behind him. Handcuffs biting his wrists. Shaken into a rag doll. A blindfold. Darkness. Screaming, the women were screaming. “Get out!” somebody yelled. Silence. Shoved into a backseat, sandwiched between two men. Heart hurtling. That’s it, I’m done. Today is the last day of my life.
He surrendered to God, whispered the Shahada, the declaration of faith, under his breath, the last words a Muslim should recite before death: “There is no God but God. Mohammad is the messenger of God.” He thought of his parents. He should have been married by now and given them a grandchild. At least these regime agents didn’t know where he lived, since his rental contract was in a cousin’s name. But his papers were in the Samsonite briefcase in his car! How could he have left them there?
Focus. Think. Where were his two phones? One was in his suit jacket, the other near the handbrake of his car. His recent calls on Skype included his relative the Farouq commander Abdel-Razzak Tlass. What else? The videos! Maamoun, the mobile-phone repairman, had sent him about two dozen videos, which he had intended to upload when he got home. There were images of rebels making the victory sign near burning tanks. That’s it, I’m done.
Who were these men? Which mukhabarat branch? Why had they bothered with that charade in the morning? They didn’t need to. They could have dragged him from the branch in front of everybody. Why didn’t they? Did they think he was one of the pro-regime Tlasses, a close relative of the former defense minister? Perhaps they weren’t sure. Who had informed on him? It must have been that coworker he had pelted with his sandwich a month ago. The man had said he wished Bashar al-Assad would burn Homs and Hama and Idlib, and, without thinking, Suleiman tossed his sandwich in his face. The man had apologized; he said he forgot Suleiman was from an “affected” area. Suleiman said he had lost his home. He thought that was a reasonable explanation. It must have been that man. That incident. That damned sandwich, and now he was stuck between two mukhabarat agents. Who were they? It didn’t really matter, but he wanted to know.
“May I just know who has taken me?” he asked.
“Don’t be afraid. We are Air Force Intelligence, and we are still in complete control of the situation, don’t think otherwise.”
Air Force Intelligence. The most feared. The most ruthless.
“Don’t worry,” one of the agents said. “It won’t take more than half an hour, then we’ll let you go.”
THE WHEELS STOPPED. Suleiman was led out of the car, still blindfolded, directed by an agent. Turn right. Stairs. Five steps. Left. Stairs. Stop.
Blindfold removed, handcuffs unlocked. He was at the door of Air Force Intelligence in Aleppo, standing in front of a guard who looked no older than twenty. The guard was handed Suleiman’s car keys and his second phone, and then he led his prisoner down a long, brightly lit corridor into an empty room on the left. He handcuffed Suleiman to a radiator and gave him a pen and a four-page application form.
Name. Father’s name. Mother’s name. Birthday. Occupation. Primary School. Secondary (if applicable). Baath Party membership and level. Family members. Relatives serving in the security forces. And so it went. Suleiman was a member of the Baath Party—it was obligatory for career advancement. He listed relatives serving in the military and ignored the defectors. The phone burned in his pocket. He had to remove its SIM card. He glanced at the guard sitting behind a desk in the hallway opposite the open door. He asked to go to the bathroom. His request was denied. The guard turned his head, so Suleiman reached for his phone.
“Get your hand out of your pocket!”
Suleiman obliged but soon tried again.
“Take your hand out of your pocket! We are still treating you with respect!”
The guard was in the room. He unshackled Suleiman from the radiator. “Empty your pockets now. I’ll search you and I don’t want to find anything.”
Suleiman handed over his phone, ID card, a silver Omega watch, a silver necklace, and a wallet with 2,300 Syrian pounds (about $35 at the time). He was told to unlock his phone. He feigned opening it, said he’d forgotten the passcode. “Now or later, but you will give us the code,” the guard said. He itemized Suleiman’s belongings, placed them in a large brown envelope, and led him down another hallway, this one dark and silent and lined with doors on each side. Opaque light peered in through a dirty slit of a window at the intersection of wall and ceiling, as if it knew better than to enter.
The guard stopped outside a door marked COMMUNAL FOUR. The key turned. The sound of scampering. The smell of stale sweat and urine as Suleiman was shoved into the rows of men facing the wall. The door closed.
“Marhaba, shabab [Hello, guys],” Suleiman said.
“Shh!”
“Where are you from?” a voice whispered.
“Rastan.”
“Rastan? Then come and sit next to me!”
There was a hierarchy in the cell, determined by seniority based on time spent inside. Newcomers were crushed in the center, forced to sit cross-legged in the overcrowded space. Veterans were also cross-legged, but around the perimeter, where they could at least lean against a wall. They were all in their underwear. Suleiman soon understood why. The heat was suffocating in a room with no ventilation, no light, no toilet. Speaking was forbidden.
Suleiman picked his way among th
e bodies toward the voice that called him. It belonged to the shawish, a term that designated a cell leader, the person who served as an interlocutor with the guards, if they asked for one. “I thought you were an officer in your suit and tie!” the shawish joked. “Just don’t let them break you, and be careful who you speak to. There are spies in the cell.”
The key turned, the men scrambled to their feet and faced the wall.
“Suleiman Tlass!” the jailer said.
“Present.”
“Your number is one.”
The door slammed.
What did that mean? The inmates said it meant Suleiman was first for a beating that night. You’ll be okay, he told himself. You’re strong. You’re fit. You’ll be okay.
The door opened again—after minutes or hours, Suleiman couldn’t be sure. It was all the same in the darkness.
“Suleiman Tlass!”
“Present.”
“Prepare yourself. You’re going to be on Ad-Dunia television.”
Ad-Dunia was a regime mouthpiece that often aired so-called confessions of captured men and women it described as terrorists who “confirmed” the regime’s narrative that the revolution was a foreign conspiracy led by extremist Sunnis and hatched by Syria’s enemies to weaken it against Israel and America.
Suleiman felt panic rise in his bones. He was going to be paraded on television to betray the revolution. That was surely worse than any beating that lay ahead. What would he say? What would his parents think? At least they’d know why he hadn’t come home and maybe where he was. How could he praise a regime that had killed his friends, and then say that he was deluded and duped, like the other confessions he’d watched? Some of the inmates tried to console him: If they put him on television, one said, they might pardon him and let him go. He was, after all, a Tlass.
The violence of the heat and body odor made him nauseous. He stripped to his underwear and fixed his eyes on the door. He dozed off and then woke to the bustle of men hurrying to their feet before the door opened.
“Suleiman Tlass, come here!”
“Can I just get dressed?”
“No.”
He wore handcuffs and a blindfold and was told to address the interrogator as sidi—sir. He was led barefoot into a quiet room. He sensed the presence of people. Was he being filmed? Would he be forced to betray the revolution on television in his underwear?
“You have 20 seconds, you son of a bitch, to open the phone,” a voice said calmly. “Take him outside to unlock the phone.”
He was walked out, his eyes uncovered, and handed one of his phones, an Android HTC. He told the guard there’d been too many attempts to open it and that it had shut down. He was blindfolded and led back into the room.
“It seems you’re a real son of a bitch,” the interrogator said. “Take him down.”
Pushed to the floor, bent at the waist, his legs and upper body forced through the hollow of a car tire, his hands still handcuffed behind his back, his eyes covered. He was in the dulab, the dreaded tire, immobilized, unable to see the blows to brace for them. He couldn’t tell how many hands lashed him with thick flexible rods that he heard slicing the air. Hard blows on his back, his feet, his head. The air stolen from his lungs. He couldn’t speak but begged them to stop. He felt the heat of pain, the warmth of his blood.
“Abdel-Razzak Tlass, eh? You like the whores in the Turkish camps?”
So they had viewed the photos on his memory card, probably on a computer.
“Get up, you bastard!”
He was kicked out of the tire. “What’s the code? Open the phone!”
“Sidi,” Suleiman said, “the phone is locked. I need to enter my e-mail to unlock it. I need Internet.”
“Get him out of here! Let this dog open the phone and bring him back!”
He was led up a flight of stairs, blindfold and handcuffs removed. He hit the hard-reset command to delete Skype and Facebook. He couldn’t do anything about the photos. The guard didn’t seem to realize what Suleiman had done. The phone restarted and the guard led his prisoner back into the room.
The interrogator lingered on the photos of Suleiman’s female friends in Turkey, describing their physical details with a lewdness that disgusted Suleiman. The interrogator wanted their names. Suleiman made up fake ones. He had photos of Rastan’s defectors, too, but they were images available online. At least he hadn’t posed with any of them. He was asked to account for the photos.
“I downloaded them from the Internet, sidi,” Suleiman said. “I follow the news about my country and that’s why I have them.”
“You really are a son of a bitch, aren’t you?” the interrogator said. “Take him down!”
He was back in the tire.
“Focus on his feet until you strip the skin off his soles.”
He didn’t know how long it lasted. He didn’t know he could scream like that. That he could hurt like that. That he could survive that. His feet, his spine, his backside, his head. His body throbbed.
“Stand up!”
“Sidi, I can’t.”
“Stand up!”
He rose on bleeding feet.
“Okay, now we can begin,” the interrogator said. “What is your role in these events?” It was an open-ended question. No clue about what he knew or wanted to know.
“I swear, sidi, I don’t have a . . . .” Swish. The flexible rod again.
“Sidi, I participated in a protest!”
“A protest, you son of a bitch? Bring the electricity.”
A splash of cold then heat slicing through him. Tingling. Numbness. He drifted in and out of consciousness, grateful for the periods of darkness. Revived with water, the cycle was repeated, how many times he couldn’t tell.
“Four demonstrations, sidi!” he eventually said.
“You still haven’t confessed, you son of a bitch. What was your role in filming? Who did you finance?”
So he knew. Suleiman pleaded ignorance. He did what he said he wouldn’t do. He blamed his dead friend Merhi Merhi. He said Merhi duped him into filming a protest once. They’d already killed Merhi, they couldn’t hurt him any more, but they could stop hurting Suleiman.
“Get out!” yelled the interrogator.
Suleiman walked out on the bloody, sluffed soles of his feet. He tried standing on his tiptoes, but that hurt even more. He didn’t yet know that four of his toenails had been yanked out. He was in another room, handcuffed to another radiator, sitting on the floor with paper and a pen to write his confession. His blindfold removed, he saw his blood. It dripped on the paper. The guard wasn’t happy about that. He handed Suleiman clean sheets. Suleiman bled on them, too. He filled the first page with biographical information, the rest with lies. He stuck to his story of four protests and being tricked into filming them by his dead friends and others whose names he made up. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He also didn’t want to be asked for more information. He was allowed to rinse off some of his blood before being led back to the communal cell, where he collapsed on the floor.
“Nobody talks to this dog!” the guard told the room. “Nobody asks him any questions or does anything for him.”
The door slammed. Suleiman felt the prisoners lifting him. Some of the men stood, offering their patch of floor so that Suleiman could lie down. They raised his legs against the wall to try and stem the bleeding. Somebody placed clothes under his head like a pillow. They gently wiped his feet with the scraps that remained of their own clothes. Somebody massaged his hands and whispered into his ear: “The important thing is you’re still alive,” the voice said, over and over. “Others died on their first night. You are still alive.”
MOHAMMAD
Mohammad stopped running guns. Others could do that. He switched to smuggling Islamist foreign fighters, or muhajireen. The first one he stole across the Turkish border into Syria was a Moroccan, in September 2011. Then Tunisians, Libyans, Lebanese, Egyptians, and other Arabs. Europeans and Americans followed. Many came to
implement Sharia in a cosmopolitan land the Quran said was blessed. For some, religion was an afterthought, for men searching for purpose, power, adventure, or refuge from trouble back home. Others were simply sick of watching Muslims dying and begging for help. Syrians, in their abundant hospitality and desperate pragmatism, accepted them, but not necessarily their ideas.
Mohammad grew up idolizing the Chechen mujahideen. He helped sneak some of his heroes across the border. They didn’t have far to travel, since most were refugees and migrants who’d fled Russian aggression years earlier to settle in Turkey. By mid-2012, the Chechens aggregated in the towns of Doreen and Salma, a patch of Latakia Province that the Free Syrian Army had freed of Assad’s troops. The battlefield reputation of the Chechens was unparalleled: “Martyrs would fall in front of them and they wouldn’t stop, they’d keep pushing forward, on the offensive, pushing, pushing,” Mohammad said. “We aren’t like that. After seeing them, I was determined that we must have muhajireen [foreign fighters] like them fighting with us.”
The muhajireen were aided by a Turkish policy that for years focused less on who went into Syria than who came out, and even then the policy was lax. The foreign fighters were easy to spot on domestic flights from Istanbul to southern Turkey—men with scant luggage, long beards, and short pants worn above the ankle in the manner of the Prophet Mohammad. One overheard them at airports, discussing plans in various Arabic dialects and Western accents.
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