They were among Bashar al-Assad’s top spymasters and generals, men who spent over a decade brutally suppressing a popular revolt in Syria. Now, a year after fleeing as the Assad regime collapsed, they are plotting to undermine the fledgling government that ousted them, and perhaps take back a piece of the country.
It is unclear if these former regime officials pose a serious threat to the new Syrian authorities, and they often are at odds with each other. But in interviews with participants and communications among them reviewed by The New York Times, there is little doubt they are determined to reassert influence in Syria, which remains on edge after 13 years of civil war.
Some of these former regime leaders are attempting to build an armed insurgency from exile. One has supported a group behind a million-dollar lobbying campaign in Washington.
Several hope to carve off Syria’s coast, home to the minority Alawite sect to which Mr. al-Assad and many of his top military and intelligence officials belong.
“We won’t begin until we are fully armed,” a former top commander of Syria’s once-feared Fourth Division, Ghiath Dalla, 54, told a subordinate in an April phone call from Lebanon that was intercepted without his knowledge.
The exchange was among dozens of transcribed phone conversations, text messages and group chats shared with The Times by a group of Syrian activists who say they hacked the phones of top Assad commanders before the regime’s collapse and have been monitoring them ever since.
The Times reviewed the material and cross-checked details with Syrian officials who are tracking the former regime figures, as well as with people in contact or working with those who were hacked. The activists shared only a sample of their material and spoke on condition of anonymity because they wanted to preserve their ability to continue the surveillance.
Two main figures involved in these efforts are Suhail Hassan, Mr. al-Assad’s former special forces commander, and Kamal Hassan, the dictator’s onetime military spy chief. Both men face international sanctions on accusations of war crimes.
Text exchanges and interviews with participants reveal they distributed funds, recruited fighters and, in the case of Suhail Hassan’s network, procured weapons.
The two generals went into exile in Moscow with Mr. al-Assad in December 2024, yet both appear to be able to travel despite the international sanctions.
Suhail Hassan has met with collaborators in Lebanon, Iraq and even Syria over the past year, according to text exchanges discussing his location.
There were also messages referring to Kamal Hassan visiting Lebanon. An aide, a recruit and an acquaintance also told The Times they had met the former general there. Like others interviewed about the former generals’ ambitions, they spoke on condition of anonymity to describe plans meant to remain secret.
Suhail Hassan could not be reached by The Times. Responding to questions via text message, Kamal Hassan denied he was involved in fomenting an armed insurgency.
Syrian officials monitoring the would-be insurgents played down the threat of any insurgency in Syria. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
The country remains deeply divided after a civil war that left more than 600,000 dead. Parts of it remain only loosely under the new government’s control. And many people are wary of the extremist roots of Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who once allied with Al Qaeda before leading the rebel offensive that overthrew Mr. al-Assad.
Two former Assad officials cooperating with the former generals told The Times they were well positioned to recruit from an Alawite community that is not only frightened, but also full of former soldiers.
Still, it is unclear how many would answer the call. Many Alawites remain deeply resentful of the regime after years of deadly civil war.
‘Holy Warrior’
The earliest intercepted communications reviewed by The Times date to April 2025, when the activists who hacked the phones said they noticed a surge in activity by some targets.
A month earlier, more than 1,600 people, mostly Alawites, had been killed in a burst of sectarian violence by thousands of armed men who rushed to Syria’s Mediterranean coast after former security forces in the Assad regime launched a coordinated attack on the new government’s troops, killing 16.
The massacre offered a rallying cry for former Assad officials seeking to recruit Alawite fighters. Competing plans to do so were initially reported by Erem News, an Abu Dhabi-based outlet, and Reuters.
Among those most active was Suhail Hassan, the former special forces commander, whose admirers called him “the Tiger” for his perceived ferocity in battle. He was known among the Syrian opposition for scorched-earth tactics and stands accused of ordering airstrikes on civilians.
Long a favorite of the Russians, Mr. Hassan was one of the first officials Moscow sought to evacuate as the regime crumbled, four former officers said.
But he apparently had little interest in sitting idle in Russia.
From April into the summer, the communications reviewed by The Times between Mr. Hassan and others show him plotting a comeback. Among them were handwritten charts sent from his phone in April describing the number of fighters and weaponry in different villages along Syria’s coast.
Mr. Hassan sent the charts to a person he addressed as the “commander in chief of our military and armed forces,” and said he had “verified” the identities of more than 168,000 fighters: 20,000 with access to machine guns, 331 with antiaircraft guns, 150 with anti-tank grenades and 35 snipers still in possession of their weapons.
He ended each message with the same sign-off: “Your servant, with the rank of holy warrior.”
Mr. Hassan never named his commander in the messages reviewed by The Times. But three people involved in the plans said he works with Rami Makhlouf, a Syrian tycoon and estranged cousin of Mr. al-Assad who also escaped Syria to Moscow. They said Mr. Makhlouf has funded Mr. Hassan’s efforts and also sent large sums to impoverished Alawite families on the Syrian coast.
Mr. Makhlouf portrays himself as a messianic figure ready to lead Syria’s Alawites, and according to the people close to him, believes he can predict events by using a mystical text in his possession. His family declined a request to arrange an interview with him.
By spring, the intercepted communications show Mr. Hassan had recruited Ghiath Dalla, the Fourth Division general.
In one text exchange, Mr. Dalla told Mr. Hassan he had distributed $300,000 in monthly payments to potential fighters and commanders, at a rate of $200 and $1,000 per month. He also sought approval to buy satellite communication equipment for about $136,600.
In the messages, Mr. Dalla indicated that he was living just over the Syrian border in a house in Lebanon and that he and his family lacked electricity and painted walls.
In some conversations, he described a meeting with Iraqi militia leaders aligned with Iran in which they discussed options for smuggling weapons to insurgents without attracting Israeli strikes or being caught by the Syrian authorities. He also recounts meeting potential financiers.
Other communications showed Mr. Dalla aborting assassination plots and plans to acquire or distribute drones and anti-tank missiles, including some he said were hidden in Syria.
In April, the two generals brought another former general into the network, Muhammad al-Hasouri, 60, a top air force commander accused of personally carrying out a chemical weapons attack on the northern town of Khan Sheikhoun in 2017.
Mr. Hassan wrote that Iranian officials had moved Mr. al-Hasouri and 20 fellow regime pilots into a hotel in Lebanon. Mr. Hassan said they had expressed a desire to stay and join his insurgency if he covered their room and board.
One former regime official who said he was in touch with Mr. al-Hasouri said in October that the account was accurate, but said a month later the plans had fallen apart. He added that the wider network Mr. Dalla and Mr. Hassan tried to form had begun to fray.
An Inroad to Washington
Kamal Hassan, the former chief of military intelligence, is also described by collaborators in the intercepted communications as providing payments to supporters and potential recruits.
Mr. Hassan is under U.S. sanctions for overseeing two notorious military intelligence branches, where photographs of victims leaked in 2014 showed systematic torture and execution.
Asked about those accusations, Mr. Hassan said, “I consider these political and mere allegations, as they remain unaccompanied by documentation.” He also said the claims he had financed would-be insurgents had “many inaccuracies and questionable facts.”
Two people working with Mr. Hassan said he was more focused on forging an influence network than on an insurgency. For example, they said, Mr. Hassan is a driving force behind the Beirut-based Foundation for the Development of Western Syria.
The foundation presents itself as a group that works on behalf of Syrian minorities and provides housing for Alawites who fled to Lebanon. But the people working with Mr. Hassan say he uses it to lobby Washington to establish “international protection” for Syria’s Alawite region.
Multiple online videos featuring Syrian refugees in Lebanon thank Mr. Hassan for his financial support, as does a post on the foundation’s Facebook page. “All campaign costs,” it says, referring to a prominent initiative for housing Alawite refugees, “were fully covered by the Syrian citizen Major General Kamal Hassan.”
According to U.S. disclosure filings in August, the foundation retained the American lobbying firm Tiger Hill Partners and Joseph E. Schmitz, a former Trump adviser and executive at Blackwater Worldwide, the private military contractor, on a $1 million contract to represent it.
Mr. Hassan at first referred an interview request to Mr. Schmitz, describing him as his lawyer. But later, Mr. Hassan denied any ties to the foundation or “any Syrian organization,” adding, “but in principle, I support and encourage any step that serves development and peace in Syria.”
Mr. Schmitz declined to comment on behalf of Mr. Hassan but said on behalf of the foundation that they were working to ensure the protection and representation of minority groups in Syria.
On social media, the foundation has touted meetings with the offices of six American lawmakers, including Representative Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Aides to Ms. Shaheen, Mr. Mast and other lawmakers confirmed the meetings with Tiger Hill lobbyists and said they had been routine and only with staff.
Several diplomats in Syria said they were more disturbed by lobbying efforts in Washington than the insurgency plots. Such campaigns, they said, could gradually lay the groundwork for calls for a semiautonomous region in Syria.
“Today, this case would never fly,” said Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat who fled the regime and has lobbied on behalf of its victims since 2012.
“But maybe two or three years from now, if the current government hasn’t provided stability, U.S. leaders may look for others to work with.”
Neil Collier, Danny Makki and Devon Lum contributed reporting. Muhsen AlMustafa contributed research. Aaron Byrd contributed graphics production.
Christiaan Triebert is a Times reporter working on the Visual Investigations team, a group that combines traditional reporting with digital sleuthing and analysis of visual evidence to verify and source facts from around the world.
The post Ousted and in Exile, Generals Secretly Plot Insurgency in Syria appeared first on New York Times.
