Rami Makhlouf vs. Bashar Assad: Rift within Syria’s ruling family?

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Composite image: Syrian President Bashar Assad (L) giving an interview to a journalist from Russia Today. Bashar’s cousin Rami Makhlouf (R), often described as "Syria's richest man," is head of Syriatel. (AFP/Supplied)
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Updated 12 August 2020
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Rami Makhlouf vs. Bashar Assad: Rift within Syria’s ruling family?

  • Video messages of President Assad’s first cousin may be sign of tensions over shrinking economic pie
  • The government is demanding that Makhlouf’s telecoms monopoly Syriatel pay $185 million in back taxes

MISSOURI: To outsiders, the Assad regime in Syria usually appears almost as opaque as North Korea. When Hafez Assad, who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1970 until 2000, passed away, many wondered how his son Bashar would fare as leader.

More than a few questioned whether the mild-mannered, London-trained ophthalmologist Bashar would manage to maintain control of the country.

Even years after his ascension, observers still questioned whether he was the one really running the country, or if some top Baathist generals around him were calling the shots.

No one knew for sure because Bashar’s Syria simply is not the kind of place that opens itself up to outside scrutiny.

Imagine the surprise then when beginning in April, an apparent row between top members of the ruling family erupted straight into public view.

On one side of the dispute we have Bashar’s cousin Rami Makhlouf, whose father Mohammed was the brother of Anisa Makhlouf, who became Anisa Assad when she married Hafez.

 

Often described as “the richest man in Syria,” Rami’s father after 1970 enjoyed Anisa’s support in taking control of most of the country’s economy.

Rami took over from his father, still enjoying his grandmother’s support until her illness in 2012 and eventual death in 2016.

On April 30, Rami posted the first of a series of videos on Facebook decrying the regime’s actions against him and his financial empire.

Staring into the camera, he asked: “Can you believe it? Security services have stormed the offices of Rami Makhlouf, their biggest funder and supporter, most faithful servant, and most prominent patron throughout the whole of the war … The pressure being put on us is intolerable, and inhumane.”

The regime, which means Bashar and possibly his wife Asma, is demanding that Syriatel, Rami’s giant telecommunications company, pay some $185 million in back taxes.

At first Rami appeared to refuse, appealing to his cousin in the videos. But with many of his top employees being rounded up and arrested over the last week, and the company facing the threat of seizure by the regime, now Rami claims to be willing to pay up.

He still resists pressure being put on him to resign, however, stating in his Facebook videos that this is a red line and that anyone who thinks he would resign “does not know me.”

Defiance is not the sort of thing people in Syria exhibit without dire punishments, of course.

Some think Rami is therefore engaged in some elaborate show in cahoots with Bashar, otherwise the former would never dare speak like this in public.

The show would be intended to demonstrate to Russia that rooting out corruption and raising money to pay back debts to Moscow are difficult, but that Bashar is working on it.

Would Russia, with its considerable intelligence assets in Syria, be fooled by such a display? Probably not.

Ordinary Syrians would likewise probably not accept such a show as evidence of an anti-corruption campaign.

Rami is also no ordinary Syrian. Over the years, he and his father took control of huge parts of Syria’s economy (up to 60 percent, according to the highest estimates), built their neo-patrimonial charities and even fielded their own Alawite Al-Bustan militia to fight in the civil war after 2011.

The militia alone had tens of millions of dollars in funding, and its fighters earned up to twice the pay of equivalent army personnel.

If anyone in Syria can publicly question the regime, it is Rami. Until recently he was the regime, occupying a place only below Bashar, his wife Asma, and his siblings Maher and Bushra.

The more likely story now unfolding in public in Syria involves intra-family jealousies and competition over a drastically shrinking economic pie.

Rami may indeed have proven resistant to demands that he contribute more to alleviating the regime’s economic woes, but the decision to move against his assets forcefully comes within a larger context.

While Bashar’s mother Anisa was alive and well, she would not have permitted any such actions against her other grandson.

From the time of her husband’s death in 2000 to her illness in 2012, accounts suggest that Anisa continued to favor Rami and kept Bashar’s Sunni wife Asma and her family from amassing too much power.

Asma’s family hails from the wealthy Sunni merchant classes of Aleppo and Homs, whose leading figures competed with the Makhlouf clan for business in Syria. Asma’s own charities also competed for prominence and influence with those of Rami.

As Anisa faded from the political scene, Asma’s influence began to rise. Hacked emails in 2012 showed Asma claiming that she was the “real dictator” in Syria.

Already in December 2019, just as increasing portions of Rami’s assets were being frozen under various pretexts by the Syrian state, the Daily Beast reported that “those of Asma’s paternal uncle, Tarif al-Akhras, were being thawed.”




Customers queue outside Syriatel, owned by businessman Rami Makhlouf, in the Syrian capital Damascus on May 11, 2020. (AFP)

The Daily Beast report added: “By September, Asma and a cadre of loyal officials who previously worked in her network of NGOs launched a hostile takeover of the Bustan Cooperative, a charitable organization run by Makhlouf through which the salaries of SSNP (the Syrian Social Nationalist Party) and other militiamen loyal to Rami had been paid.”

At the same time, Bashar’s younger brother Maher also appeared to view the Makhloufs with increasing suspicion, seeing them as competitors in Syria.

In August 2019, the regime disbanded Rami’s well-funded Al-Bustan militia. The SSNP, which functioned as a sort of fake opposition party in Syria, also saw the privileges of its members reduced at this time, presumably because of the Makhloufs’ association and prominent role within the party.

In December 2019 and March 2020, the regime seized assets from Rami’s petroleum companies — which he had been using to trade oil from the Kurdish- and American-controlled parts of the country — to pay off Syrian state budget deficits.

Those who had been before the war are concerned about the country and sacrificed with everything they have.

Rami Makhlouf, President Assad’s cousin and head of mobile operator Syriatel

The Makhlouf and Assad families have thus begun fighting over a revenue pie that has shrunk drastically since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.

Understanding what has been happening between the two families offers us a glimpse into understanding the outbreak of the civil war in the first place.

Syria under the Assads was never ruled by terror alone. Generous public safety nets, free schooling, free health care, other services and various subsidies of an “Arab socialist state” likewise kept the population in line after Hafez took power in 1970.

Beginning in the mid-1980s but really gaining pace after Hafez’s death, however, increasing privatization of the economy and the selling off of state assets to politically connected individuals like Rami changed the Syrian social contract.

As the likes of Rami enriched themselves, average Syrians fell deeper into poverty. Especially after the end of Syria’s lucrative occupation of Lebanon in 2005, the economic crisis of 2008 and a series of droughts beginning in 2009, the plight of average Syrians became intolerable.

The uprising that began in 2011 thus represented average Syrians’ attempt to renegotiate their defunct social contract. The Assad regime responded to people’s demands with force.

The resulting economic collapse from the civil war now sees Bashar and his wife Asma likewise turning on cousin Rami for a greater share of Syria’s few remaining economic resources.

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David Romano is Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University


Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war

Updated 18 February 2025
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Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war

  • The PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan is widely expected to urge followers to lay down their arms in the coming weeks
  • The new peace efforts are backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, and families on both sides of the divide want it to succeed

DIYARBAKIR, Turkiye: A mother weeping for a teenaged daughter shot dead by a Turkish sniper and a father mourning a son killed by PKK militants are among countless families hoping that a new peace drive can end Turkiye’s four-decade-old Kurdish conflict.
Both live in the Kurdish-majority southeast, where tens of thousands of lives have been lost in violence between the Turkish state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The new peace efforts are backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, and families on both sides of the divide want it to succeed.

Fahriye Cukur (L) and Mustafa Cukur hold a portrait of their daughter Rozerin, who was killed in 2016 during fierce clashes between militants and security forces in January 2016, during an interview in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

At her home in the city of Diyarbakir, Fahriye Cukur, 63, cannot take her eyes off a picture on the wall of her daughter Rozerin in school uniform. She was killed during clashes between militants and security forces in January 2016.
The collapse of a truce in 2015 sparked a new round of the conflict when many government curfews were imposed, including in the city’s Sur district.
Cukur said her daughter — who was passionate about photography — had gone to Sur during a break in a curfew to collect exam papers from friends. But the authorities suddenly reduced the break from five hours to three and the fighting reignited.
“People were stuck there, including my daughter. She took refuge at the home of an elderly couple, but when she tried to leave, she was shot by a sniper,” her mother told AFP.
The family found out about the death through a news bulletin.

It took five months, several protests and a hunger strike for the grieving parents to get her body back.

A women walks next to the Four-Legged Minaret Mosque where Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci was shot dead at the historical Sur district in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

Cukur said the authorities had mixed up their teenage daughter with a female PKK fighter, codenamed Roza, who had been hiding in the same district.
They claimed she had been trained in the mountains, but her mother told AFP: “My daughter was never engaged in political activism.
“She loved school, she wanted to become a psychiatrist and help her people,” she added, indicating the “TC” insignia — meaning “republic of Turkiye” — on her school uniform.
The PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan is widely expected to urge followers to lay down their arms in the coming weeks.
Many families hope this will end the conflict and spare other families from the pain they live with.
“We can’t forget what happened but we have to hope. I have two more kids: how do I know the same thing won’t happen to them tomorrow?” she said.
Last month, the International Crisis Group said clashes between the militants and Turkish troops were largely confined to northern parts of Iraq and Syria, with violence on Turkish soil at its lowest level since 2015.
“At least we can breathe a bit now,” she said.
“I want the bloodshed to stop. I want a ceasefire. And I am not alone.”

In the nearby province of Mardin, Sehmuz Kaya, a 67-year-old Kurd, recalled how his son Vedat, a police officer, was kidnapped by PKK militants in eastern Turkiye in July 2015.
Vedat Kaya, wearing civilian clothes, was in a car with his brother and four others when militants blocked the road.
“They only kidnapped Vedat,” he told AFP, saying it was months before the family saw a PKK video of him in the Kandil mountains of northern Iraq.
The family tried every possible channel, through the state and the main pro-Kurdish party, to secure his release.
But after six years, they received a devastating call from the authorities, who said he was one of the 13 “Gara martyrs.” The 13, all but one of whom were soldiers or police, had been killed by the PKK in the Gara region of northern Iraq.
“I was devastated,” he said, struggling for words, saying his son had been tortured before his death.
“They have no faith nor conscience. My son was just doing his job,” he said.
Pinned on the ceiling is a huge Turkish flag, and on the walls are photos of Vedat, whose name has been given to a nearby park.
Although he wants peace more than anything, he admitted he has little faith.
“They are not honest,” he snapped, referring to DEM, the main pro-Kurdish party that is relaying messages from Ocalan to the government. He suspects they have ties to the PKK.
“The families of the martyrs are heartbroken. Enough is enough,” he said. “We support the process but we want something real.”
 

 


Israel defense minister announces agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans

A photograph taken by a drone shows tents amidst the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Beit Lahiya.
Updated 18 February 2025
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Israel defense minister announces agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans

  • Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday that a special agency would be established for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans, after Israel expressed commitment to a US proposal to take over the Palestinian territory and expel its residents.
“Defense Minister Israel Katz held a meeting today (Monday) on the voluntary departure of Gaza residents, at the end of which he decided that a directorate for the voluntary departure of Gaza residents would be established within the ministry of defense,” a ministry statement said.
Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza, adding that he welcomed “Trump’s bold plan, which could allow a large portion of Gaza’s population to relocate to various places around the world.”
An initial plan presented during the meeting on Monday “includes extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wishes to emigrate voluntarily to a third country to receive a comprehensive package, which includes, among other things, special departure arrangements via sea, air, and land,” the statement added.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “committed to US President Donald Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza,” also promising that after the war, “there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority” ruling the territory.
Trump’s repeated proposal for a US “takeover” of Gaza and the resettlement of Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan lacks detail but has triggered widespread international outrage.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza Strip’s deadliest war and resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,284 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
More than 15 months of war destroyed or damaged more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings, displaced almost the entire population, and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.


Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

Updated 17 February 2025
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Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday he had arrived in Turkiye for talks with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on prisoner exchanges and other matters.
“Official visit with the First Lady to Turkiye. Meetings with President Erdogan and First Lady Emine Erdogan,” Zelensky said on his Telegram account.


 

 


In first, French minister visits Western Sahara claimed by Morocco

Updated 17 February 2025
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In first, French minister visits Western Sahara claimed by Morocco

  • Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and had already cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara

LAAYOUNE: France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati became on Monday the first French official to make a formal visit to the Western Sahara, a sign of Paris’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory.
“This is the first time that a French minister has come to the southern provinces,” Dati told AFP, using Morocco’s name for the area, a former Spanish colony controlled by Rabat but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati described the visit as “historic.”
The United Nations considers Western Sahara a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
Dati, accompanied by Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, launched a French cultural mission in Laayoune, Western Sahara’s main city.
She promised to open the territory’s first French culture center to “benefit children in the region, but also teachers, schools, students and teacher trainers.”
In Dakhla, the Western Sahara’s second city some 530 kilometers (330 miles) south of Laayoune, Dati said she is set to sign a cooperation agreement in the field of cinema and audiovisual art.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining ties between Rabat and Paris.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Morocco’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
The turnabout marked by Macron’s statement drew a strong reaction from Algiers.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and had already cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
Macron renewed French support for Morocco’s plan in October, pledging investments and a “strong and exceptional partnership.”
Also in October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” for the Western Sahara dispute.
 

 


Israel minister says Hamas must leave Gaza, surrender arms

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel should go for a “complete conquest” of Gaza. (File/AFP)
Updated 17 February 2025
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Israel minister says Hamas must leave Gaza, surrender arms

  • “If Hamas refuses this ultimatum, Israel will open the gates of hell,” said Smotrich, echoing an expression used by both Trump and Netanyahu

JERUSALEM: Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday that Hamas militants must surrender their arms and leave Gaza.
He was speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting to discuss the next phase of the truce between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.
Smotrich in a video statement said he “will demand a vote” by ministers on US President Donald Trump’s plan and that Israel must “issue a clear ultimatum to Hamas — immediately release all hostages, leave Gaza for other countries, and lay down your arms.”
“If Hamas refuses this ultimatum, Israel will open the gates of hell,” said Smotrich, echoing an expression used by both Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A strong opponent of stopping the war, he has threatened to quit Netanyahu’s ruling coalition if the war is not resumed after the end of the first stage of the ceasefire.
Trump’s plan lacked detail but has triggered widespread outrage internationally for his call to resettle Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan under a US “takeover” of Gaza.
Smotrich said Israel should go for a “complete conquest” of the territory.
According to Israeli media, the security cabinet convened on Monday evening to discuss phase two of the fragile ceasefire which began on January 19.
More than 15 months of war destroyed or damaged more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings, displaced almost the entire population, and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.
“It’s them or us. Either we crush Hamas, or God forbid, Hamas will crush us,” Smotrich said.
“I call on the prime minister to declare that once the war resumes after Phase One, Israel will, from the first day, seize 10 percent of Gaza’s territory, establish full sovereignty there, and immediately apply Israeli law,” he added.
“Furthermore, it must be announced that once combat resumes, all humanitarian aid will be completely halted.”
Smotrich further said that according to a plan currently in preparation “Gaza’s residents will be allowed to leave, but only in one direction — with no possibility of return.”
“The loss of territory is the only heavy price our enemies understand — the only thing that will make them realize we are serious,” Smotrich added.
Since the first phase of the truce began last month, 19 Israeli hostages have been released in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.
Out of 251 people seized in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war, 70 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.