Former Assad loyalists funnelling money to armed groups in Syria

Wealthy allies of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been funnelling money to armed groups in the country in an effort to stoke an uprising against the interim government.

According to a new Reuters investigation, Major-General Kamal Hassan and billionaire Rami Makhlouf are "competing" to form militias in Syria and Lebanon among the Alawi minority sect.

The two men, along with other factions, are reportedly financing more than 50,000 fighters in the hope of winning their loyalty. 

Four people close to the Assad family told Reuters that the former president, who was overthrown in December 2024 and lives in exile in Moscow, has little interest in attempting to regain power.

However, others from his former inner circle are working to try to undermine the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the armed campaign that ousted Assad.

Among the goals of Hassan and Makhlouf is capturing control of a network of 14 underground command rooms built around coastal Syria towards the end of Assad’s rule, along with weapons caches.

According to the report, Hassan - who was Assad's former military intelligence chief - regularly makes calls and sends voice messages to commanders and advisers, railing against his loss of influence and expressing his desire to retake Latakia, the Alawi-majority region in Syria that Assad and his family hailed from.

Thousands were killed in sectarian violence in Latakia, in the northwest, and Sweida, in the southeast, over the past year, amid fighting between local Alawi and Druze groups, government forces and allied militias.

Attacks by Assad loyalists in the coastal province of Latakia following his overthrow provoked a violent sectarian backlash against the Alawite population.

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At least 1,500 Alawis were killed in the subsequent violence, with a Reuters investigation tracing much of it back to officials in Damascus.

Minorities in Syria have been wary of Sharaa, who co-founded al-Nusra Front (now Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) in 2011 as the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, though he now publicly disavows the ideology.

Speaking at the Chatham House in London last month, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said that he and his government were working towards a pluralistic "elections-based" state, but said that there would need to be trust and confidence-building after 13 years of war.

"For a future Syria, we aspire that the Syrian state is a state that Syrians believe in, not a state that is estranged from Syrians, not an exclusive but inclusive one... the people need to believe in it," said Shaibani.

In response to a question about the status of minorities in Syria, he cited a conversation with a visiting official in Damascus who had enquired about a synagogue in the city.

"Syria is a diverse country that believes in the other, that taught the entire region how to live together as communities," Shaibani said.

He recalled telling the official: "Syria does not have a sectarian problem."