Senior Assad commander reveals plan to destabilise Syria to 'fake Israeli agent'

Senior military figures from the former Syrian government discuss efforts to destabilise the country and even coordinate with Israel to achieve it in leaked audio recordings, Al Jazeera has reported. 

The revelation was broadcast on Wednesday evening on the programme The Investigator. It was based on over 74 hours of recordings and hundreds of pages of documents. 

Suheil al-Hassan, the commander of the elite Quwwat al-Nimr (Tiger Forces) unit, was among several high-ranking officers from Bashar al-Assad’s former government implicated in the leak, which has not been verified by Middle East Eye.

In one recording, a source identified as a hacker or intermediary is heard assuring Hassan of Israeli backing.

“The State of Israel, with all its capabilities, will stand with you,” the source says to Hassan.

“There is a level higher than me, Mr Rami is the one who coordinates,” Hassan responds. “And I have dangerous intelligence information.”

He was referring to Rami Makhlouf, a Syrian tycoon and cousin of Assad.

Hassan is also heard making disparaging remarks about Palestinians, Shia and Sunni Muslims, as well as Christians.

When told by the man posing as a Mossad foreign intelligence officer that most of the region's Sunnis were ideologically the same as Hamas, Hassan responds: "The Shias are the same and the Eastern Christians are even worse."

WATCH: Assad-era general gets catfished, spills plans, and goes full mask-off.

Suhail al-Hassan (“The Tiger”), former Assad special forces commander now in Russia, was tricked by a hacker posing as an Israeli intelligence officer.

He believed the call was real, discussed armed… pic.twitter.com/jDPX2cREa6

— Clash Report (@clashreport) January 1, 2026

The Assad government fell following a lightning offensive led by forces loyal to the current president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. 

Israel, which has already occupied the Golan Heights since 1967 in contravention of international law, expanded its territory in southern Syria following the collapse of the government. 

In December 2024, it seized all of a UN-patrolled buffer zone that had previously separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights.

It has since carried out over 600 attacks across Syria. 

More revelations to come

Ghiath Dalla, a former brigadier general in Assad’s forces, is also implicated in the recordings. He appeared to validate Hassan’s claim that he was a representative of the mountainous regions of Syria that were traditional strongholds of Assad. 

“My Master, Suheil the Tiger, spoke the feeling of the whole mountain and the whole coast,” Dalla says. 

Nour al-Din al-Baba, a spokesperson for Syria’s interior ministry, told Al Jazeera that the recordings showed that elements of the former government were prepared to work with hostile entities. 

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He said the ministry had information about the whereabouts, communications and plans of former administration leaders. 

While parts of the leak aired on Wednesday, the complete Al Jazeera investigation will be released later this month. 

Last week, The New York Times reported that exiled figures close to Assad were plotting to "undermine the fledgling government that ousted them" and seize control of coastal areas. 

According to intercepted phone calls, text messages and group chats, the NYT reported that former intelligence chiefs and military commanders - many now based in Russia and Lebanon - were quietly rebuilding loyalist networks among the Alawi community. The commanders included Hassan of the Tiger Forces.

Text messages reviewed by the NYT showed that Hassan had "met with collaborators in Lebanon, Iraq and even inside Syria over the past year". Some messages included handwritten charts listing fighters and weaponry in villages along Syria’s coast, with claims that tens of thousands of fighters could be mobilised.

The intercepted communications date back to April, shortly after a wave of sectarian violence on Syria's Mediterranean coast left more than 1,600 people dead, most of them Alawis.

The killings followed coordinated attacks by former security forces against new government troops and were widely seen as a rallying point for ex-regime figures seeking to mobilise fighters.

Some former government officials told the NYT they believed recruitment among Alawis would be possible, citing fear and economic hardship. Others cautioned that resentment towards Assad's rule remains strong after years of war.

The report also said Hassan was backing a foundation that had spent millions of dollars on lobbying efforts in Washington.

Associates described him as supporting the Beirut-based Foundation for the Development of Western Syria, which presents itself as an advocate for Syrian minorities and displaced Alawis.

According to US disclosure filings, the foundation hired the lobbying firm Tiger Hill Partners and former adviser to US President Donald Trump, Joseph Schmitz, under a $1m contract.