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Exclusive - Syrian Refugees Trickle Back to Qusayr under Watchful Eyes of the Regime, Hezbollah

Returnees walk together and hold Syrian flags as they enter the city of Qusayr, Syria July 7, 2019. (Reuters)
Returnees walk together and hold Syrian flags as they enter the city of Qusayr, Syria July 7, 2019. (Reuters)
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Exclusive - Syrian Refugees Trickle Back to Qusayr under Watchful Eyes of the Regime, Hezbollah

Returnees walk together and hold Syrian flags as they enter the city of Qusayr, Syria July 7, 2019. (Reuters)
Returnees walk together and hold Syrian flags as they enter the city of Qusayr, Syria July 7, 2019. (Reuters)

“I want to be buried in my hometown, al-Qusayr,” said a retired school teacher who has been worn down by years of misery and old age that caught up with him soon after he and his family were displaced in from his town in 2012.

The teacher, 65, recently became one of many refugees who returned to Qusayr in recent months. He returned to his home, which was all but destroyed during the Syrian war. All that stands is a single room.

Asked by Asharq Al-Awsat about why he returned knowing that his house was in ruins, he replied: “Living in a tent over property that I own is a thousand times easier than living as a refugee in a rented home.”

“I have spent years in displacement and pray to God that I die in Qusayr,” he added.

Strategic importance

Qusayr lies 35 kilometers west of Homs and 15 kms from the border with Lebanon. The city witnessed in 2013 the first and largest wave of displacement during the Syrian war. At the peak of the unrest only a handful of the 65,000 residents remained in the city. The population is predominantly Sunni with Christian, Alawite and Shiite minorities.

The picture has since changed after the Syrian regime and Lebanese Hezbollah party imposed their control over the city and its countryside.

Qusayr holds strategic importance to Hezbollah because it links the Lebanese Bekaa region to the central Syrian province of Homs. It is accessed through the Jousiyeh crossing that was set up in 1919. Qusayr was also a significant trade hub between Homs and northern Lebanon.

Soon after the regime captured Qusayr from opposition factions, its ally, Hezbollah set up major centers throughout the roads connecting Homs to Lebanon. Qusayr was inaccessible except to its residents, who were still living there. After the reopening of the Jousiyeh crossing in 2017, travelers heading to Lebanon were allowed to pass through the area, local sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Once Jousiyeh was reopened, pro-regime residents, mainly Alawites, Shiites and Christians, were allowed to return. Some 8,000 people have gradually returned between 2013 and 2017. Up until July this year, Sunnis were barred from returning. Even then, only those not suspected of anti-regime activity were allowed to come back.

Destruction

The first batch of refugees returned to Qusayr’s Hezbollah-held western countryside in July. Exposing who really controls the region, the some 1,000 returnees were seen waving the Hezbollah flag, far outnumbering official Syrian flags and images of regime leader Bashar Assad. The second batch, of some 5,000 people, arrived in October. This time, the majority waved regime flags and Assad posters. Since 2013, some 14,000 residents have returned to what was left of their homes.

With very limited means, they struggled to rebuild Qusayr as they awaited aid from charities, civil and public agencies. The city council was also unable to cope with the massive reconstruction. Neighborhoods that were seized by opposition factions were almost completely destroyed, in contrast to the districts that never escaped the clutches of the regime during clashes with the opposition. Pro-regime residents, Hezbollah and security stations are located in these districts.

Overall, the city lacks the most basic infrastructure. Sewage systems remain mostly inadequate, power cuts are frequent and water is in short supply.

A refugee from Qusayr, currently residing in Lebanon, told Asharq Al-Awsat that prior to the war, people from Homs and nearby Lebanese villages used to flock to Qusayr for their daily needs, education and medical treatments. Bread produced from the city used to be enough to feed all neighboring areas. Smuggling from Lebanon of various goods that were not available in Syria was also active.

This led to the development of close ties between the surrounding areas. These relations rose above sectarian and political interests and Hezbollah was virtually nonexistent in the area.

At the turn of the 21st century, fuel began to be smuggled from Syria to Lebanon through Qusayr. This led to the emergence of fierce outlaws, who were controlled by corrupt figures in the regime’s security apparatus. The situation was exacerbated further with the beginning of the smuggling of drugs from Lebanon to Syria after 2005.

This naturally led to increased school dropouts, higher unemployment, a weakening economy and fragmentation of the traditional social and economic fabric.

Hezbollah control

After the displacement of the people in 2013, Hezbollah seized the region west of the Orontes (Assi) River. The party succeeded in recruiting residents of the region to fight in its ranks against their own fellow Syrians. The party also seized control of all legal and illegal border crossings between Qusayr and Lebanon. The region consequently became the most important drugs smuggling route from Lebanon to Syria and then from Syria to the Mediterranean through Latakia port.

In the city itself, Hezbollah captured several properties and buildings and transformed them into party headquarters, barring their owners from accessing them. The party also seized agricultural fields to grow its cannabis crops, transforming it into a lucrative gang-run business linked to regional networks.

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In Assad's Hometown, Few Shared in His Family's Fortune. They Hope they Won't Share in His Downfall

A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)
A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)
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In Assad's Hometown, Few Shared in His Family's Fortune. They Hope they Won't Share in His Downfall

A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)
A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)

On the walls of the palatial mausoleum built to house the remains of former Syrian President Hafez Assad, vandals have sprayed variations of the phrase, “Damn your soul, Hafez.”
Nearly two weeks after the ouster of his son, Bashar Assad, people streamed in to take photos next to the burned-out hollow where the elder Assad’s grave used to be. It was torched by opposition fighters after a lightning offensive overthrew Assad's government, bringing more than a half-century rule by the Assad dynasty to an end, The Associated Press said.
The mausoleum's sprawling grounds — and the surrounding area, where the ousted president and other relatives had villas — were until recently off limits to residents of Qardaha, the former presidential dynasty's hometown in the mountains overlooking the coastal city of Latakia.
Nearby, Bashar Assad’s house was emptied by looters, who left the water taps running to flood it. At a villa belonging to three of his cousins, a father and his two young sons were removing pipes to sell the scrap metal. A gutted piano was tipped over on the floor.
While the Assads lived in luxury, most Qardaha residents — many, like Assad, members of the Alawite minority sect — survived on manual labor, low-level civil service jobs and farming to eke out a living. Many sent their sons to serve in the army, not out of loyalty to the government but because they had no other option.
“The situation was not what the rest of the Syrian society thought,” said Deeb Dayoub, an Alawite sheikh. “Everyone thought Qardaha was a city built on a marble rock and a square of aquamarine in every house," he said, referring to the trappings of wealth enjoyed by Assad's family.
In the city’s main street, a modest strip of small grocery stores and clothing shops, Ali Youssef, stood next to a coffee cart, gesturing with disdain. “This street is the best market and the best street in Qardaha and it’s full of potholes.”
Families resorted to eating bread dipped in oil and salt because they could not afford meat or vegetables, he said. Youssef said he dodged mandatory military service for two years, but eventually was forced to go.
“Our salary was 300,000 Syrian pounds,” a month, he said — just over $20. “We used to send it to our families to pay the rent or live and eat with it" while working jobs on the side to cover their own expenses.
"Very few people benefited from the former deposed regime,” Youssef said.
So far, residents said, the security forces made up of fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — the main group in the coalition that unseated Assad, and which is now ruling the country — have been respectful toward them.
“The security situation is fine so far, it’s acceptable, no major issues,” said Mariam al-Ali, who was in the market with her daughter. “There were a few abuses ... but it was fixed.” She did not elaborate, but others said there had been scattered incidents of robberies and looting or threats and insults.
Al-Ali called Assad a “traitor,” but she remained circumspect about her Alawite community's position in the new Syria.
“The most important thing is that there should be no sectarianism, so there will be no more blood spilled,” she said.
Dayoub, the Alawite sheikh, described “a state of anticipation and caution among all citizens in this area, and in general among Alawites,” although he said fears have started to ease.
At the town’s municipal building, dozens of notables sat on bleachers discussing the country' s new reality and what they hoped to convey to the new leadership.
Much was centered around economic woes — retired public servants' salaries had not been paid, the price of fuel had risen, there was no public transportation in the area.
But others had larger concerns.
“We hope that in the next government or the new Syria, we will have rights and duties like any Syrian citizen — we are not asking for any more or less,” said Jaafar Ahmed, a doctoral student and community activist. “We don’t accept the curtailment of our rights because the regime was part of this component.”
Questions also loomed about the fate of the area's sons who had served in Assad's army.
Since the army's collapse in the face of the opposition advance, residents said several thousand young army recruits from Qardaha have gone missing. Some later turned up on lists of former soldiers being held at a detention center in Hama.
“These are young guys who are 22 or 23 and they never took part" in active combat, said Qais Ibrahim, whose nephews were among the missing. Over the past few years, active combat was largely frozen in the country's civil war. “We send our children to the army because we don’t have any other source of income.”
Um Jaafar, who gave only her nickname out of fear of reprisals, said the family had no information about the fate of her two sons, stationed with the army in Raqqa and Deir Ezzour, though one son's name later turned up on the list of those imprisoned in Hama.
“My children got the best grades in school, but I didn’t have the ability to send them to the university,” she said. “They went to the army just for a salary that was barely enough to cover their transportation costs.”
Syria's new authorities have set up “reconciliation centers” around the country where former soldiers can register, hand over their weapons and receive a “reconciliation ID” allowing them to move freely and safely in Syria for three months.
But Ahmed, the doctoral student, said he wants more. As the country attempts to unify and move on after nearly 14 years of civil war, he said, “We want either forgiveness for all or accountability for all.”
Ahmed acknowledged that during the war, “rural Latakia was responsible for some radical groups,” referring to pro-Assad militias accused of widespread abuses against civilians. But, he said, opposition groups also committed abuses.
“We hope that there will be either an open process of reconciliation ... or transitional justice in which all will be held accountable for their mistakes, from all parties," he said.
"We can’t talk about holding accountable one ... group but not another.”