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The Culmination of American-Russian Military and Political Dialogue over Syria

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley meets with Chief of Russian General Staff General Valery Gerasimov for the first time since December 2019. (AFP)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley meets with Chief of Russian General Staff General Valery Gerasimov for the first time since December 2019. (AFP)
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The Culmination of American-Russian Military and Political Dialogue over Syria

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley meets with Chief of Russian General Staff General Valery Gerasimov for the first time since December 2019. (AFP)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley meets with Chief of Russian General Staff General Valery Gerasimov for the first time since December 2019. (AFP)

In the past two weeks, two significant political and military meetings were held between American and Russian officials on Syria.

The first meeting was held between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoys in Geneva on September 15 and the second took place between Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. Valery Gerasimov in Helsinki on Wednesday.

Since Biden’s arrival at the White House and preparation for his summit with Putin in Geneva in July, Americans had informed Russian officials that any dialogue over Syria and resumption of the “Vienna secret channel” can only take place after the extension of the United Nations resolution on cross-border aid. This was seen as a test for relations between the new American administration and Moscow.

In July, National Security Council senior director for the Middle East Brett McGurk met with Russian presidential envoy Alexander Lavrentiev in Geneva, paving the way for an agreement on the draft resolution on cross-border aid. The talks included Washington’s agreement to Russia’s conditions, including funding the “early recovery” in Syria and easing sanctions, in return for Moscow’s vote in favor of the resolution.

On September 16, McGurk, Lavrentiev and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin met in Geneva for the first time since the approval of the resolution.

A diplomatic report, a copy of which was obtained by Asharq Al-Awsat, said that assessing the results “differs according to the expectations”. The meeting marked a breakthrough in that Russian-American dialogue was resumed after coming to a halt during the term of former President Donald Trump.

Russia had reportedly criticized the US over several issues, including failing to provide Caesar Act sanctions waivers and failing to ease pressure on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The Russian delegation also expressed its irritation with the slow delivery of aid.

It hinted that failure to reach progress would force Moscow to refrain from extending the aid resolution when its six-month period expires in early 2022.

A western diplomat said that this would be reneging on a pledge offered by Vershinin to McGurk during a meeting they held in July.

The American delegation, meanwhile, demanded facilitating the delivery of international aid to all Syrians, moving forward the political process and work of the Constitutional Committee, reaching a nationwide ceasefire and suspending military operations.

The diplomat said the Americans were disappointed with the meeting because they believed that the Russians would “bring something to the table”, but they didn’t. There is a sense that the meeting was a “missed opportunity” to move forward the Syrian file. They also sensed that had the Russians wanted to push the file forward, they would have done so years ago. This explains why the file has dropped low on Washington’s list of priorities.

UN envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen and other officials were hoping for a Russian-American understanding that would lead to a breakthrough in the conflict.

Some officials said that Putin, during his meeting with Assad earlier this month, had urged him to push forward the peace process and Constitutional Committee in line with UN Security Council resolution 2254 and to take advantage of the openness showed by some Arab countries towards Damascus.

A European envoy said on Monday that Damascus’ approval of the Constitutional Committee to start drafting the constitution in Geneva next month took place at Russia’s request. It was also a response to the Arab openness towards Damascus.

As for the second Russian-American meeting, between Milley and Gerasimov, it tackled the broader strategic dialogue between the two sides. They stressed their commitment to avert conflict where their armies operate, such as Syria where the priority is high to fight terrorism and provide stability.

The US renewed its decision to keep forces in northeastern Syria and in the al-Tanf base. The Russians and Americans wanted to stress their commitment to exchanging information in counter-terrorism operations and fighting ISIS, especially with Russian jets striking the Syrian desert near the where American forces are deployed.

The diplomat said a suggestion was made to hold another Russian-American meeting, this time with Israel’s participation, with the aim of exchanging information. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid had paid a visit to Moscow earlier this month and Prime Minister Nafatli Bennett is expected in the Russian capital in days for talks with Putin.

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Long Silenced by Fear, Syrians Now Speak about Rampant Torture under Assad

People walk through a corridor of Syria's infamous Saydnaya military prison, just north of Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
People walk through a corridor of Syria's infamous Saydnaya military prison, just north of Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
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Long Silenced by Fear, Syrians Now Speak about Rampant Torture under Assad

People walk through a corridor of Syria's infamous Saydnaya military prison, just north of Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
People walk through a corridor of Syria's infamous Saydnaya military prison, just north of Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)

Handcuffed and squatting on the floor, Abdullah Zahra saw smoke rising from his cellmate’s flesh as his torturers gave him electric shocks.

Then it was Zahra’s turn. They hanged the 20-year-old university student from his wrists and electrocuted and beat him for two hours. They made his father watch and taunted him about his son’s torment.

That was 2012, and the entire security apparatus of Syria’s then-President Bashar Assad was deployed to crush the protests against his rule.

With Assad’s fall a month ago, the machinery of death that he ran is starting to come out into the open.

It was systematic and well-organized, growing to more than 100 detention facilities into which tens of thousands disappeared over more than a decade. Torture, sexual violence and mass executions were rampant, according to rights groups and former prisoners.

A blanket of fear kept Syrians silent about their experiences or lost loved ones. But now, everyone is talking. After the insurgents who swept Assad out of power on Dec. 8 opened prisons and detention facilities, crowds swarmed in, searching for answers, bodies of loved ones, and ways to heal.

The Associated Press visited seven of these facilities in Damascus and spoke to nine former detainees. Some details of the accounts by those who spoke to the AP could not be independently confirmed, but they matched past reports by former detainees to human rights groups.

Days after Assad’s fall, Zahra — now 33 — came to visit Branch 215, a detention facility run by military intelligence in Damascus where he was held for two months.

There, he said, he was kept in a windowless underground cell, 4-by-4-meters (yards) and crammed with 100 other inmates. When ventilators were cut off -- either intentionally or because of a power failure -- some suffocated. Men went mad; torture wounds festered. When a cellmate died, they stowed his body next to the cell’s toilet until jailers collected corpses, Zahra said.

“Death was the least bad thing,” he said. “We reached a place where death was easier than staying here for one minute.”

A member of the security forces for the new interim Syrian government stands next to prison cells at the Palestine Branch, a detention facility operated by the General Intelligence Agency during Bashar al-Assad's regime, in Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 14, 2024. (AP)

Assad’s system of repression grew as civil war raged

After he and his father were released, Zahra fled to opposition-held areas. Within a few months, security agents returned and dragged off 13 of his male relatives, including a younger brother and, again, his father.

All were killed. Zahra later recognized their bodies among photos leaked by a defector showing thousands killed in detention. Their bodies were never recovered.

Rights groups estimate at least 150,000 people went missing since anti-government protests began in 2011, most vanishing into detention facilities. Many were killed, either in mass executions or from torture and prison conditions. The exact number remains unknown.

Even before the uprising, Assad had ruled with an iron fist. But as protests turned into a civil war that would last 14 years, Assad expanded his system of repression. New detention facilities run by military, security and intelligence agencies sprung up in security compounds, military airports and under buildings.

At Branch 215, Zahra hoped to find some sign of his lost relatives. But there was nothing. At home, his aunt, Rajaa Zahra, looked at the leaked pictures of her killed children for the first time – something she had long refused to do. She lost four of her six sons in Assad’s crackdowns. Her brother, she said, lost two of his three sons.

“They were hoping to finish off all the young men of the country.”

A site believed to be a mass grave for detainees killed under Bashar al-Assad's rule is visible in Najha, south of Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 17, 2024. (AP)

Syrians were tortured with ‘the tire’ and ‘magic carpet’

The tortures had names. One was called the “magic carpet,” where a detainee was strapped to a hinged wooden plank that bends in half, folding his head to his feet, which were then beaten.

Abdul-Karim Hajeko said he endured this five times. His torturers stomped on his back during interrogations at the Criminal Security branch, and his vertebrae are still broken.

“My screams would go to heaven. Once a doctor came down from the fourth floor (to the ground floor) because of my screams,” he said.

He was also put in “the tire.” His legs were bent inside a car tire as interrogators beat his back and feet. Afterward, they ordered him to kiss the tire and thank it for teaching him “how to behave.”

Many prisoners said the tire was inflicted for rule violations -- like making noise, raising one’s head in front of guards, or praying – or for no reason at all.

Saleh Turki Yahia said a cellmate died nearly every day during the seven months in 2012 he was held at the Palestine Branch, a detention facility run by the General Intelligence Agency. He said he was given electric shocks, hanged from his wrists, beaten on his feet. He lost half his body weight and nearly tore his own skin scratching from scabies.

“They broke us,” he said, breaking into tears as he visited the Palestine Branch. “A whole generation is destroyed.”

Documents are scattered around Branch 215, a detention facility run by Bashar al-Assad's regime, in Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 17, 2024. (AP)

The mounting evidence will be used in trials

Now comes the monumental task of accounting for the missing and compiling evidence that could one day be used to prosecute Assad’s officials, whether by Syrian or international courts.

Hundreds of thousands of documents remain scattered throughout detention facilities. Some seen by the AP included transcripts of phone conversations; intelligence files on activists; and a list of hundreds of prisoners killed in detention. At least 15 mass graves have been identified around Damascus and elsewhere around the country.

A UN body known as the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism has offered to help the new interim administration in collecting, organizing and analyzing all the material. Since 2011, it has been compiling evidence and supporting investigations in over 200 criminal cases against figures in Assad’s government.

Many want answers now.

Officials cannot just declare that the missing are presumed dead, said Wafaa Mustafa, a Syrian journalist, whose father was detained and killed 12 years ago.

“No one gets to tell the families what happened without evidence, without search, without work.”