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Syria’s New Rulers Overhaul Economy with Firing ‘Ghost Employees’

A government employee works at a government building in Damascus suburbs, Syria January 8, 2025.REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
A government employee works at a government building in Damascus suburbs, Syria January 8, 2025.REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
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Syria’s New Rulers Overhaul Economy with Firing ‘Ghost Employees’

A government employee works at a government building in Damascus suburbs, Syria January 8, 2025.REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
A government employee works at a government building in Damascus suburbs, Syria January 8, 2025.REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

Syria's new leaders are undertaking a radical overhaul of the country's broken economy, including plans to fire a third of all public sector workers and privatizing state-run companies dominant during half a century of Assad family rule, Reuters reported.
The pace of the declared crackdown on waste and corruption, which has already seen the first layoffs just weeks after opposition fighters toppled Assad on Dec. 8, has triggered protests from government workers, including over fears of a sectarian jobs purge.
Reuters interviewed five ministers in the interim government formed by former opposition group the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). All described the wide scope of plans to shrink the state, including removing numerous "ghost employees" - people who got paid for doing little or nothing during Assad's rule.
Under Assad and his father, Syria was organized as a militarized, state-led economy that favored an inner circle of allies and family members, with members of the family's Alawite sect heavily represented in the public sector.
There is now a major shift to "a competitive free-market economy," Syria's new economy minister, 40-year-old former energy engineer Basil Abdel Hanan, told Reuters. Under transitional president Ahmed al-Sharaa, the government will work on privatizing state-run industrial companies, which Hanan said totaled 107 and were mostly loss making. However, he vowed to keep "strategic" energy and transport assets in public hands. He did not provide names of companies to be sold off. Syria's main industries include oil, cement and steel.
Some state companies appeared to exist solely to embezzle resources and would be closed, Finance Minister Mohammad Abazeed said in an interview.
"We expected corruption, but not to this extent," Abazeed said.
Only 900,000 of 1.3 million people on the government payroll actually come to work, Abazeed said, citing a preliminary review.
"This means there are 400,000 ghost names," Abazeed, an energetic 38-year-old, said in his office. "Removing these will save significant resources."
Mohammad Alskaf, the minister for Administrative Development who oversees public sector headcount, went further, telling Reuters the state would need between 550,000 and 600,000 workers - less than half the current number.
The goal of the reforms, which also aim to simplify the tax system with an amnesty on penalties, was to remove obstacles and encourage investors to return to Syria, Abazeed said.
"So that their factories within the country can serve as a launchpad" for global exports, said Abazeed, previously an economist at the Al-Shamal private university before serving as a treasury official in the opposition stronghold of Idlib in 2023.
IDLIB MODEL
Until sweeping into Damascus in the lightening offensive that ousted Assad, HTS had ruled Idlib as an opposition breakaway province since 2017, attracting investment and the private sector with less red tape and by clamping down on hard-line religious factions.
The new government hopes for a nationwide increase in foreign and domestic investment to generate new jobs as Syria rebuilds from 14 years of conflict, three ministers told Reuters.
However, to replicate the Idlib model, HTS will have to overcome widespread challenges, not least international sanctions that severely impinge on foreign trade.
Maha Katta, a Senior Resilience and Crisis Response Specialist for Arab States at the International Labor Organization, said the economy was currently in no condition to create enough private jobs.
Restructuring the public sector "makes sense," Katta said, but she questioned whether it should be a top priority for a government that needs first to revive the economy.
"I'm not sure if this is really a wise decision," she said.
While acknowledging the interim leaders' imperative to move fast to get a grip on the country, some critics see the scale and pace of the planned changes as overreach.
"They are talking about a transitional process but they are making decisions as if they were a government that was legitimately installed," said Aron Lund, a fellow at Middle East-focused think-tank Century International.
Transitional president al-Sharaa has promised elections, but said they could take four years to organize.
SHOCK ABSORBED
Economy minister Hanan said economic policy would be designed to manage the fallout of rapid market reforms, to avoid the chaos of recession and unemployment that followed 'shock therapy' imposed in the 1990s on post-Soviet nations in Europe.
"The goal is to balance private sector growth with support for the most vulnerable," Hanan said. The government has announced a 400% increase to state salaries, currently around $25 a month, starting February. It is also cushioning the blow of layoffs with severance, or by asking some workers to stay home while needs are assessed.
"To employees who were hired just to receive a salary, we say: please take your salary and stay home, but let us do our job," said Hussein Al-Khatib, Director of Health Facilities at the Ministry of Health. However, discomfort is already visible. Workers showed Reuters lists circulating in the labor and trade ministries that pared Assad-era employment programs for former soldiers who fought on the government's side in the civil war.
One such veteran, Mohammed, told Reuters he had been laid off on Jan. 23 from his data entry job at the labor ministry and given three months paid leave. He said around 80 other former fighters received the same notice, which he shared with Reuters. In response to Reuters questions the labor ministry said that "due to administrative inefficiencies and disguised unemployment" a number of employees had been placed on three-month paid leave to assess their job status, after which their situation will be reviewed.
The plans spurred protests in January in cities including Daraa in southern Syria, where the rebellion against Assad first erupted in 2011, and Latakia on the coast. Such protests were unthinkable under Assad, who responded to rebellion with repression that sparked the civil war.
Employees at the Daraa Health Directorate held placards declaring "No to arbitrary and unjust dismissal" during a demonstration by some two dozen people.
Adham Abu Al-Alaya, who took part, said he feared losing his job. He supported eradicating ghost employment, but denied he or his colleagues were paid for doing nothing. He was hired in 2016 to manage records and settle utility bills.
"My salary helps me manage basic needs, like bread and yoghurt, just to sustain the household," Abu Al-Alaya said, adding that he also works another job to make end meet.
"If this decision goes through, it will increase unemployment across society, which is something we cannot afford," he said.
MILES OF FILES
Finance Minister Abazeed said that since taking over, the former opposition fighters had found monumental corruption and waste, including at Syrian Trading Establishment, a public consumer goods distributor he said received government money for a decade, until a few days before Assad's departure, without ever providing official statements of revenues.
He did not disclose how much money was involved. Reuters could not verify the allegations.
The new government has closed the company, Abazeed said.
For now, the administration has no reliable record of government employees. It is building a database of public sector staff, asking employees to complete an online form. Alskaf, the minister for Administrative Development, said it would take about six months to set up, with a team of 50 people on the job.
Acknowledging the difficulties of the task ahead, Labor Minister Fadi al-Qassem said "renovations are more difficult than new building."
The government also plans to digitize employee records, currently stored in about 60 dusty and neglected rooms containing over a million folders, many tied with string and dating back to the Ottoman era that ended more than a century ago.
To Hiba Baalbaki, 35, a labor ministry digitization specialist, the drive was surprising and encouraging.
Under the previous administration, management shunned her efforts to bring record keeping into the 21st century, including an online platform she had been working on for two years, she said.
"It introduced unwelcome changes and closed avenues for corruption and bribes," she said.

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The Ukrainian Social Media Channels Tracking Russian Missiles

Ukrainians use Telegram channels to track incoming Russian missiles and drones. Tetiana DZHAFAROVA / AFP
Ukrainians use Telegram channels to track incoming Russian missiles and drones. Tetiana DZHAFAROVA / AFP
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The Ukrainian Social Media Channels Tracking Russian Missiles

Ukrainians use Telegram channels to track incoming Russian missiles and drones. Tetiana DZHAFAROVA / AFP
Ukrainians use Telegram channels to track incoming Russian missiles and drones. Tetiana DZHAFAROVA / AFP

The chances of a missile attack on Kyiv that night were around 50 percent, according to the administrator of a social media channel monitoring Russian air raids.

His channel, Aeris Rimor -- roughly derived from the Latin for Searcher of the Skies -- is one of dozens sending real-time messages about incoming drones and missiles.

Ukrainians consult them to track potential Russian attacks, like people check weather applications for storms but with less certainty, shorter warning, and deadly stakes.

During one recent overnight attack, AFP journalists were granted rare access to shadow "Esko", the channel's administrator, on condition that his identity and some details of the operation remained undisclosed.

The 19-year-old, sporting a budding beard, usually operates from home, filling lulls by watching the TV show Criminal Minds or honing his drone-flying skills on a simulator.

Twenty-six minutes after midnight, the air raid alert rang, soon followed by a red dot glitching across the map on a screen in front of him.

"Oh, a missile on Kyiv," he said.

Switching to Telegram, he sent a message to 150,000 followers: "KYIV TARGET!"

"It's going to hit Kyiv in about a minute," he said.

He then sent out the names of the districts being targeted, quietly lamenting a few typos.

Seconds later, explosions echoed over the capital.

The red dot disappeared from the map, only for another to pop up shorty after.

"You have to literally stay on duty and stare at the screen the whole time, because you can easily miss it," said Esko, who did not appear to struggle, even late into the night.

Esko was looking at a live map used by Ukraine's air defense units.

Red icons -- depicting Russian drones -- were dotted across the map and disappeared as they were downed by Ukraine's air force.

- Bedtime dilemma -

The channels are tolerated by authorities but operate in a legal grey area as they use information from air force contacts.

Esko would not reveal publicly how he accessed the map.

In its nightly attacks, Moscow increasingly fires ballistic missiles, flying up to thousands of kilometers (miles) per hour and reaching Kyiv within three minutes of an air raid warning.

This poses a haunting dilemma for those in the capital.

Either go to a shelter -- the metro or a basement -- in advance, accepting a disrupted and uncomfortable night of half-sleep.

Or stay home and face the risk of a hit, particularly dangerous for those in high-rise buildings in heavily targeted districts.

Sometimes authorities warn hours before a likely attack.

Telegram channels -- sifting through intelligence data -- close the information gap, putting out daily forecasts on the probability of different types of attacks.

Esko said people often reach out asking for advice.

"You can only say: something might happen... but decide for yourselves."

On a recent night in Kyiv when there were mixed signals about a Russian strike, Kateryna Reshetnyk had gone down to the subway.

She based her decision on "a parallel analysis of several channels that have been posting truthful information for a long time."

She had set up folding chair next to the turnstiles with her mother and grandmother -- their beds for the next hours.

"But no one knows for sure what will happen or not. You just rely on your intuition and survival instinct," the 34-year-old said.

- 'Tension rising' -

Hundreds of others, armed with mats, tents and pillows, had done the same.

Dogs snored next to their owners, who were glued to their phones, screens lighting up weary faces.

"We track what's happening and where, because our relatives, friends and colleagues are all over Kyiv and the region, so at least we understand what is happening and where," Reshetnyk said.

The night passed without a major strike.

Ukraine's air force grudgingly tolerates the monitoring channels.

"We can't ban them. They exist, they inform the public, for some people that's convenient," spokesman Yuri Ignat told AFP.

But he warned those running them not to post "excess information ... that the enemy can use against us."

With people making potentially life-or-death decisions based on his posts, Esko said he felt the weight of responsibility.

Much of his life now is spent at the screen, tracking hundreds of drones on only a few hours sleep.

But he prefers busy nights, rather than uneasy periods of calm when Russia is stockpiling for future attacks.

"You keep waiting, waiting, waiting, and then you start posting warnings because the tension is rising. And still, nothing happens. You post again, and nothing happens..."

"And then they hit."

Features

US Pulls Last Aircraft Carrier in Asia as Trump Focuses on Iran and the Western Hemisphere

This handout picture released by the US Navy on May 8, 2019 shows the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) while conducting a replenishment-at-sea with the fast combat support ship USNS Arctic (T-AOE 9), while MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters assigned to the "Nightdippers" of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 5, transfer stores between the ships. (Jason WAITE / Navy Office of Information / AFP)
This handout picture released by the US Navy on May 8, 2019 shows the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) while conducting a replenishment-at-sea with the fast combat support ship USNS Arctic (T-AOE 9), while MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters assigned to the "Nightdippers" of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 5, transfer stores between the ships. (Jason WAITE / Navy Office of Information / AFP)
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US Pulls Last Aircraft Carrier in Asia as Trump Focuses on Iran and the Western Hemisphere

This handout picture released by the US Navy on May 8, 2019 shows the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) while conducting a replenishment-at-sea with the fast combat support ship USNS Arctic (T-AOE 9), while MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters assigned to the "Nightdippers" of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 5, transfer stores between the ships. (Jason WAITE / Navy Office of Information / AFP)
This handout picture released by the US Navy on May 8, 2019 shows the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) while conducting a replenishment-at-sea with the fast combat support ship USNS Arctic (T-AOE 9), while MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters assigned to the "Nightdippers" of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 5, transfer stores between the ships. (Jason WAITE / Navy Office of Information / AFP)

President Donald Trump's war against Iran is stretching the limits of US aircraft carriers and leaving the western Pacific without one of the key American warships as China shows more signs of aggression.

The USS George Washington is departing the Pacific and expected to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East amid growing concerns about mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed carrier. The Lincoln has had its time at sea extended from its original May return date to support operations against Iran.

The lack of a US carrier in the Pacific may be short-lived if the Navy deploys another in the next couple of months. But it shows how the open-ended operations with Iran are running some American sailors ragged, analysts say, while the Trump administration further retreats from the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the Western Hemisphere.

“The administration says that the Pacific is supposed to be the most important behind the Western Hemisphere,” said Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Instead, the US is "doing the exact opposite" of its previously expressed goal of pulling out of the Middle East.

American allies in the Pacific are unsettled over the unpredictability of the Republican administration, Poling said, while Beijing “is quite happy with US distraction, with the frustration of US allies and partners."

China may take advantage of US carrier's absence

Beijing sees the US military presence in the region as a threat to China’s rise and an obstacle to its ambition to seize Taiwan, the self-governing island it claims as its own. But the United States has argued that the Pacific region is too important economically to lose.

No one expects China to invade Taiwan because an American aircraft carrier has left the region. But the carrier's absence gives the Chinese another opportunity to show its strength, said Bryan Clark, a former Navy submariner who is a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute.

“They’re using this as part of the narrative to demonstrate to the Philippines, to Japan, to Indonesia and others that the US is not the big dog in the western Pacific anymore,” Clark said. “They would just prefer that countries in the region decide that China is the bigger power and the US is not able to guarantee their security anymore.”

China conducted naval exercises this week with Indonesia and recently has shown signs of aggression toward Japan and the Philippines, two key US allies that also have territorial disputes with Beijing.

China carried out military drills this month near the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Both China and the Philippines have claims over the shoal. Last month, a Chinese guided-missile destroyer conducted a live-fire exercise off Japan’s southernmost island of Okinotori.

Adm. Frank Bradley, head of the US Special Operations Command, has been trying to reassure regional allies of Washington’s commitment. He was in Manila on Thursday, telling his Filipino counterparts that US special operations forces are ready to step up joint exercises to strengthen the countries' alliance. He also is expected to travel to Japan.

“We have the ability to project force, the United States, anywhere on the globe,” Bradley told The Associated Press. “And when the threat in the region of the Middle East has been attended to, we will redeploy and reorient and be able to project that force wherever else it might be required.”

“I also feel very confident in the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ ability to protect their sovereignty here and for us to remain close with them,” he said.

Evan Sankey, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute who focuses on US policy toward China, said aircraft carriers provide psychological assurance to US allies. The absence of carriers in the region, he said, “adds to the general sense that the US is distracted by events in the Middle East.”

Trump has relied on aircraft carriers for military actions

Trump has relied heavily on aircraft carriers to support military operations during his second term. For example, the USS Gerald R. Ford returned home in mid-May after an 11-month deployment, the longest since the Vietnam War, during which it supported the US fight against Iran and the capture of Venezuela's then-leader, Nicolás Maduro.

The Ford had experienced a fire in a laundry space that forced the carrier to turn around and return to the Mediterranean Sea for repairs and left hundreds of sailors without places to sleep. Meanwhile, the Lincoln has spent a record uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days. Democratic lawmakers have been calling for investigations and greater visibility into conditions aboard the ship.

Warships and their crews can only handle so much, said Robert Farley, who teaches national security and diplomacy at the University of Kentucky and often writes about aircraft carriers.

“People don’t get enough rest. It's psychologically exhausting. And R&R is part of keeping the crew healthy,” Farley said. “Sometimes it’s framed as, ‘These people haven’t had a vacation.’ But we are dealing with well-known limits on the capacity of a crew to operate at top efficiency over time. And that just declines."

Clark, of the Hudson Institute, said the squeeze on the nation's aircraft carriers stems from the lack of preparation and planning for the Iran war.

“If we were going to mobilize to do this kind of conflict, and we anticipated it might go this long, we might have done some changes to the carrier schedule to make sure more would be available,” Clark said.

Clark said the Navy has 11 aircraft carriers and typically deploys two or three at a time. But it could soon deploy four if the USS Theodore Roosevelt leaves San Diego for the Middle East, allowing the Washington to return to Pacific.

But the massive warships will need maintenance, likely causing a bottleneck at the nation's only two carrier shipyards.

“We’ll end up with a maintenance debt that needs to be paid for the next few years,” Clark said. “We’ll probably have less carrier presence than we’ve had in the previous years because carriers will be lined up to get into the shipyard.”

There are questions about the use of aircraft carriers in modern warfare

Michael Swaine, a senior research fellow in the Quincy Institute’s East Asia Program, questions the future need for aircraft carriers as warfare rapidly changes.

Carriers can be more easily targeted with drones and missiles, particularly by an adversary such as China, Swaine said, while smaller ships and submarines can be as effective in striking targets as the fighter jets that launch off a carrier.

Top Navy officials have indicated a desire to move away from a heavy reliance on carriers. Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, told The Associated Press in February that he wants to convince commanders to use smaller, newer ships and other assets instead of consistently turning to huge aircraft carriers.

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Palestinians Besieged in West Bank Village Fear Israeli Settlers will Seize Their Homes

CCTV footage shows, as witnesses say, Jewish settlers throwing rocks on the road in Qusra, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 12, 2026 in this screengrab taken from a handout video- REUTERS
CCTV footage shows, as witnesses say, Jewish settlers throwing rocks on the road in Qusra, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 12, 2026 in this screengrab taken from a handout video- REUTERS
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Palestinians Besieged in West Bank Village Fear Israeli Settlers will Seize Their Homes

CCTV footage shows, as witnesses say, Jewish settlers throwing rocks on the road in Qusra, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 12, 2026 in this screengrab taken from a handout video- REUTERS
CCTV footage shows, as witnesses say, Jewish settlers throwing rocks on the road in Qusra, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 12, 2026 in this screengrab taken from a handout video- REUTERS

From inside his home in the West Bank town of Qusra, Qusai Abu Rida watched on Friday as Israeli settlers moved from where they had erected a tent in front of his house to the valley below, rather than returning to the nearby outpost where they live.

Even as the army took positions around him and the homes of two other families that settlers had blockaded for most of this week, the settlers remained close enough that Abu Rida feared they would again return after the army left and try to take over the home owned by his Palestinian American brother in Ohio.

“I just don’t know when this will end,” he said.

The standoff in Qusra entered a new stage Friday as activists marched toward the besieged homes to try and replenish the families' food and water supply. But Abu Rida said he was growing tired of the pattern, with Israeli forces removing the settlers, only for them to return and reestablish their positions after the troops withdrew.

“It’s like a kids’ game, like cat and mouse,” Ziv Stahl, the executive director of the Israeli rights group Yesh Din, said. “It’s clearly not a matter of capability but a matter of will.”

The siege of the homes is the latest episode in a wave of settler violence convulsing the occupied West Bank, which Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war and which would make up the main part of a future Palestinian state. Israel's military said the village — roughly 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the Palestinian city of Nablus — was a closed military zone.

They did not answer questions about the presence of the settlers. Both Israel’s military and Israel’s police both referred questions arrests in Qusra to the other.

The West Bank has become more dangerous for Palestinians as Israel, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has approved more than 100 new settlements. Extremist settlers routinely enter Palestinian towns, clashing with villagers, burning homes, mosques and cars.

Netanyahu is courting blocs of ultranationalist voters ahead of what’s expected to be a difficult reelection campaign in October. He and members of his cabinet have largely dismissed concerns about settler violence as overblown and attributed it to fringe groups of a few hundred youths. Yet rights groups and Palestinians say the government's policies have made it more difficult to restrain settlers, who are rarely punished for attacks.

The standoff in Qusra began on Sunday when dozens of settlers arrived and blocked the doors to the three houses, preventing occupants from leaving, according to the families inside.

Israeli troops intervened multiple times and arrived in large numbers Thursday.

Abu Rida and his teenage son were temporarily moved by the army on Thursday but allowed to return hours later. He told his brother in Ohio that he planned on staying to defend the home.

For many, the scene unfolding in Qusra — now in its sixth day — reflected broader failures by Israeli authorities to curb the violence in the West Bank.

Itamar Weil, an Israeli human rights activist from the group Bnei Avraham, said the army had threatened to use tear gas against the activists and forced them to leave, even as settlers remained in the valley below Qusra.

“The army used to prevent settlers from carrying out this kind of violence,” he said. “Now, with a government that fully supports them, they’re not doing their job. They should be protecting both sides from violence, but instead they’re removing activists while barely doing anything about the settlers.”

Palestinian officials have reported 1,476 attacks by Israeli settlers in 2026, including several earlier instances in which settlers staged takeovers of Palestinian homes on the outskirts of other West Bank towns.

A total of 87 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank this year, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry. Israel says some were involved in terrorism, which it defines broadly to include militancy and rock-throwing. Three Israelis were killed by Palestinians, including two in a July clash during which four Palestinians were also killed.

Katz strips army of enforcement power against settlers Before calm was restored in Qusra, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Friday that he would transfer all enforcement powers against Israeli civilians in the West Bank from the army to Israel’s police.

“The (Israeli military’s) role is to fight Palestinian terrorism, focus on protecting the borders and settlements against threats, deal with the borders and the territory itself and security threats to the settlements and the State of Israel, and not chase after boys on the hills,” Katz said in a statement.

Historically, the army has been able to arrest Palestinians and bring those accused of crimes before military courts. But when it comes to Israeli civilians, in most circumstances it can only use temporary detention for those suspected of crimes, leaving arrests, investigations and prosecutions to police and civilian courts.

Katz’s move comes after he ended the use of administrative detention against Israeli civilians in November 2024. The military had used the policy as a tool to contain settler violence, allowing it to detain suspects without charge and remove them from the West Bank.

Much like with that move, rights groups said transferring all powers to the police was unlikely to restore order or ensure Palestinian safety.

Some 2.8 million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule in the West Bank alongside more than 560,000 Israeli civilians who live in settlements that the international community largely considers illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Though the Palestinian Authority exercises limited autonomy and policing power in the territory’s largest cities, agreements that date back to the 1990s give Israel security control over large swaths of the territory, including agricultural areas and communities such as Qusra.

Stahl, Yesh Din's executive director, said Katz's announcement wouldn't change or help stem the violence because police will still require army escorts to operate in Palestinian areas.

“Unless (Katz) means he’s going to apply Israeli law and have the police control the West Bank, the military is still the main body in charge,” she said.