Two former loyalists to Bashar al-Assad who fled Syria after his fall are funneling millions of dollars to tens of thousands of potential fighters, hoping to stir uprisings against the new government and reclaim some of their lost influence, a Reuters investigation has found.
Assad, who escaped to Russia last December, is largely resigned to exile in Moscow, say four people close to the family. But other senior figures from his inner circle, including his brother, have not come to terms with losing power.
Reuters found that two of the men once closest to Assad, Maj. Gen. Kamal Hassan and billionaire Rami Makhlouf, are competing to form militias in coastal Syria and Lebanon made up of members of their minority Alawite sect, long associated with the Assad family.
All told, the two men and other factions jostling for power are financing more than 50,000 fighters in hope of winning their loyalty.
Assad’s brother, Maher, who is also in Moscow and still controls thousands of former soldiers, has yet to give money or orders, said the four people close to the Assads.
One prize for Hassan and Makhlouf is control of a network of 14 underground command rooms built around coastal Syria toward the end of Assad’s rule, as well as weapons caches.
Two officers and a Syrian regional governor confirmed the existence of these concealed rooms, details of which appear in photos seen by Reuters.
Hassan, who was Bashar’s military intelligence chief, has been tirelessly making calls and sending voice messages to commanders and advisors. In them, he seethes about his lost influence and outlines grandiose visions of how he would rule coastal Syria, home to the majority of Syria’s Alawite population and Assad’s former powerbase.
Makhlouf, a cousin of the Assads, once used his business empire to fund the ousted President during the civil war, only to run afoul of his more powerful relatives and wind up under years of house arrest. He now portrays himself in conversations and messages as a messianic figure who will return to power after ushering in an apocalyptic final battle.
Hassan and Makhlouf did not respond to requests for comment for this report. Bashar and Maher Assad couldn’t be reached. Reuters also sought comment from the Assad brothers through intermediaries, who didn’t reply.
From their exiles in Moscow, Hassan and Makhlouf envision a fractured Syria, and each wants control of the Alawite-majority areas.
Both have spent millions of dollars in competing efforts to build forces, Reuters found. Their deputies are located in several countries.
To counter the plotters, Syria’s new government is deploying another former Assad loyalist – a childhood friend of new President Ahmed al-Sharaa who became a paramilitary leader for Assad and then switched sides mid-war after the ousted President turned against him. The task of that man, Khaled al-Ahmad, is to persuade Alawite ex-soldiers and civilians that their future lies with the new Syria.
Details of the scheming are based on interviews with 48 people with direct knowledge of the competing plans. All spoke on condition of anonymity.
Reuters also reviewed financial records, operational documents, and exchanges of voice and text messages.
The governor of the coastal region of Tartous, Ahmed al-Shami, said Syrian authorities are aware of the outlines of the plans and ready to combat them. He confirmed the existence of the command-room network as well, but said it has been weakened.
“We are certain they cannot do anything effective, given their lack of strong tools on the ground and their weak capabilities,” al-Shami told Reuters in response to questions about the plotting.
The Lebanese Interior Ministry and the Russian Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. A UAE official said its government is committed to preventing the use of its territory for “all forms of illicit financial flows.”
For now, the prospects of a successful uprising seem low.
Chief plotters Hassan and Makhlouf are virulently at odds with one another.
Their hopes are fading to win backing from Russia, once Assad’s most powerful political and military supporter. Many Alawites in Syria, who also suffered under Assad, mistrust the pair. And the new government is working to stymie their plans.
In a brief statement in response to the Reuters findings, the government’s Alawite point man al-Ahmad said the “work of healing – of uprooting sectarian hatred and honoring the dead – remains the only path toward a Syria that can live with itself again.”
Hassan claims control of 12,000 fighters, while Makhlouf claims control of at least 54,000, according to their factions’ internal documents. Commanders on the ground said fighters are paid a pittance and taking money from both sides.
The exiles don't appear to have mobilized any forces yet. Reuters could not confirm the fighter figures or determine specific action plans. Tartous governor Al-Shami said potential fighters numbered in the tens of thousands.
In interviews, the people closest to the plotters said they’re aware that tens of thousands of Syrian Alawites could face violent retribution if they implement their plans against the new leadership.
In March, nearly 1,500 civilians were killed across the Mediterranean coast by government-affiliated forces after a failed uprising in an Alawite town.
Both Hassan and Makhlouf promise to protect Syria’s Alawites from the insecurity that has continued since March, including near-daily killings and kidnappings.
Neither Makhlouf nor Hassan were behind the protests, but rather a cleric who opposes both men and publicly called on people to demonstrate peacefully.
Makhlouf attacked the cleric the next day in a social media post, saying, “all these movements will only bring calamity, for the time is not yet right.”
One of Hassan’s top military coordinators told Reuters that fighting is the only way to restore Alawite dignity.
“We are lucky that only this number of our people have died so far,” said the coordinator, a former Assad-era military intelligence officer who is now in Lebanon. “Perhaps thousands more will die, but the sect must offer up sacrificial lambs” to defend the community.
According to January 2025 documents seen by Reuters, Assadist forces drew up initial plans to build a paramilitary force of 5,780 fighters and supply them from the subterranean command rooms. These are essentially large storerooms equipped with arms, solar power, internet, GPS units and walkie-talkies.
Nothing came of that early plan, and the command rooms – along a spine in coastal Syria about 180 kilometers from north to south – remain operational but essentially idle, according to two people with knowledge of them and photos seen by Reuters.
One photo showed a room with five stacked crates, three of which were open to reveal a collection of AK-47s, ammunition and hand grenades. The room also held three desktop computers, two tablets, a set of walkie-talkies, and a power bank. In the center was a wooden table topped with a large map.
For the plotters, “this network is Treasure Island, and they are all boats trying to reach it,” said one of the people, a commander who monitors the readiness of the rooms.
Al-Shami, the Tartous governor, said the network is real but poses little danger.
As senior military officials and ranking government figures escaped abroad in December 2024, many mid-level commanders remained in Syria. Most fled to the coastal regions dominated by Alawites, a Muslim minority that makes up a little over 10% of Syria’s population.
Those officers started recruiting fighters, according to a retired commander involved in the effort.
“The most fertile ground was the military,” the retired commander said. “Thousands of young men from the sect had been conscripted into the army, which was dissolved in December, and they suddenly found themselves exposed.”
Then came the failed uprising on March 6. An Alawite unit operating independently ambushed security forces from the new Syrian government in rural Latakia, killing 12 men and capturing more than 150, according to a brigadier general who was involved with the ambush and has since left for Lebanon.
The new Syrian government says hundreds of its security forces died in the fighting that followed – a claim largely echoed by the pro-Assad fighters.
The brigadier general said 128 pro-Assad forces died in the uprising, which was quelled by the new government. The insurgency sparked reprisals that killed nearly 1,500 Alawites.
The Assadist exiles neither started nor commanded the uprising, according to the officers who were there, but those days marked a turning point. They began to organize.
An Assad Family Feud
It was on March 9 that Makhlouf started calling himself “The Coast Boy,” declaring in a statement that he had been entrusted with a divine mission to help Alawites. “I’m back, and blessed be the return,” the statement read. It did not mention that he was in Moscow.
Makhlouf dominated Syria’s economy for more than two decades, with holdings estimated by the British government at well over a billion dollars in industries as varied as telecoms, construction and tourism. He used his money to fund Syrian army units and allied militias during the civil war, which broke out in 2011.
When Assad’s victory seemed assured in 2019, Makhlouf publicly claimed credit. Soon after, Assad seized Makhlouf’s businesses, ostensibly because they were indebted to the state, and put him under years of house arrest.
Makhlouf escaped to Lebanon in an ambulance the night of December 8, 2024, as Damascus fell to Sharaa’s rebels.
Makhlouf’s brother Ehab also tried to flee that night in his Maserati, but was shot to death near the border and robbed of millions of dollars he was carrying in cash, according to four close associates of the family and a customs officer with direct knowledge of the events. Reuters could not independently verify the events of that night.
Makhlouf now lives on a private floor in a luxurious Radisson hotel in Moscow under tight security, according to nine aides and relatives.
The Radisson in Moscow and group headquarters in Brussels did not respond to a request for comment.
According to Makhlouf’s Facebook posts and WhatsApp messages to associates, he believes God gave him money and influence so he can play a messianic role in a prophecy involving the battle of Armageddon in Damascus.
In his interpretation, the apocalypse will arrive after the end of US President Donald Trump’s term.
Using trusted business administrators three countries, Makhlouf is transferring money to Alawite officers for salaries and equipment, according to a financial manager and receipts and payroll tables seen by Reuters.
The documents show the money is funneled through two prominent Syrian officers who reunited with Makhlouf in Moscow: Suhail Hassan and Qahtan Khalil, who both held the rank of major general. Hassan and Khalil claimed to have created a force for Makhlouf totaling what they said were 54,053 willing fighters, including 18,000 officers, organized into 80 battalions and groups in and around the cities of Homs, Hama, Tartous and Latakia.
Many rank-and-file soldiers conscripted under Assad, however, gave up fighting when his government fell.
Hassan and Khalil didn’t reply to requests for comment about their role in transferring money.
An UAE official said the government maintains strict oversight over its economic sectors and fully “supports Syria’s efforts to safeguard its security, stability, and sovereignty over all territories.’
One of his financial managers told Reuters that Makhlouf has spent at least $6 million on salaries. Payroll tables and salary receipts created by financial aides to Makhlouf in Lebanon claimed he spent $976,705 in May, and that one group of 5,000 fighters received $150,000 in August.
The total force numbers are real, according to five leaders of military groups in Syria who are on Makhlouf’s payroll and lead about a fifth of his following. But Makhlouf’s funding falls short of their needs, amounting to just $20 to $30 a month per fighter.
In addition, Makhlouf’s staff has sought to provide weapons. They have mapped the possible location of dozens of caches hidden during the Assad era totaling a few thousand firearms, according to schematics Reuters viewed.
These stockpiles are separate from the hidden command rooms.
They have also been in discussions with smugglers in Syria for new weapons.
People familiar with the discussions said they didn’t know if new weapons were actually purchased or delivered.
Altogether, the five local military leaders said they command about 12,000 men in various stages of readiness. One of them told Reuters the time wasn’t yet right for action.
Another of the five commanders derided Makhlouf as trying to buy loyalty with “crumbs of money.”
All five said they had accepted money from both Makhlouf and Hassan, the spy chief. They saw no issue with overlapping paymasters.
Mass Grave and Hiding Atrocities
Hassan ran the Assad dictatorship’s military detention system, which was notorious for extorting money at scale from prisoners’ families, according to a 2024 United Nations report about the system.
A Reuters investigation this year found it was Hassan who proposed moving a mass grave containing thousands of bodies in 2018 to the Dhumair desert outside Damascus to hide the scope of the Assad government atrocities.
With Assad’s fall, Hassan took refuge in the Russian embassy in December 2024 for nearly two weeks.
He was infuriated at what he perceived as ill-treatment by his hosts, who provided a single room with just one hard chair to sit on, according to two people close to him.
“Kamal Hassan is not one to sit on a wooden chair for days!” he said in one WhatsApp voice message to his inner circle from this spring, reviewed by Reuters.
Hassan ultimately took up residence in a three-story villa in suburban Moscow, according to an officer who met him over the summer.
Since then, he has seen Maher al-Assad once and maintains close ties with Bashar’s Russian protectors, according to the two people aware of Hassan’s movements.
According to Hassan’s operations coordinator in Lebanon, Hassan has spent $1.5 million since March on 12,000 fighters in Syria and Lebanon.
“Be patient, my people, and don’t surrender your arms. I am the one who will restore your dignity,” he said in another WhatsApp voice message from April that appeared aimed at commanders. Two recipients confirmed the message was from him.
In mid-year, a charity called the “Development of Western Syria” announced its creation and said it was funded by “the Syrian citizen Maj. Gen. Kamal Hassan,” according to one of its initial Facebook posts.
Three officers linked to Hassan and a manager in the organization described it as a humanitarian cover so Hassan could build influence among Alawites.
In August, the charity paid $80,000 to shelter 40 Syrian Alawite families, according to an announcement of its first action. That same month, Hassan sent $200,000 in cash to 80 officers in Lebanon, according to a payroll document seen by Reuters.
