DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – Shabiha is a term for the state sponsored militias of the Syrian government, but in Syria the word has become pervasive and adopted several different meanings, many of which are sinister and strike fear into Syrians’ hearts.
The word shabiha in the Arabic language can be defined in different ways; the word shabah means the ghost, or as a verb can be used to make something invisible, while in other contexts can mean to spread the leather between two stakes, or to crucify somebody to torture them.
Some people even use the word to refer to a type of Mercedes known in Syria as the vehicle used by the Shabiha. The Arabic shabah can also have other meanings, including to be strong or to tear something apart.
The word shabih can mean a strong or daring person. In this sense, the term has long been applied to smugglers operating on the Syrian-Lebanese border, and it was natural in this context that it was affiliated with the Assad family. In Aleppo Governorate, the term Shabiha is used frequently to refer to pro-Assad Sunni tribes.
The birth of Shabiha
When Hafez Assad became the president of Syria after successive internal coups in 1966 and 1970, his relatives from Latakia governorate began to take control of economic life on the coast, including the flourishing smuggling business.
Residents in the area said that the first person from the Assad family to seriously engage in smuggling was Malik Assad, the son of Ibrahim and half-brother of Hafez Assad.
Malik Assad used his family name to establish a profitable illegal business in the latter half of the 1970s. Later, the president became angry with him as he was accused of selling weapons to Islamist insurgents, and his smuggling operations were ended.
Later, Hafez Assad’s two brothers, Jamil and Rifaat, gained gradually influence over smuggling and illegal businesses in Latakia. The sons of Jamil Assad, Munther and (most importantly) Fawaz, were involved in the smuggling of all kinds and goods.
Over time, the term shabiha came to be applied to Fawaz Assad’s entourage and similar groups, which are usually led by a member of the ruling family.
Slowly, these groups have become very infamous for their violent behavior and involvemen
Whips and rifles
By the beginning of the Syrian war after the protests in March 2011, the role of the Shabiha had shifted from trading in prohibited weapons, drugs, and smuggled goods to a real counterpart to the Syrian regime’s army.
They took it upon themselves to confront demonstrators alongside security forces at the beginning of the war, eventually fighting against armed opposition groups in the advanced stages of the war.
In March 2011, anti-government protesters reported that they had been attacked by Shabiha, which was at the time an ambiguous name used to describe a wide range of regime-affiliated militias.
During the initial waves of popular protests, the state encouraged the formation of local gangs, often made up of Alawites or other minorities who felt threatened by the uprising that appeared to be dominated by Sunnis in later stages.
In early 2011, the regime was not only going through a real confrontation with the protestors, but also was engaged in a media battle, as supporters and opponents of Assad struggled to define the conflict on their terms and influence regional and international media coverage.
Supporters of the government and state-controlled media often described the protestors as infiltrators, terrorists, or armed gangs.
The Syrian opposition has also responded by mocking Assad’s supporters as minhebekjiyah (literally, “we love you,” referring to the cult of personality around Bashar Assad promoted by the people).
The term shabiha appeared in this context for the first time in the opposition’s discourse, referring to groups of regime supporters who attacked civilian demonstrators with knives and firearms, led by intelligence officials wearing civilian clothes.
Rabei (a pseudonym), an activist who participated in several early protests but has since been forced to flee the country, vividly remembers the Shabiha groups in Damascus in 2011.
He told North Press that the government used Abbasid Stadium, a large football stadium in the city center of Damascus, as a center for the Shabiha. “About a thousand soldiers were stationed there and then stopped many public transport buses and gave them to Shabiha.”
Rabei said, “I used to see them drive those buses all day, heading to the areas where the protests were taking place. When the protest started, it didn’t take more ten minutes for an informant to call the security or the police, and then they would come.”
Towards universality
The term shabiha was not in common use when the protests began. Until late March 2011, the term was applied only to criminal gangs on the Syrian coast, but that changed after anti-government demonstrations spread to Sunni communities in Latakia and Baniyas.
This resulted in the government adopting its method of repression and killing many activists. On March 26 and 27, 2011, local sources described the perpetrators of these killings as a mixture of regular and Shabiha individuals, a term that could have been easily understood in the Latakia region but not necessarily anywhere else.
Activists at the time said that the security forces were using criminal gangs called Shabiha to suppress the demonstrations.
At the time, the number of Shabiha in Syria was estimated at between 5,000 and 10,000, indicating that they came from Alawite-majority towns such as Jableh, Qardaha, Tartous and Latakia.
The term shabiha spread quickly among international activists and correspondents, as Syrians and international observers rushed to explain reports of civilian sympathy for President Assad attacking anti-government protesters.
The first appearance of the word shabiha in major American and European newspapers came after a report by al-Arabia [Saudi Channel] on March 28, 2011.
In other areas, such as Damascus and Tartus, activists reported that members of the notorious Shabiha gang affiliated with Assad family spread in the streets of Tartus and in one of Damascus’ neighborhoods. They were described as “gangsters armed with sticks and shotguns.”
Others see the group as a Ba’athist militia linked to Maher, the brother of Bashar Assad.
These reports were quickly passed on to the Arab media. Soon, the opposition used the word shabiha as a blanket term among Syrian activists online and in the international media.
At this point, the word was understood to refer to Assad’s supporters in general and to members of pro-Assad militias in particular, and was used in all regions of Syria, far from the coastal regions where the real shabiha were operating.
In June 2011, there were reports about armed groups in Homs, which activists considered a perfect example of how to deal with the phenomenon of militias in the international media: Amateur video footage from different cities showed thugs in civilian clothes, referred to as shabiha, committing atrocities. Many of them were members of Assad’s tribe or were smugglers from the coastal regions.
It is believed that the leaders of these Shabiha are Munther and Fawaz Assad, cousins of Bashar Assad.
Pawns of the president
The term shabiha was used in the context of the 2011 protests at first only to describe violent pro-Assad civilians, but its meaning gradually expanded and was used for unarmed and nonviolent individuals as well.
Soon, the word began to be used in a metaphorical sense for unarmed supporters of the regime, such as police informants, journalists, politicians, and religious figures, to portray them as similar to armed shabiha.
For example, the editor-in-chief of the al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper used the term to refer to the pro-Assad writers, describing them as media shabiha, in contrast to the security shabiha.
Additionally, some activists and commentators have begun to use the word to refer to anyone working in the government, without seeking to create an analogy with armed groups.
Indeed, the opposition’s use of the word shabiha closely aligns with the way government supporters use the term “terrorists” to describe all armed insurgents, and sometimes civilians who support them.
Of course, while it is possible to interpret the precise definitions of both shabiha and terrorists, these words are not intended primarily to be used in a descriptive sense, but rather to insult, delegitimize, and discredit opponents. In response, hardline supporters of the regime reclaimed the term in order to stir up and challenge the opposition.
For example, pro-government protesters may declare that they are proud of shabiha, which means that they are willing to fight to die for the regime.
In January 2012, Bashar Assad spoke at a government-organized rally in the Umayyad Square in Damascus, and the crowd greeted him with a pro-regime slogan “Shabiha forever, for the sake of your eyes, Assad.”
The word is also now widely used as an insult of the internal quarrels among the opposition figures, accusing each others of controlling or carrying out violations reminiscent of pro-Assad militias.
When the rebel coalition known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) tried to elect a new chief of staff in the spring of 2014, a quarrel broke out between the competing parties. The ousted chief of staff, Major General Salim Idris, blamed his rivals for starting the fighting and described their actions as reminiscent of shabiha.
However, the term shabiha, due to its historical affiliation with Alawite society and the nature of the conflict in Syria, is laden with sectarian meanings. Many members of the opposition will be keen to point out that a shabih can be from any sect.
While others occasionally use the word as a synonym for the Alawite regime, Alawite villages may be referred to as shabiha villages, though many of these villages are poor and receive little to no help from the government. Some armed groups use phrases such as “demolishing the stronghold of Shabiha,” or “flattened Shabiha strongholds,” as a metaphor for firing rockets at Alawi towns.
Tools of control
In the first weeks of the protests, pro-government Syrians began to volunteer for military service in what were known as the Popular Committees, and these committees were initially conceived as a kind of organization to monitor neighborhoods.
These groups were so visible across the state that Assad even mentioned them in a speech he gave at Damascus University in June 2011, in which he referred to the members of the Popular Committees, describing them as young people who faced great risks.
Yet they were not noticed by the international community and the media, with some exceptions of mixed reports of the Shabiha militia.
In 2012, the regime began to reorganize many of the Popular Committees and other militias that had appeared during the war.
This led to the creation of the National Defense Forces, which is a comprehensive umbrella for local citizens who fight alongside the Syrian government army to defend their communities and regions, as President Assad claimed in mid-2013.
With the passage of time, the National Defense Forces emerged as a very important part of the government’s military apparatus, assuming frontline roles and sometimes using heavy weapons, tanks and artillery in their battles.
Shabiha achieved tremendous economic success through trade in drugs and weapons and trade between regime- and opposition-held areas.
In addition, these groups practiced the organized process of looting, along with other prohibited acts such as kidnapping and ransom demands.
The media showed footage that Syrians would never forget of the looting of large areas in Aleppo, Idlib countryside, Homs, Daraa and Damascus, and Shabiha had the lion’s share of those stolen items.