Details of Failed U.S. Effort to Recruit Former Alawite Syrian Army Officers Opposed to Assad

Dana Ballout and Adam Entous

November 18, 2014

Outreach to Alawi Officers From Syria Fell Flat

A Syrian man walks near a poster with an image of President Bashar al-Assad in the Saadallah al-Jabiri square on the government-controlled side of Aleppo on Nov. 16, 2014. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)

Former Syrian army officers housed in a special camp in southern Turkey aren’t the only Assad regime defectors who feel abandoned by the West. The camp was set up to house Sunni Muslim officers, some with decades of military experience and know-how, as described in a Wall Street Journal article.

Some military officers and government officials from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s own Alawite sect, along with members of the Ismaili Shia Muslim sect, also fled to Turkey with high hopes for the opposition. Like the Sunnis, they grew disillusioned.

Despite their shared goal of removing Mr. Assad, the groups weren’t housed together because they were too distrustful of each other, officers said. The Sunnis largely remain in the 24-acre Camp Apaydin, complete with a grocery and exercise yard; the Alawis and Ismailis were sent to live in private homes and hotels in southern Turkish towns, and many of them have since moved to Europe and broken off ties with the Syrian opposition.

“We were afraid of the Sunnis there,” said one defector, Ahmad Hallak.

The Alawi and Ismaili defectors couldn’t work or travel, and often felt trapped, said Yaseen Adaymah, an Alawi who said he headed a Syrian regime intelligence unit in the province of Latakia before heading to Turkey in 2012. He said he moved to Paris earlier this year.

The Central Intelligence Agency and Turkey’s MIT spy agency in 2011 and 2012 reached out to Alawi commanders in Syria in a bid to weaken Mr. Assad, according to U.S. and Turkish officials. At the time, the U.S. and Turkey thought a surge in Alawi military defections could help force Mr. Assad to relinquish power. But most top Alawi commanders who were approached weren’t interested in defecting, according to U.S. and Turkish officials who said they were briefed on the outreach efforts. Fewer defectors than expected came to Turkey, a Turkish official said.

Mr. Adaymah was so embittered by his experience that he said he urged fellow Alawi officers who remained in Syria to stay there. “There is nothing here: no protection, nothing. You will be shamed in the streets,” he said he told them.