Sitting in the police headquarters of Homs, in an office that, until last week, was run by the feared intelligence network of Bashar al-Assad, Alaa Omran is holding court.
A former regime police chief turned Islamist rebel commander, he faces an unenviable task: managing a tricky transition from five decades of brutal rule by the Assad family. Their stunning defeat, by a hodgepodge of rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – which was previously aligned with al-Qaeda – has left a security vacuum that needs to be filled quickly. It is a quandary facing every city across Syria: who will rule and how?
Homs, Syria’s third city, is nicknamed the “cradle of the revolution”. It witnessed some of the fiercest battles of the 13-year civil war – the scars of which are chiselled into many neighbourhoods. Homs’ population is diverse, composed of Sunni Muslims, Christians, and the Alawite minority which the Assad family belonged to. Omran was recruited by HTS – which has spent years distancing itself from its jihadi past – to lead their police force in a city in the northwest before Assad’s fall. Even he is somewhat bewildered by the calm here, although it is still tense.
“Because Homs has a wide variety of religions, we thought it would be difficult to control,” he says at his new desk, as his police force – a mix of ex-rebel fighters and formerly displaced Homs residents – works downstairs to handle a myriad of complaints from anxious citizens gathered outside.
“But now everything is under control. During the last week, there have been no attempts to kill anyone.”
Omran attributes the success of the extraordinary assault against Assad’s forces not just to military tactics and newly developed military hardware – there is much talk of new “Shaheen” or falcon drones – but years of planning for the “day after.”
This planning included a transition schedule that would – according to HTS – see the military wing of rebel groups withdraw from cities in favour of a working “civilian” police force. For years, Omran claims, they ran training programmes in the northwestern province of Idlib to build a police force capable of patrolling the streets, manning stations where those wanting to relinquish their weapons could do, as well as reaching out to minorities and keeping the peace.
“The plan was put in place for all government departments, whether health services or police. We built units ready to take over and administer,” he adds. Omran, a Homs native, defected from the Assad regime in 2012 and joined the small Islamist faction Ansar al-Sham. He was later appointed by HTS to manage police in Haram city, Idlib. He insists he is no longer with the armed forces and greets us dressed in civilian clothes.
This is appears to be a trend: HTS’s leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani, which is a nom-de-guerre, now prefers to be referred to by his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, and met the UN special envoy in Damascus dressed in civilian clothes.
Omran talks about the development of the police force being a key part of the transition to a new Syrian civilian state.
“Most of these units are comprised of people from the town they will now police, who were forcibly displaced to Idlib because of the war. I myself am from Homs…. They sent me here to be the commander because I know a lot of the people. It makes the next stage much easier,” he says.
“We put out a general amnesty announcement and created stations for [regime] soldiers to surrender their weapons and be treated as civilians,” he adds. “Many people turn up at those places daily. That said, the amnesty is not for criminals—those who committed crimes will be held accountable.”
Sheikh Shreeh al-Homsi, also from Homs and a senior HTS official, echoes the claim that HTS is withdrawing from cities in favour of a police force.
He adds that one of the main tasks will be trying to locate those behind the arbitrary detention, torture, and summary killings of Syrian citizens. “We have built an information bank concerning those who committed crimes. ”
