Syria’s new rulers invite Assad security officials to surrender
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Headquarters of intelligence service in Damascus is now ‘settlement centre’ where those who served inside turn themselves in. The filthy corridors inside the headquarters of the general intelligence service lay dark and empty. Towering piles of boxes and plastic sit near the steps leading up to the imposing building, as well as torn posters of the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
![[A man steps on a photo of Assad laid in a doorway]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/43940a18a4f3ca4ec727bad3dbd908a91c56bcba/0_0_4000_2400/master/4000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
On the road outside, hastily abandoned cars with smashed windscreens and bullet casings litter the ground – a reminder of the looting and destruction that took place a month ago as Syrians vented their anger at symbols of the Assad regime’s fearsome security state, built up over decades.
![[An HTS soldier wearing a balaclava manages a large crowd of former personnel from the Assad regime]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bf3ecdf1031536fe2a3c1e0ced29658aa13145cc/0_0_4000_2667/master/4000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Today, the intelligence building is where the new Syrian authorities are asking those who served inside to turn in their weapons and themselves. Lines of men wait in the courtyard to receive slips of paper saying they have officially surrendered and reconciled with the new administration, as former insurgents clad in new military-style uniforms examine the handed-in pistols, rifles and ammunition. In one makeshift office, a poster of Assad’s face had been laid on the floor for those walking in to step on.
![[Bearded men queue to get temporary ID documents at a settlement centre run by HTS.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/04304e78f35fc7a386ccb22fef8cb84eb92c4a42/0_0_4000_2400/master/4000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The settlement centres, as Syria’s new Islamist caretaker government has called them, are an attempt to dismantle the fearsome security bodies that enforced a regime of fear among the population and chart a new path forward. Militants who once feared the Assad regime’s weapons and surveillance now greet the people who staffed the sprawling security state that targeted them. Former officers who could prove useful to Syria’s new administration are able to keep some of the trappings of their former lives, for now.
![[Men queue at a settlement centre where a man wearing a protective mask sits with a laptop behind a desk. A portrait of Bashar al-Assad is used as a doormat]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/75e9ce0416bbafb732c881e5c9294c991be358ee/0_0_4000_2667/master/4000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
