The General Security Service () is the main

police service The police are a constituted body of people empowered by a state with the aim of enforcing the law and protecting the public order as well as the public itself. This commonly includes ensuring the safety, health, and possessions of citizens ...

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

. It is charged with maintaining law and order, protecting life and property and investigating crimes. It also performs other routine police functions, including traffic control.

History

The General Security Service was the police force of

Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was a Sunni Islamist political organisation and paramilitary group involved in the Syrian civil war. It was formed on 28January 2017 as a merger between several armed groups: Jaysh al-Ahrar (an Ahrar al-Sham facti ...

(HTS), which controlled areas in Northern Syria replacing the Free Syrian Police before it was transferred to the interior ministry of the

Syrian Salvation Government The Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) was a '' de facto'' unrecognized quasi-state in Syria formed on 2 November 2017 by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other opposition groups during the Syrian civil war. It controlled much of northwest S ...

in April 2024. Its roots could be traced to 1945 when the

Public Security Police In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

was formed. A

police academy A police academy, also known as a law enforcement training center, police college, or police university, is a training school for police cadets, designed to prepare them for the law enforcement agency they will be joining upon graduation, or to o ...

was opened in September 2023 and produced its first batch of graduates in August 2024. The Ba'athist-led Public Security Police collapsed in 2024 with the

fall of the Assad regime On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime collapsed during a 2024 Syrian opposition offensives, major offensive by Syrian opposition, opposition forces. The offensive was spearheaded by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and supported mainly by the Turk ...

and flight of Bashar al-Assad. HTS brought the General Security Service from Idlib to maintain order and security in recently captured areas in the country. The new de-facto rulers of Syria, the

Syrian caretaker government The Syrian caretaker government () was the provisional government of Syria. It was established in December 2024 by the Syrian opposition after the Syrian General Command appointed Mohammed al-Bashir as prime minister, replacing Mohammad ...

, are making preparations to drastically reorganize the General Security Service as Syria's police force. Syria is in dire need of security forces, as the

had dissolved the same day as

. Heavy recruitment is still ongoing and needed.

History

References

See also