''Shabiha'' (
Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic, also called Shami (autonym: or ), is a group of mutually intelligible vernacular Arabic varieties spoken in the Levant, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey (historically in Adana, Mersin and Hatay on ...
: ', ; also romanized ''Shabeeha'' or ''Shabbiha''; ) is a term for state sponsored militias of the
Syrian government
Government of the Syrian Arab Republic is the union government created by the constitution of Syria where by the president is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government. Syr ...
. However, in the
Aleppo Governorate
Aleppo Governorate ( ar, محافظة حلب / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ḥalab'' / ) is one of the fourteen governorates of Syria. It is the most populous governorate in Syria with a population of more than 4,867,000 (2011 Est.), almost 23% of the ...
the term Shabiha is used frequently to refer to pro-Assad Sunni tribes such as al-Berri,
al-Baggara
Al-Baggara or Bakara ( ar, البقّارة (البكّارة), ' or ') is an Arab tribe of the Euphrates tribes spread widely between Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. The tribe was named by the name of their grandfather, Imam Muhammad al-Baqir, o ...
, al-Hasasne and al-Zeido. In the city of
Aleppo
)), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black".
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itself it was led by the powerful Sunni Arab al-Berri tribe.
The word became common in the 90s, when it was being used to refer to "thugs" who work with the government and often drove
Mercedes-Benz S-Class
The Mercedes-Benz S-Class, formerly known as ''Sonderklasse'' (German for "special class", abbreviated as "S-Klasse"), is a series of full-sized luxury vehicle, luxury sedans, limousines and Armored car (VIP), armored sedans produced by the Germa ...
and gave their guards the same car; that specific car model was nicknamed Shabah (Ghost) in many Arabic countries which led to its drivers being called Shabeeh
The
Syrian opposition
The Syrian opposition ( ar, المعارضة السورية ', ) is the political structure represented by the Syrian National Coalition and associated Syrian anti-Assad groups with certain territorial control as an alternative Syrian gover ...
stated that the ''shabiha'' are a tool of the government for cracking down on dissent.
The
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
, image = Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Logo.jpg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = The logo of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
, type = NGO
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, founder ...
has stated that some of the ''shabiha'' are
mercenaries
A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any o ...
.
Before the Syrian civil war
According to defectors privately interviewed by ''The Star'' in 2012, 'Shabiha mercenaries' were established in the 1980s by
Rifaat al-Assad
Rifaat Ali al-Assad ( ar, رِفْعَتُ عَلِيِّ ٱلْأَسَدِ, Rifʿat al-ʾAsad; born 22 August 1937) is the younger brother of the late President of Syria, Hafez Assad, and Jamil al-Assad, and the uncle of the incumbent President ...
and Namir al-Assad, President
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad ', , (, 6 October 1930 – 10 June 2000) was a Syrian statesman and military officer who served as President of Syria from taking power in 1971 until his death in 2000. He was also Prime Minister of Syria from 1970 to 1 ...
's brother and cousin.
They were originally concentrated in the Mediterranean region of Syria around
Latakia
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,
Banias
Banias or Banyas ( ar, بانياس الحولة; he, בניאס, label=Modern Hebrew; Judeo-Aramaic, Medieval Hebrew: פמייס, etc.; grc, Πανεάς) is a site in the Golan Heights near a natural spring, once associated with the Greek ...
and
Tartous
)
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, where they allegedly benefited from smuggling through the ports in the area.
The shabiha, who were named for the Arabic word for ghost or for the
Mercedes S600 that was popular for its smuggling sized trunk and was called the Shabah,
were known by the Alawites in Syria as Alawi ganglords.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, they smuggled food, cigarettes and commodities, subsidized by the government, from Syria into Lebanon and sold them for a massive profit, while luxury cars, guns and drugs were smuggled in reverse from Lebanon up the
Bekaa Valley
The Beqaa Valley ( ar, links=no, وادي البقاع, ', Lebanese ), also transliterated as Bekaa, Biqâ, and Becaa and known in classical antiquity as Coele-Syria, is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon. It is Lebanon's most important ...
and into Syria's state controlled economy.
The shabiha guards, who each had loyalty to different members of the
extended Assad family, were untouchable and operated with impunity from the local authorities.
They gained notoriety in the 1990s for the brutal way they enforced their protection rackets in Latakia and were noted for their cruelty and blind devotion to their leaders.
By the mid-1990s, they had gotten out of hand, and President Hafez Assad had his son
Basil Assad clamp down on them, which he did successfully.
In 2000, when Bashar Assad came to power, they were apparently disbanded,
but following the uprising that began in March 2011, the shabiha gangs, which evolved into the shabiha militias, were again approved by Assad's government.
Syrian Civil War
![Berri clan militiamen captured by FSA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Berri_clan_militiamen_captured_by_FSA.png)
During the war, the shabiha have been accused by Syrian locals and the foreign press of attacking and killing protesters. In March 2011, activists reported that Shabiha drove through
Latakia
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in cars armed with machine guns firing at protesters, and then later of taking up sniper position on rooftops and killing up to 21 people.
It was reported by local activists that on 18 and 19 April that the shabiha and security forces killed 21 protesters in Homs.
In May, ''
Foreign Affairs
''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and ...
'' reported that the shabiha joined the
Fourth Armoured Division, led by
Maher al-Assad
Maher al-Assad ( ar, مَاهِرُ ٱلْأَسَدِ, Māhir al-ʾAsad, born 8 December 1967) is a Syrian general and commander of the Republican Guard and the army's elite Fourth Armoured Division, which together with Syria's secret police ...
, and attacked civilians in the cities of Banias, Jableh, and Latakia."
A month later in June, witnesses and refugees from the northwestern region said that the shabiha have reemerged during the uprising and were being used by the Syrian government to carry out "a scorched earth campaign
burning crops, ransacking houses and shooting randomly." ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' reported a case in which four sisters were raped by shabiha members. They are described to wear civilian clothes, trainers and white running shoes and often are taking steroids. A physician explained that "many of the men were recruited from bodybuilding clubs and encouraged to take steroids. They are treated like animals, and manipulated by their bosses to carry out these murders".
Many shabiha were described by locals as having shaved heads, thin beards and white trainers. It was also reported by Syrian locals that some elements in the Shabiha were contemplating plans to clear Sunni Muslim villages from the Alawi northwest in the hopes of creating an easily defendable
rump state
A rump state is the remnant of a once much larger state, left with a reduced territory in the wake of secession, annexation, occupation, decolonization, or a successful coup d'état or revolution on part of its former territory. In the last case, ...
. One militiaman said he was ready to kill women and children to defend his friends, family and president: "Sunni women are giving birth to babies who will fight us in years to come, so we have the right to fight anyone who can hurt us in the future".
In July 2012, a captured alleged shabiha member admitted looting and murder, stating that it was for "money and power". The Toronto Star describes Shahiba as "mafia militia
smuggling commodities, appliances, drugs and guns between Syria and Lebanon at the behest of Assad’s extended family" and the Telegraph as "a group that suffers from a dangerous cocktail of religious indoctrination, minority paranoia and smuggler roots".
In December 2012,
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...
reporter
Richard Engel
Richard Engel (born September 16, 1973) is an American journalist and author who is the chief foreign correspondent for NBC News. He was assigned to that position on April 18, 2008 after serving as the network's Middle East correspondent and Be ...
and his five crew members
were abducted in
Latakia
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. Having escaped after five days in captivity, Engel held a Shabiha group responsible for the abduction. Engel's account was however challenged from early on. More than two years later, following further investigation by ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', it however came out that the NBC team "was almost certainly taken by a Sunni criminal element affiliated with the
Free Syrian Army
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) ( ar, الجيش السوري الحر, al-jaysh as-Sūrī al-ḥur) is a loose faction in the Syrian Civil War founded on 29 July 2011 by officers of the Syrian Armed Forces with the goal of bringing down the governm ...
," rather than by a loyalist Shia group.
Alleged role in Houla massacre
On May 25, 2012, 78 people, including 49 children, were killed in two opposition-controlled villages in the
Houla Region of Syria, a cluster of villages north of
Homs
Homs ( , , , ; ar, حِمْص / ALA-LC: ; Levantine Arabic: / ''Ḥomṣ'' ), known in pre-Islamic Syria as Emesa ( ; grc, Ἔμεσα, Émesa), is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is Metres above sea level ...
.
While a small proportion of the deaths appeared to have resulted from artillery and tank rounds used against the villages, the foreign press later announced that most of the massacre's victims had been "summarily executed in two separate incidents",
and that witnesses affirmed that the Shabiha were the most likely perpetrators.
Townspeople described how Shabiha, from Shia/Alawite villages to the south and west of Houla (
Kabu and Felleh were named repeatedly), entered the town after shelling of the ground for several hours. According to one eyewitness, the killers had written Shia slogans on their foreheads. The U.N. reported that "entire families were shot in their houses",
and video emerged of children with their skulls split open.
Others had been shot or knifed to death, some with their throats cut.
The fifteen nations of the
U.N. Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and ...
unanimously condemned the massacre,
with Russia and China agreeing to a resolution on the
Syrian Civil War for the first time.
The U.S., U.K., and eleven other nations–the Netherlands, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Bulgaria, Canada and Turkey–jointly expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats already 4 days after the massacre took place.
The German newspaper
FAZ published findings in June 2012, that the Houla massacre has been perpetrated by rebellious groups antagonistic to the Syrian government.
Alleged role in Al-Qubair massacre
Another massacre was reported but not investigated by local villagers and activists to have taken place in the Syrian settlement of
Al-Qubair
Al-Qubeir (Arabic: ; also referred to as Mazraat al-Qubeir, Qubair, Qubayr, al-Qubayr and al-Kubeir in various news reports) is a settlement in the Hama Governorate of Syria, near the larger village of Maarzaf. Al-Qubeir is described as a Sunni ...
on June 6, 2012, only two weeks after the killings at Houla. According to
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
, Al-Qubair is a farming settlement inside the village of
Maarzaf
Ma'arzaf ( ar, معرزاف) is a village in northern Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate, located northwest of Hama. Nearby localities include Asilah to the west, Mahardah to the north, Khitab to the east and Umm al-Tuyur to the s ...
.
According to activists, 28 people were killed, many of them women and children. The day after the massacre,
UNSMIS
The United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) was a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Syria, set up in 2012 as a result of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2043 in response to the Syrian Civil War. It was commanded by ...
observers attempted to enter Al-Qubair to verify the reports, but were fired upon and forced to retreat by Sunni armed militia that have entered the city the day before.
Victims were reportedly stabbed and shot by shabiha forces loyal to the government of
Bashar al-Assad
Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the ...
, according to the victim's families.
Leadership
In the coastal region, the group is reportedly led by Fawaz al-Assad and Munzer al-Assad, first cousins of President Assad.
Another source, Mahmoud Merhi, head of the
Arab Organization for Human Rights
The Arab Organization for Human Rights ( ar, المنظمة العربية لحقوق الإنسان) is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that works on human rights issues in the Arab World. It was founded with a resolution agreed on in Hamm ...
, has been quoted as saying that "most Syrians view" the Shabiha as "operating without any known organization or leadership."
Sunni and Alawite businessmen who are protecting their own interests in the country are alleged to be paying the groups.
Accusation of looting and outside analysis
Aron Lund, a Swedish journalist specializing in Middle East issues, says that post-2011 the term "Shabbiha" is generally used as a generalized, insulting description of an Assad supporter.
British newspaper ''
Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' and pan-Arab network Al-Arabiya have reported on Shabiha militia stealing
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
antiquities
Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Artifacts from earlier periods such as the Meso ...
and selling them on the
black market
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
and
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
.
الشبيحة ينهبون آثار سوريا ويبيعونها في السوق السوداء
– quoting
See also
* National Defence Force
* Popular Committees
* List of armed groups in the Syrian Civil War
A number of states and armed groups have involved themselves in the ongoing Syrian Civil War as belligerents.
Syrian Arab Republic and allies
A number of sources have emphasized that as of at least late-2015/early-2016 the Syrian Arab Republic ...
References
Works cited
*
External links
* United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. ...
Report of the
(Word Document, 9.16 MB, 102 pages, advance edited version), 15 August 2012, containing numerous findings relating to shabiha activities
{{Syrian civil war
Pro-government factions of the Syrian civil war
Guerrilla organizations
Military units and formations established in the 1980s
Paramilitary organizations based in Syria
Axis of Resistance