This structure became the backbone of the Regime’s overall security response together with the Syrian Armed Forces and Baath party and other militia groups. Over the following months, Assad and the CCMC presided over, implemented and further refined it as they sought to regain control of the country. 

Despite the increased security measures, of continued arrest operations, mobilization and use of Ba’athist and other loyalists and the deployment of the military, the situation throughout the governorates continued to deteriorate over the summer. In response, the Regime began to further review and strengthen their security response, in August 2011. They did this by attempting to rectify perceived weaknesses, by reorganising the security apparatus and command structures it utilised as well as by formulating, disseminating and implementing clearer national level plans targeting particular groups within the opposition.

Clear evidence of this can be seen in an instruction issued by the Head of the NSB following a CCMC meeting. On 05 August, the CCMC met and discussed the gravity of the crisis in the country and concluded that “laxness in handling the crisis” and “poor coordination and cooperation among security agencies in sharing information and the results of the ongoing investigations” was contributing to a prolongation of the conflict.

As a result of this meeting, the following day, the Head of the NSB issued an instruction to the governorate Ba’ath Party Secretaries (i.e. the Heads of the Security Committees) in Hama, Rural Damascus, Deir-ez-Zor, Homs, Idleb and Dar’a governorates to implement a series of tasks. 

The order clearly identified the groups that were to be targeted in joint military/security operations: 

The order set up an infrastructure for what was to become a bureaucratic machinery overseeing the mass arrest and torture of targeted individuals from the identified groups on industrial scale. They were to be arrested and interrogated by members of specialist investigations bodies established in the governorates consisting of elements from each of the security/intelligence agencies and the Criminal Security. The interrogation reports were required to identify new targets within the groups of interest who were then to be pursued themselves:

Decisions on the exact nature and location of where the joint-security operations were to be conducted was delegated down to the governorates and once areas were ‘cleansed’ they were to be secured with both security and ‘party’ (i.e. loyalist/Ba’athist paramilitary) presence. Information gained was to be passed between agencies and the Head of the NSB (and by implication the CCMC) was to be kept informed of the results through regular reports.

Within days of its issuance, the CCMC instruction was widely disseminated by the Regime’s security agencies throughout the country. Although the NSB circular of 06 August 2011 (containing the CCMC instruction) was addressed to only six governorates, the instruction was in fact disseminated to all the governorates:

Many other documents show strict adherence to the language and wishes of the CCMC leadership, from orders disseminating the instruction down the chain of command as well as reports back up the chain of command. Such is the example set in this instruction from the head of Branch 243 to branch detachments in Deir Al Zour and Ar-Raqqa on 08 August 2011:

The effect was immediate and chilling. 

Arrest records secured by CIJA show that the dissemination of the CCMC instruction via the NSB and security agencies resulted in a systematic and coordinated campaign of arrests and detention by each of the above-mentioned security agencies. Similarly, the interrogation reports obtained by CIJA, were sent up the chain of command by the Joint Investigation Committees, pursuant to the CCMC instruction. They are filled with names of tens of thousands of alleged persons of interest, accompanied with details obtained from interrogations. In many cases, the lists contain no indication of any criminal offences that the arrestees were alleged to have committed, and arrests included many juveniles as well as elderly persons. In some instances, the same individual appears in a number of detainee lists generated over a period of time.

Targeting the media As well as opposition leaders and coordination committee members, Regime security elements continued to focus on opposition media activists – those who “conspire with people abroad” – along with the reporting of the conflict in social and traditional media. In May, the Head of the NSB wrote to the Head of the Political Security Department, and requested that the NSB be supplied with:

The policy was clearly supported by President Assad himself. A summary of his remarks from an Iftar feast, given to scholars and clerics on 24 August 2011 was distributed by the Ba’ath Party Regional Command, where it was reported that:

Shortly after the 06 August policy, a series of specialised units were created to monitor and respond to media content and social media users. In mid-August the CCMC instructed the Minister of Information to establish a ‘Media Monitoring Cell’, while a few weeks later, a “Special Task Force” appears to have been operational within Military Intelligence, to monitor and identify opposition members using Facebook.  

Another example, from an intelligence report from Military Intelligence Branch 290 in Aleppo shows how the security branches acted on the provision of such information, usually through the arrest and interrogation of those named individuals. The report provided information on 12 individuals that had been arrested the previous day, including those who had posted anti-Regime comments or broadcast demonstrations on social media:

The minutes of the CCMC meeting of 22 October detail discussion of a series of wide-ranging issues including detailed instructions to plan for the ‘next phase’ of their work. Turkomani stressed that problems would be meticulously and objectively studied, that every issue would be “soundly analysed”, solution-oriented conclusions reached, decisions taken and recommendations would be raised to the President for ratification.

New work mechanisms would be presented and the implementation of decisions and plans would be followed by “intervention” when dysfunction was noted. The importance of seeking to “create a welcoming environment for implementing elements”, methods “to win the public opinion” and “render residents cooperative” was discussed. 

Discussions at this meeting also centred on the weaknesses of the security apparatus and the “importance of binding security agencies to fully and seriously implement” the tasks of the CCMC. The value of fieldwork was studied and the need for the CCMC to move to some crisis areas “for a day or two to study the field situation and radically solve the problem” was highlighted. 

The CCMC made several decisions at this key meeting including that: CCMC personnel were to carry out field visits to supervise the implementation of tasks; circulars and written orders were not to be considered sufficient in the implementation of instructions; tasks were to be clearly specified; and “implementing elements” were to set work plans, file follow-up reports and monitor the implementation of plans.

The message from this particular CCMC meeting was clear: with a new chairman in place, the CCMC was attempting to control a deteriorating security situation by tightening procedures and further gripping the security response.