Post-Conflict Violence in Deir Al-Asafir
As part of a broader research programme on Syria’s security apparatus, in 2022 the Institute produced studies on mass violence in Eastern Ghouta and Zabadani, as well as on refugee return dynamics since 2018. This research demonstrated that detention, enforced disappearance, and torture by the Syrian security apparatus were major drivers of escalating violence in Eastern Ghouta from 2011 onwards. It also established that, although arbitrary detention might appear random, the security apparatus followed a highly procedural and meticulous logic of violence that targeted multiple, often overlapping, communities and groups defined by geography, political opposition, profession, family ties, and other factors.
The Institute’s latest report ‘Post-Conflict Violence in Deir Al -Asafir’ complements previous research by examining post-hostility (2018) detention trends and dynamics, focusing on a single community as a case study – the town of Deir al-Asafir in Eastern Ghouta. It explores the security agencies’ post-reconciliation objectives, mandates, practices, and their impact on the population, particularly concentrating on the detention of civilians from Deir al-Asafir during and after their displacement from the enclave in March 2018. It also examines the reintroduction of the Syrian security forces into these communities after years of absence.
The report reveals that even years after the Syrian regime took control of Eastern Ghouta and launched a “reconciliation” process with the remaining population, including issuing general amnesties, the people of Eastern Ghouta continued to suffer extreme violence from government security forces and affiliated militias. Since March 2018, many have been detained and perished in custody. In Deir al-Asafir specifically, the report shows that during the final days of the regime’s offensive on Ghouta, a large number of civilians, nearly as many as the remaining population, were detained, with dozens being arrested in collective shelters and forcibly disappeared.
The report also investigates the role of foreign actors in post-conflict security. It finds that Russia’s Military Police had little influence over the predatory behaviour of the security apparatus, despite proposing humanitarian safe corridors and acting as a guarantor of the reconciliation agreements. Additionally, the report provides unique evidence of the involvement of foreign actors, including Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, in the detention process – an area of high sensitivity for the regime’s security apparatus.
The case of Eastern Ghouta presented in this and previous reports is crucial for understanding the post-conflict experiences of former opposition-held areas that underwent reconciliation agreements, as well as towns and cities that remain under regime control after significant opposition activity during the early years of the uprising. Recent developments in other formerly opposition-held areas, such as Qudsaya, al-Tal, and Wadi Barada, suggest that the regime continues to pressure suspect populations, reneging on promises made during reconciliation processes. These pressures have sometimes led to renewed conflicts, such as violent clashes in Zakia and ongoing protests in Daraa and Suwayda, where the fate of missing detainees remains a central issue. This analysis is also relevant to the regime’s recent and repeated efforts to enforce reconciliation in other communities.
Although the material for this report was collected between 2018 and 2023, recent premature returns of Syrian refugees from Lebanon and Türkiye, and the growing reports of their victimisation on the hand of the Syrian security apparatus, once again, confirm the main conclusion of this report, that violence in Syria has a cyclical and dynamic nature, rather than a linear one.
Furthermore, the publication of the report is timely and relevant, given current escalations in the Middle East. It explores patterns of impunity and violence affecting civilians and civilian infrastructure, as well as the dynamics perpetuating the cycle of conflict and its implications for the region’s future prospects for peace.
The European Institute of Peace’s programming in Syria is dedicated to promoting a rights-based and inclusive peace. The Institute engages with policymakers, civil society, and other key actors to enhance policy approaches aimed at achieving an inclusive and lasting peace in Syria. On occasion, to contribute to the knowledge and information on that file, the Institute produces tailored research and analysis to improve the information environment surrounding the conflict and its drivers, with a focus on issues such as security, detention, and refugee returns.