During this week’s Homs-Khaldiyeh-Rastan operations, security forces landed an unexpected catch: due to a lack of convenience, all captured suspected terrorists were put into one detention center in Homs. At that point, one of the suspects quarreled and kicked another terrorist while a third one tried to separate the two. The Syrian prison ward, alerted by the unexpectedly serious brawl among prisoners who were picked up in different towns, decided to interrogate all three of them.
The result was astonishing for Syrian officials and a big blow to Syria’s “Mukhabarat”, the secret service: all three are Libyans, two of them originating from the eastern Libyan coastal town of Derna, the third from Tobruk. The man who was attacked is named Salaf, his attacker Momin, the go-between Dirham. Momin accused Salaf of causing the death of his brother, who was trained in improvised explosives, during a Damascus car bombing.
Salaf was released from Guantanamo after signing a contract with a private US security service, due to a Homeland 2008 Program; Salaf received his first training in the US, then arrived in Tunisia in 2010, where his education was finalized and put to service by a retired Egyptian colonel.
Momin was the coordinator of a "prison evacuation" scam plus a "Lampedusa transfer" operation, which was set up to plant potential al-Qaeda operatives into Europe, after the so-called Arab Spring in Tunisia. Momin acquired an interesting travel history, eventually reaching France via Italy without any passport or money, getting himself arrested there and sent to Turkey courtesy of French security.
Dirham was in charge of financial affairs, called "cellular havala:" in this system, money is transferred by cell phone MMS, showing picture and passport number of a recipient, facilitating the trafficking of refugees on a "special care list" – mainly Pakistanis, Afghanis and Yemenis – into the EU. Dirham was also intermediating and channeling the money flow from the exchange with office owners in Central European countries to his counterparts in Germany, France and the UK.
The biggest blow to the Syrian Mukhabarat: Salaf was in Homs almost for three years and known as a wealthy merchant, importer of food, agricultural products and cleaning materials. In this time he travelled to Turkey a few times, the last trip taking him to a refugee camp in Yayladagi, Turkey, between April 9-11 this year, upon "obligatory invitation." When captured in Homs, Salaf was guarded by dozens of armed militia near his office-like flat, where he possessed two satellite phones and other high-tech communication devices.
These days, Syrian security is busy looking for other terrorists in this network, and keeps them in a secure place. Despite a mass of direct, credible info flow from Syrian officials, this one unexpected incident constitutes the most surprising until now.
To make a long story short, it is right to say that Syria is facing a multi-pronged operation: asymmetric warfare based on psycho-sociological facts and demands, enriched with elements of terror management.