Transcription
For more than half a century, the Assad family dynasty ruled the nation of Syria. We're going to have this. So when Bashar al-Assad was unceremoniously ejected from Damascus in late 2024 after nearly a 14-year civil war that left more than half a million people dead, Syrians and onlookers around the world agreed on a single unified response. Good riddance.
Today, Assad has retreated to Moscow. His allies have scattered across the globe. And even though Syria's new transitional government absolutely has its own problems, life under the new government is still a vast improvement over the old regime. But the defeat of the Assad government doesn't mean that the Assad family and its allies have given up. All across postwar Syria and all across a hidden international network, powerful members of the old regime are plotting a comeback. Their leaders draw upon immense hidden wealth. Their loyalists have melted into mountain hideouts and government ministries. And their ambitions for the nation of Syria haven't changed a bit. All of the old regime's skills of intelligence and infiltration, all of their tools of violence and repression are still at their disposal. And the people who survived the fall of the Assad dynasty have become ghosts watching and waiting for their chance to take power.
Unfortunately for them, there's one key problem. As hard as it might have been to preserve and protect the Assad dynasty, it is even harder to bring the regime back from the dead. Just we continue with today's video, a quick word from our fantastic sponsor, Raycon.
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The Assadist threat. All across the modern world, dictatorships have a way of evolving into a family business. The Kim family has ruled North Korea for three generations with the young Kim Juai posed to inherit her father's legacy one day. Turkmenistan and Nicaragua, two of the most repressive regimes on earth have each been ruled by a family dynasty for generations and similarly repressive Eritrea appears poised to join them. In the Islamic world, the bin Salman family in Saudi Arabia, the bin Zayed family in the Emirates, the Aliyev family in Azerbaijan have grown incredibly wealthier the head of pro-states. While in Africa, dictators like Museveni, Déby, and Obiang have either passed off power to their sons or are preparing to do so in the near future.
But the thing about modern family dynasties is that they do have a way of hiding the much larger base of support that allows them to function. Every time, say, Kim Jong-un gives a major address to the North Korean public, he's surrounded by dozens, if not hundreds of people in suits or military uniforms, all nameless, faceless functionaries who most global observers don't care enough to identify. After all, it's Kim Jong-un at the podium and Kim Jong-un in sole control of the nation. So, it's easy to dismiss everybody around him as just cogs in the machine. Maybe they're some kind of minister or general, but really, they exist to do Kim's bidding.
In reality though, the situation isn't quite so simple. Yes, those people are probably very obnoxious and self-important, and no, they don't have any real power to do anything besides what Kim wants, but they are very important to the regime nonetheless. Whether it's in North Korea or Syria or just about any place else, family or run, dictatorships, are surrounded by very wealthy and usually very, very corrupt national elites. Those elite figureheads maintain power bases. They watch over the countless levels of state power of a dictator doesn't have time to keep track of and they compete with each other relentlessly to get a bigger piece of the pie.
So when a regime falls like Syria's Assad regime did in 2024, it's not just Bashar al-Assad's nuclear family that's put out of a job. The entire human infrastructure that powered the regime falls with it: the government ministers and bureaucrats, the military chiefs and generals, the people at the heads of the intelligence apparatus and the security state, and the people who protected and grew the regime's business interests, often without government positions of their own. All of those people spent decades getting rich together, exploiting and extracting from an entire nation and its people. And when the regime eventually crumbles, all of those people scatter to the wind all at once, and each with vested interest in not being caught.
As they flee, they help to disappear money from state coffers and load suitcases full of cash in foreign currencies. They smuggle precious jewels, paintings, artifacts, and other physical assets that hold wealth. They hide weapons caches, burn or steal sensitive documents, and create lists of enemies who will be delivered their retribution in the years to come. Those who don't leave the country will instead go to ground, often mid-level military officers or intelligence operatives at the heads of networks still under their control. They disappear with their subordinates. They lay low and they wait for either the opportunities or direct orders from their former higher-ups that they'll get in the future. Meanwhile, the people on the top will flee into exile, maybe to Moscow, maybe to Paris, maybe to London or Dubai or Riyadh. And once they've reached safety, they'll access massive reserves of offshore wealth gathered and preserved across decades of preparation for this very moment.
When Assad was ousted from Damascus, that process played out in the same way that it always does. Some elites, particularly the experienced military commanders or the provincial leaders in the path of the revolution, were forced to go down with the ship. Others didn't make it out in time, dragged into the streets and humiliated or tracked down and killed in secret by anti-regime operatives who'd waited for that opportunity for years. For the most part, those who were in the room with Bashar al-Assad understood what was coming before the collapse arrived. Even though Assad himself chose to flee without warning much of his inner circle, many of his former allies made it to their private jets or snuck aboard commercial flights. Others fled into the Mediterranean on speedboats or passed through battle-held checkpoints during the chaos and confusion of the most important. Still others made it foreign embassies, particularly Russia, where they received all the generosity and assistance of Moscow's best and brightest.
Those who didn't flee disappeared into the country, particularly the governance or provinces of Latakia and Tartis on the Mediterranean coast. Those areas with majority population of Alawites, the same ethnoreligious group as the Assad family and many of the regime's most powerful and influential deputies. There and in other parts of Syria where anti-regime sentiments weren't so strong, soldiers and intelligence agents could rendezvous, form cells, and disappear into the population waiting for their opportunity to reactivate.
In the earliest weeks of post-Assad Syria, the threat of violence from Assad loyalist factions was well understood, but mostly abstract. After all, the Assadists would have their tails tucked between their legs, and they'd need time to reconstitute their forces or start coordinating a national resistance.
In reality though, it wouldn't take 3 months for the Assadists to start hatching their plans. On the 6th of March 2025, in the village of Jablair in Latakia province, groups of pro-regime loyalists ambushed fighters loyal to the new transitional government in Damascus. First in Jabla and then in nearby towns, villages, and along highways, pro-Assad forces killed dozens of fighters. Many of them part of Syria's general security service, but also members of militias that had chosen to ally with Syria's new leadership. Later reports on the situation indicate that Assadist leaders abroad have said they had nothing to do with this particular uprising. Although our Warfront team doesn't recommend simply taking them at their word, the pro-regime rebels on the ground weren't trying to seize local control. Instead, they were trying to cause a very specific kind of chaos and confusion, and they achieved their intended result.
Those Assadist forces had made a bet. But if these battle-hardened, often ideologically extreme, and perpetually nervous Syrian security forces were attacked by organized rogue gunmen in the same majority Alawite areas that had been regime strongholds for decades, then those Syrian security forces would assume the worst. In the end, that's precisely what happened. Fighting forces across Syria loyal to the transitional government streamed into Latakia in massive numbers. The Assadists worked to accelerate the situation, ambushing a military convoy and killing several more soldiers, while its leaders announced the creation of the so-called Military Council for the Liberation of Syria, led by a former brigadier general who was known for both his close ties with Assad and his deep connections with Iran.
The Assadists were operating with full knowledge that the fighters on the other side would respond with overwhelming force against the Alawite population. That was the point. Yeah, many Alawites would die, but those who survived would be embittered to Syria's new leadership and might see the Assadists as their protectors and allies. Up to 1700 Alawite civilians would die by the time the March massacres concluded.
Since that time, pro-Assad forces haven't attempted other acts of escalation on that same scale, but they've come into regular contact with forces loyal to the Syrian government. Across 2025 and into 2026, Damascus allied fighters have worked to disrupt pro-regime resistance cells, loyalist militias, and funding and armed smuggling networks across the country. Alleged cells are announced as having been dismantled semi-regularly, while the Military Council for the Liberation of Syria and other known groups like the Coastal Shield Brigade and the Saraya al-Ghurab have continued guerrilla style resistance operations. Their forces are known to lean heavily on disinformation campaigns, targeting Alawite and other minority communities and using well-documented abuses of power by Syria's transitional leadership to further their own message. Dozens of high-level ex-regime personnel are alleged to be hiding out in Lebanon and coordinating resistance actions. But even those operatives are merely a gateway to get the Assadist leaders who are really calling the shots.
Now, before we get into them, we've got to do a little bit of shameless self-promotion for our Warfronts team and talk about something near and dear to all of our hearts: our premium service, Front StoCo. And normally, I point to the neon sign here, but I'm on holiday, so it's just a generic hotel room. Over on Front StoCo, our team goes even deeper into the global conflicts, the geopolitics, and the hidden influences that shape our world. Front StoCo subscribers get exclusive access to two premium episodes every single week, plus our entire catalog of written articles featuring award-winning journalists and experts from across the globe. A subscription costs just $5 a month or $50 a year. And it helps us preserve our independence and expand our free offerings on YouTube. And now, let's go back to Syria and the shadowy figures trying to return the Assad regime to its former power.
Hidden hands. Go all the way to the top within the secretive ex-regime Syrian resistance and you'll find two men calling the shots. One of them is named Kamal Hassan. He served for many years as Assad's head of military intelligence. He was known to have overseen the brutal torture and mass disappearances of Syrian civilians and as of today lives in Russia. The other is Ramy Makhlouf, also currently residing in Russia. He's a billionaire who oversaw vast transfers of money out of Syria for the Assad family's benefit and was for a very long time a member of Bashar al-Assad's inner circle who basically ran the national economy. After falling out with the family, he was kept under house arrest until the fall of the regime when he escaped to Lebanon in an ambulance. To give an idea of the wealth at his disposal, his brother didn't manage to flee the country successfully. He tried to escape in his Maserati, but was shot and robbed of millions of dollars in cash.
But although these two men are both very high-ranking members of the former regime and would seem to be operating in alignment with each other's overall ambitions, it's by pulling back the curtain on their day-to-day operations that we start to find the cracks in the Assadist resistance. Assad and Makhlouf aren't working together exactly. Instead, they're in competition, each trying to build up their own respective militias in Syria and Lebanon, trying to gain the support of the Alawite community. And perhaps most important, trying to secure control of a network of 14 underground command posts that the regime built in its final years in power.
According to an extensive Reuters report published in December of 2025, Hassan and Makhlouf are the two major players in what's become a fairly crowded competition as several factions work to secure the lion's share of support from an estimated 50,000 loyal fighters. According to that report, both Hassan and Makhlouf are deeply personally invested in their work and not necessarily in a productive way. Quoting the report, "Hassan seethes about his lost influence and outlines grandiose visions of how he would rule coastal Syria. Makhlouf now portrays himself in conversations and messages as a messianic figure who will return to power after ushering in an apocalyptic final battle."
As that same Reuters report describes it, the two men despise each other. Both men, armed with money, loyal fighters, and delusions of grandeur, are competing for the favor of the Assad family itself. But it's here that we run into a second problem. According to numerous insider reports from Moscow and especially a report from the Guardian that also came out in December of 2025, Bashar al-Assad wants no part of this new resistance. According to Guardian sources, the Assad family is still quite rich, living in a prestigious gated community in Moscow. But the family patriarch is under close scrutiny from Russian minders who keep him from contacting high-level officials from his former regime. Not that Bashar seems to have much interest. According to the Guardian, he's getting back into the practice of ophthalmology. Yes, one of the world's most brutal ex-dictators also has trained as an eye doctor. And he's apparently developed a real affection for video games as well. Who can blame him for that? According to the German newspaper Die Zeit, he spent his final days in Syria mostly wrapped up in Candy Crush, while today he locks himself up in his luxurious apartment for most of the day, occasionally stepping out to visit a shopping mall in the same building.
Indeed, Makhlouf and Hassan are competing for the endorsement of his brother, Maher al-Assad, who also lives in Moscow and exerts control over thousands of his own soldiers, but has yet to take a side in the contest. He's very wealthy with lots of connections across the globe and a track record as a commander of what was once Syria's most powerful military unit, but he hasn't been able to gain support from Moscow just yet. Nor does Maher appear to consider himself the heir apparent to the old Syrian regime. The goal of this stage is to identify a person who would be able to lead Syria in the future and then rally the former regime's assets behind that person if anyone can actually prove themselves as the leader of the pack.
Once that leader is chosen, Makhlouf and Hassan each seem to have a general outline of what would come next. But neither man seems particularly invested in details. Both are pursuing a fractured Syria, knowing that they're unlikely to retake Damascus outright, but believing that a more chaotic state of affairs across the nation would give them an opportunity to seize local control in Alawite areas. Once that happens, they'll be able to draw on support from external backers like Russia and Iran while building up their forces, reintroducing financial assets to the country, and preparing for a larger second stage offensive.
But all of this implies another fairly serious problem for the Assadists. The word has gotten out. Put simply, if this plot was going well, then by nature, we here at Warfronts would not know about it, would we? Neither would outlets like Reuters or the New York Times, which published its own report on the Assadist faction, and neither would the new Syrian government. Today, Damascus is relying on a former member of the Assad regime, a man named Khaled Al-Ahmad, to act as a messenger to the Alawite population after he switched sides during the civil war. Based on recent reports from majority Alawite areas, he and his allies are doing a fairly decent job. There's plenty of pro-Assad sentiment if a person looks hard enough. But life was very difficult in Alawite areas under the old regime, too. There are many hundreds of thousands of Alawites in Syria who want nothing to do with a resurgent Assadist regime, no matter who might be in charge.
Even worse for both Hassan and Makhlouf, officials in Damascus and the coastal provinces are open about the fact that the Assadist resistance is being tracked with the new government comfortable in its assessment that there really isn't very much to worry about. Yes, they have tens of thousands of fighters at their disposal, but there don't appear to be any real plans in place to get those fighters to do anything. Worse yet for the Assadists, the situation on the ground in Syria is changing fast. Hardly a year ago, the nation really was fractured and chaotic in the way the Assadists were hoping for, where they could seize territory while the government fought on multiple fronts. But in the wake of multiple large-scale massacres by government-aligned forces and battles in the city of Aleppo and the Kurdish-held northeast that have greatly diminished the power of Kurdish paramilitaries, Syria's old fighting factions have lost a good deal of their power. Those that are still partially intact are mostly focused on their own survival with no real desire to engage in large-scale fighting. Many parts of the country economic recovery and reconstruction are well underway. And while many Syrians still distrust the new leadership in Damascus, they aren't so distrustful that they're not willing to give the new government a chance.
Nor are Makhlouf and Hassan particularly good at cultivating loyalty among pro-Assad fighters on the ground. According to multiple sources speaking to Reuters, Makhlouf does have more than 50,000 fighters on his payroll, but he's only paying them the equivalent of about $30 a month, American dollars, or even less than that. Hassan, meanwhile, has only a fraction of that number of fighters at his disposal, only 12,000, and has been exposed for trying to set up a charity as a humanitarian front for his fighting force, ostensibly to support Alawites who haven't actually received very much aid.
Seeing the Syrians's failure to get their act together, Russian officials have apparently been meeting with them less and less, especially now that Moscow has built a working relationship with the Syrian transitional government. Hassan has even tried to lobby the US government, according to the New York Times, but has failed to generate any real momentum in Washington. For both Hassan and Makhlouf, the money is starting to dry up and even the ground commanders still in Syria with control over those secret underground command posts and weapons caches haven't seen anything worth supporting.
Most recently, as of the time of writing, it appears that Ramy Makhlouf's network in particular is starting to come apart. Makhlouf's close allies in Lebanon are being detained and investigated, including his purported top money man in the country. While his message for the Alawite population has been undercut, a prominent religious leader in the Alawite community, Sheikh Ghazal Ghazal, has taken an increasingly active role in advocating peaceful federalism despite overreaches by Damascus. And he's become an increasingly palatable option for Alawites who want to take a hard line against the new government, but would rather not return to all-out war.
Nor is Hassan's faction doing much better. With the security situation seeming to stabilize in Alawite regions, at least compared to 2025, local sources suggest that there just isn't an appetite anymore for the sorts of large-scale resistance that either man is promising. Now, of course, over the past decade and a half in Syria has shown us anything, it's that nothing is ever truly certain, but at least as of now, it seems that the spectre of an Assadist revolution has come and gone. The regime loyalists, the weapons, the financers and the former kingpins of the Assad government are still out there. But the window of opportunity is closed and neither their Russian allies nor their allied communities nor even Bashar al-Assad himself are interested in seeing them succeed. These last few regime holdouts have their ambitions. But they've also got quite a bit of money and they've escaped to places where they can live undisturbed for the rest of their lives. In the end, all of Syria will be better off if they can learn how to enjoy their retirement. Thank you for watching.