Law enforcement in Syria
Law enforcement in Syria is primarily conducted by the General Security Service under the Syrian transitional government.
The government is also training a new police force guided by Islamic teachings, and established a tourist police unit in May 2025.
In Ba'athist Syria, law enforcement was carried out by the Syrian Public Security Police, while internal security duties were carried out by different intelligence agencies. The Political Security Directorate was one of the agencies under the Ba’athist regime, under the guidance of the Ministry of Interior by the government. The Directorate was used for covert intelligence gathering and internal security issues within Syria. Syria has been an INTERPOL member since 1953. During the Syrian civil war, much of Syria was outside the control of the Ba’athist government, with the Asayish being responsible for policing in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, the Turkish-backed "Free Syrian Police" in areas under the Turkish occupation of Northern Syria, and various Syrian opposition groups around Idlib.
Under the Ba'athist government, the Ministry of Interior controlled the Internal Security Forces. There were also other specialized organizations, such as the special metropolitan police in Damascus overseen by the Director General of the Public Security and Police, the Gendarmerie for control in rural areas and the Border Guard for border control especially the Syria-Iraq border. General Nasser Deeb was the head of the "Criminal Security Directorate".
The Internal Security Forces Day was on 29 May, the anniversary of French forces shelling the Parliament building in Damascus in 1945.
History
Police history in Syria dates back to the French Mandate, when General Pierre Rondot established a Gendarmerie in order to maintain law and order in rural areas; led by General Wahid Bey, it was poorly armed, organized, disciplined and equipped and did not prove very effective against rebel forces, despite several attempts to ameliorate at least discipline and morale.From 1940s to 1950s: Independence and development
During the second half of 1944, France transferred most of the directorates of the Common Interests to the national governments, except the Levantine Special Forces and the police. To both the Lebanese and the Syrians, and to the Syrians in particular, the transfer of the army and police was of utmost importance; after several months of tense confrontation with the Syrian and Lebanese establishment, by July 1945 France had agreed to transfer control of the Levantine Special Forces.As with the Levantine Special Forces, French officers held the top posts in the security establishment, but as Syrian independence approached, the ranks below major were gradually filled by Syrian officers. By the end of 1945, the gendarmerie numbered some 3,500.
At the dawn of the independent era of the Syrian Republic, of around 15,000 troops under French control, some 5,000 would be converted into the Syrian Army of one brigade with auxiliary services; equal number would be taken into the Gendarmerie; half of remaining third would be needed for police and frontier customs control; remainder would be pensioned off. Several British officers were detailed as "training team" to assist the Syrian Gendarmerie.
Since independence, Syria's police and internal security apparatus have undergone repeated reorganization and personnel changes, reflecting the security demands of each succeeding regime. In 1945, Armenian general Hrant Maloyan was appointed by president Shukri al-Quwatli as the General Command of the Internal Security Forces in Syria and served this position until 1949. Maloyan would eventually be known to modernize the Syrian police ranks and improve discipline; members of the Gendarmerie doubled to 9,751 members by the time his post finished in 1949. On the wake of 1946, the Syrian Gendarmerie was considered the only reliable and effective support of the Government; it was purged and, once equipped by the United Kingdom with modern weaponry, it was successfully deployed to quell a revolt of Alawi religious leader Salman al-Murshid. In late 1940s, the national police force, grown out of the Gendarmerie, was deemed understaffed and poorly disciplined, with several cases of corruption among its ranks. Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli favoured the Gendarmerie over the French-inherited Army, fearing the military might against his own patronage network.
While continuing discipline-improving efforts, in 1949 President Husni al-Za'im seized power and reformed the security apparatus, transferring the Gendarmerie from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Defence; the director-general of police was Adib Shishakli, who in turn took the power in 1953. The reformed security apparatus cooperated with United States officials against drug trafficking in mid-1950s. As Syrian ruler, Shishakli retrained, reequipped, and expanded Syrian armed forces, police, and security services; the Director General of Police and Public Security was at the time Ibrahim al-Husseini.
Until early 1960s, the Syrian government sought the support also from former German officers for both the Army and the police forces: President of Syria Husni al-Za'im recruited military officers and police specialists. According to CIA records, two Nazi officials, Alois Brunner and Franz Rademacher, as soon as 1957 were granted asylum in Syria and advised Syrian police until the early next decade.
As of late 1950s, Syrian non-military internal security forces totalled about 5,000 personnel, including a National Gendarmérie of 2,800, a Desert Patrol of 400 and 1,800 uniformed police, under the authority of the Ministry of Interior. Both the gendarmérie and police were deployed in strategically important posts throughout the country. One desert patrol company was located in Central Syria and the other in Eastern Syria. The standard of training was deemed as being very low. In addition to the uniformed police, the police services included the Sûreté, a plain-clothes service of about 300 men. At the time, the United States Department of State deemed the non-military security forces to be unable to restrict the Communist action; nevertheless, due to the strength of political forces deemed as leftist, the U.S. Department of State adopted a policy of avoiding to take actions aimed strengthen Syrian internal security forces.
1960s: United Arab Republic and Ba'ath coups
Under the United Arab Republic, Syrian Minister of Interior Colonel Abdel Hamid al-Sarraj regained control over Syrian gendarmerie and the desert patrol; the Gendarmerie, the Desert Patrol and the Department of General Security and the police were merged in the overall organization, called Police and Security, on 13 March 1958; the organization was placed under al-Sarraj's Ministry of Interior. Syrian police higher post were taken over by Egyptians even if three of the four intelligence networks operating in Syria were under Syrian direction; the other was attached to the President's Office in Cairo. In each Governorate, a Major General of Police was appointed to the influential position of Director of Security.Back to the regained independence in 1961, Adnan Quwatli, a professor of Law linked to business community, was appointed Interior Minister; on 15 December 1961 Colonel Muhammad Hisham al-Samman was appointed Commander of Internal Security Forces, assisted by a Committee under his presidency and including the Directors-General of Police and Public Security and six provincial superintendents. The Kuzbari government pledged to establish political liberties and to disestablish emergency laws; despite this, the civil police forces are believed to have been used extensively to combat internal security threats to the government, including pro-Nasserites Baathists and other secular socialists, especially in the universities, which were subjected to several forms of control; also trade unions were harshly confronted by the police in 1962.
Ba'athist Syria (1963–2024)
With the 1963 Syrian coup d'état, Amin al-Hafiz was appointed Ministry of Interior under Salah al-Bitar and Naji Jamil became the head of Military Police, and in 1964 large-scale riots erupted in Hama, and in the late 1960s and early 1970s disturbances erupted over the secular constitution. With the Legislative Decree No. 67, issued on 24 March 1965, the police received the title of Internal Security Forces; according to the law the ISF were part of the armed forces, linked to the Minister of Interior, and specialized business and the tasks entrusted to them according to the regulations in force. The law granted the same status of the Syrian Arab Army and his men to the Internal Security Forces.In 1966, as a result of the Syrian Regional Ba’ath Party's coup, Abd al-Karim al-Jundi assumed the leadership of the security apparatuses as head of the National Security Bureau of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region.
During the subsequent decades, however, police forces assumed a more conventional civil police role; this change in role coincided with increased professionalization and the parallel development of an effective and pervasive internal security apparatus. Nevertheless, the police continued to receive training in such functions as crowd and riot control.
From 1970s to 1980s: Islamist insurgency
During the relative political stability of the 1970s and 1980s, police and security services were credited with having grown and become professional; however, they remained highly secretive, and in 1987 only the bare outlines of their institutional makeup were known.With the success of Hafez al-Assad'a Corrective Movement in November 1970, a partial reform of the law enforcement was carried out, with some crimes dealt with by the police instead of the Army; with the 1970s state building process, the local security chiefs gained more prominence, with the whole security apparatus being seen as the Regime «bedrock».
According to Alasdair Drysdale, the Hafiz al-Asad's rule was characterized by a marked increase of the Alawite presence in key posts in the officer corps, in the internal security forces and in the Ba'ath Party, possibly also due to the Islamist unrest. During the 1980s, the internal security apparatus was under the command of Rifaat al-Assad, brother of President Hafez al-Assad. During the unrest caused by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1976, the Internal Security Forces were heavily employed in the northern-central region, in Aleppo, Hama and Homs. During 1970s, Ali Haydar's Special Forces formed a key part of the Syrian government's security apparatus; they participated to the quelling of the Islamist uprising in Jisr al-Shughur in March 1980 and in Hama in February 1982.
According to John Andrade, in the mid-1980s the Public Security Police, a national police force, was responsible for routine police duties, although it was confronted by the insurgents in the 1982 Islamist uprising in Syria and held isolated skirmishes in Aleppo and in Latakia. Damascus had a metropolitan police force, which, like theprovincialforces, was subordinated to the national command. The Police was subdivided into four main services: Administration, Criminal Investigations, Public Order and Traffic departments which also dealt with internal security matters. The police system incorporated the 8,000-man Gendarmerie, which had originally been organized by the French Mandate authorities to police rural areas, and the 1800-man Desert Guard in charge for desert borders.
As of late 1980s, the internal security forces were given a high status: typically, provincial police chiefs were member of the relevant Ba'ath Party provincial command.