Air Force Intelligence: Above the Law in Damascus

The Air Force Intelligence Directorate (Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawwiya) was established by Hafez al-Assad as one of Syria's four main intelligence agencies. Nominally under the Air Force command structure, in practice it operated as an autonomous institution answerable only to the president. Its detention facility near Mazzeh Military Airport was used to hold political opponents, suspected spies, and anyone deemed a threat to the Assad family. Unlike civilian or even other military intelligence branches, Air Force Intelligence had a reputation for the most extreme and least accountable behavior — detainees who entered rarely had their cases formally processed. Families inquiring at the facility about disappeared relatives were routinely turned away, threatened, or in some cases detained themselves. From the 1970s through 2010, thousands passed through the facility. The International Committee of the Red Cross was denied access. No independent monitoring of any kind was permitted.

Under General Jamil Hassan, who became director of Air Force Intelligence in 2009, the Mazzeh detention facility's scale of operations expanded dramatically after 2011. According to the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria and testimony to courts in France and Germany, the facility processed thousands of detainees, many of whom were killed under torture or died from neglect. Two Syrian-German dual nationals — Anwar Badr and Ibrahim al-Ghazi — who disappeared after being detained at the facility in 2012 became the basis for the French judicial investigation. In 2018, a French judge issued an arrest warrant for Jamil Hassan and two other Air Force Intelligence officials for complicity in crimes against humanity, torture, and enforced disappearance. This was the first European judicial action specifically targeting a sitting Syrian intelligence chief. Hassan was also sanctioned by the EU and US. He was removed from his post in 2019, reportedly remaining in Syria. The facility continued operating until the fall of Damascus in December 2024.