Ali Mamlouk, the Syrian security chief reported to have fallen foul of President Bashar al-Assad, has resurfaced in a top-level meeting with his boss and a visiting Iranian official in Damascus. Mamlouk, head of the country’s powerful national security bureau, had been said to be in seriously ill in hospital or under house arrest on suspicion of plotting a coup.
The story attracted widespread international attention because it appeared to substantiate talk of disarray and intrigue in the senior echelons of the Syrian regime after recent gains by anti-Assad rebel forces. State media had previously denied the rumours circulating about Mamlouk, insisting that he was doing his job as normal and blaming the stories on hostile media in the Gulf.
Sana, the state news agency, showed Mamlouk sitting on the president’s left in a meeting with Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee and the Iranian ambassador. The setting is significant because it had been suggested that Mamlouk was unhappy with Tehran’s growing influence in Damascus. The veteran security chief is a Sunni Muslim whereas the Assad clan belong to the minority Alawite community.
Sana reported: “Assad thanked the Iranian government and people for their support for Syria in the face of terrorism, asserting that the escalation of the war against Syrians by terrorists and their supporters and the use of lies and propaganda to achieve what they couldn’t achieve on the ground has failed and will always fail to undermine Syrians’ steadfastness and determination to eliminate terrorism with the help of friendly states like Iran.”
Mamlouk’s re-appearance prompted instant debate on social media about Syrian state propaganda and the reliability of reports from inside an opaque and secretive system. But exactly what it means remains unclear.
So Ali Mamlouk, like the traces of Sarin, tends not to disappear so easily
— Daniele Raineri (@DanieleRaineri) May 13, 2015
In 2010, a year before the Syrian uprising began, Mamlouk took part in a meeting with US counter-terrorism officials and described his experience - as head of the country’s general intelligence department- in penetrating terrorist groups. It was the subject of a detailed US embassy report released by Wikileaks.
