The presidential palace facing Damascus is connected to a military complex entrusted with protecting the Syrian capital via a system of tunnels on the slopes of Mount Qasyun, which overlooks the city.
An AFP correspondent saw the tunnels, which are among the secrets of President Bashar al-Assad’s reign that have come to light since his overthrow by rebels on December 8.
“We entered this enormous barracks of the Republican Guard after the liberation” of Damascus sent Assad fleeing to Moscow, said Mohammad Abu Salim, a military official from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant Islamist group in the alliance that overthrew Assad.
“We found a vast network of tunnels which lead to the presidential palace” on a neighbouring hill, Salim said.
Qasyun, which offers a stunning view of the presidential palaces and other government structures, was off-limits to Damascus residents during Assad’s regime because it was a prime place for snipers.
For years, artillery batteries bombarded rebel-held areas around the capital’s gates from this peak as well.
The Guard compound, which consists of two bunkers with spacious rooms set aside for its personnel, was visited by an AFP correspondent. The bunkers had electricity, a ventilation system, weapons supplies, and telecommunications equipment.
Other simpler tunnels were dug out of the rock to hold ammunition.
Despite such elaborate facilities, Syria’s army collapsed, with troops abandoning tanks and other gear as rebels advanced from their northern stronghold to the capital in less than two weeks.
A monument of the president’s brother Bassel al-Assad riding a horse has been demolished and his head chopped on the grounds of the Guard complex.
In 1994, Bassel al-Assad lost his life in a traffic accident. After his father’s death in 2000, Bashar inherited the oppressive, secretive, and paranoid system of administration that his father, Hafez al-Assad, had established.
Images of Bashar al-Assad and his father are now used as target practice by former rebel combatants in the vast Guard camp.
Tanks and heavy weapons still sit under arched stone shelters.
Resembling a macabre outdoor art installation, large empty rusted barrels with attached fins pointing skyward are lined up on the ground, their explosives further away.
“The regime used these barrels to bomb civilians in the north of Syria,” Abu Salim said.
The United Nations denounced Bashir’s use of such weapons dropped from helicopters or airplanes against civilian areas held by Assad’s opponents during Syria’s years-long civil war that began in 2011.
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