The Nabbasheen squad led by Maher al-Assad

Maher Al-Assad (agencies)

The profession of “scavenger” is an ancient profession that has been associated throughout history with achieving wealth for its owners, who work with the simplest and cheapest tools to ultimately obtain money that improves their social status.

The main tool of the scavenger in ancient times was his physical strength, which was sometimes linked to the love of exploration, and this required the strength of the heart and the lack of fear of taking risks and the unknown.

The story of the scavengers begins with a search for treasures. Since time immemorial, man has sought to excavate the earth and delve into the depths of the seas to search for gold, jewels and precious stones, which provides him with wealth and brings him a happy life, as most people linked happiness with money before the advent of socialism and playing on the string of a simple life in which women are satisfied with a tent and a few pills. Potatoes, olives, and mats to sleep on! According to the opinion of “Al-Sabouha” in her song: “On Simplicity, Simplicity.”

Exhuming graves

The profession of exhuming graves became widespread among the poor at a time when people used to decorate their teeth with gold plaques. This profession was not useful, as the excavator often brought out a single gold tooth from the grave, the price of which was not sufficient to cover the expenses of life for a short period of time.

In the village of Bassams in Idlib Governorate, there is a gray hill with a cave in it. A legend tells that the Prophet Ayoub lived in isolation there, and that a volcano erupted in this place, so he extended his blessed hand, extinguished the volcano, and water gathered at the bottom.

An idea prevailed among simple people that the worms that were eating his body when he fell to the ground turned into coral and agate. The residents of that area were mobilized after this story, which was spread among them by a Bedouin who reads omens and reads palms. He had scattered some cheap beads in the place to make people believe that there was a real treasure deep in the dirt. He makes them wade through the mud and get sick, and He writes veils of healing for them!

looking for the treasure

Many people search for treasures at sea. They believe that the pirates whose ships sank one day had a lot of treasures. In the tombs of the kings and the pyramids of the village of Al-Bara, and in many archaeological areas, the state made these places notice and prevented people from digging in them.

In the eighties, some residents of Daraa thought that they were far from the eyes of the authorities, and while digging they found a real treasure, and of course the news reached the authority at the time, represented by the heir, Basil al-Assad, who was dominant over the archaeological areas in Syria. After that, these diggers were silently arrested, and the story spread among the people. They transmitted it secretly and in whispers, as no one at that time dared to raise his voice to speak on any matter related to the “state’s” files, and under the custody of one of Daraa’s sons, a helicopter arrived at the treasure site, carried the entire treasure, and flew away.

During the same period of time, people from Jericho dared to dig, and they found a treasure for which they paid in days of detention. They multiplied the number of gold liras they found, and the Directorate of Antiquities placed its hand on all the archaeological sites in the town that were believed to contain real treasures, especially the markets that were destroyed by the earthquake. Throughout its history, Jericho was exposed to a devastating earthquake that buried the entire city, and people returned to it and built it again.

Explorators of the era of the Syrian revolution

The profession of stealing antiquities appeared with the beginning of the revolution, and was led by Ibn Rifaat al-Assad, who came to Syria at that time and looted what he could and took it to Britain, then to America, where it was sold.

The Nabashin have classes:

The younger class did not depend on stealing antiquities, which was dominated by the Assad family and those close to the regime, so they replaced the term excavation with looting. The soldiers relied on looting houses after killing their owners, or displacing them, or even while they were in the house.

Markets known as “Sunnah Market” appeared. Because the stolen items were from the homes of Sunni Muslims specifically, as they were the ones who were killed and displaced, and their homes and residential neighborhoods were destroyed since the beginning of the revolution. The Alawites of Homs were the first to open Sunni markets, and the first to announce the transformation of the Sunni neighborhoods of Homs into vacant land on which they would grow “potatoes” in the future.

After the houses were searched, there was no longer a source of livelihood for the Assad army of scavengers, so they began returning to the bombed houses to demolish the roofs and pull the iron from them. They also pulled the electricity wires from the walls and the sewage pipes from the floors of the houses.

The devastation that Assad left in the afflicted cities, the economic collapse, and the hunger that ravaged people's intestines made the profession of scavengers appear in a remarkable way, which called on the Damascus police to move to stop their work and their spread in the city.

Today's scavengers dig through garbage, sort it, sell it, and obtain sums of money larger than the salary of a state employee, and this is the reason why the authorities turn a blind eye to them.

The profession of garbage digging is known in all countries of the world, although the view towards those working in it is condescending and lofty, but the Fourth Division, led by Maher al-Assad, was quick to control the situation, prevented the police from interfering, and led the “scavengers” campaign to search inside useful garbage.

There is no doubt that there is great benefit from these poor women, children and men who work in this profession. There is more oppression in controlling their profession, and crushing that group of people who were already oppressed and who found in that profession what helps them secure a living.

But the Assad family will not leave the people anything to live from at all levels, and the matter is not new, but rather old since “Al-Nabash the First” assumed power in Syria, and bequeathed the profession to his children, but when it reached Maher, the days were at their end, and he drowned in “trash” as All that remained for him was his father, and after him his brother Basil, and after him his brother Bashar.