Extremism: Deportations to Syria are a security policy own goal

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The Federal Prosecutor's Office is conducting a structural investigation into crimes against humanity in Syria.

Two leading former employees of the Syrian secret service are on trial in Koblenz.

Witnesses often report torture here, often systematically up to death in Syrian prisons.

One undertaker describes how his company alone was regularly tasked with burying up to 700 dead a day from Syria's prisons in mass graves.

The Foreign Office warns of the dangers that threaten returnees.

Hardly any other country is better informed about what happens to those who return to Syria.

But despite all this, deportations to Syria have been permitted again since January 1, because the Conference of Interior Ministers was unable to agree in December on an extension of the deportation freeze that has been in effect since 2012.

This goes back to the urging of Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and the Union-led federal states.

Domestically, they want to score with their tough approach to dangers that, in their opinion, result from an overly generous asylum policy.

In return, they carelessly question the general validity of human rights - as if Germany shouldn't be so strict about human rights when it comes to criminals and “Islamist threats” who are threatened with torture and death.

Deportations to Syria have been possible again since the beginning of the year

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The case of Mohammad Haidar Zammar made it clear in 2003 how to look the other way: The businessman with a residence permit in Germany was kidnapped by the USA in Morocco and transferred to Syria by means of a "rendition flight".

The USA hoped to gain “knowledge” from this using methods that were not used in US prisons even under George W. Bush.

Instead of campaigning for Zammar, the BND was allowed to benefit.

After all, Zammar had had terrorist contacts.

Even if the main suspicion of complicity in the 9/11 attacks was never confirmed.

Mohammed Haydar Zammar (center) in a video

Even now, the Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Joachim Herrmann, portrays himself as the guardian of “security”: it is “irresponsible in terms of security policy” not to examine all the possibilities of repatriating criminals in the case of serious criminals and those at risk from Islamism.

The CDU candidate for Chancellor Norbert Röttgen, who is otherwise very proficient on Syria issues, argued: "It is about a clear political signal internally and externally that Germany is not a place of protection for terrorist threats."

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To the outside world, to the Syrian regime, however, this could be exactly the wrong signal and thus a security policy own goal: In order to be able to deport, Germany would have to reestablish diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime - a first step towards normalization.

Assad would like nothing more.

His regime has made it clear again and again that it does not want any of those who have fled Syria back.

But for an extremely small consideration - according to the State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Hans-Georg Engelke, "around 90 Islamist threats with Syrian citizenship live in Germany" - Assad would be rehabilitated.

This would have shown the federal government that it does not see through Assad's power politics games.

Him as a partner in the fight against Islamist extremists - that would mean turning the buck into a gardener.

Extremists were Assad's most valuable tool

Because these were never Assad's main concern - on the contrary, they were the most valuable instrument for securing his rule.

From 2003 to 2009 he had jihadists from all over the Arab world travel to Iraq via Syria to commit attacks there.

Those who took to the streets in Syria since 2011 for dignity, freedom, an end to corruption and ultimately the overthrow of the regime, he branded as terrorists and thus sowed the doubts in the particularly susceptible West that cost the uprising the necessary support.

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While many political prisoners remained in his prisons, he deliberately released violent extremists, including those once sent by himself and arrested after their return from Iraq, thus contributing to the radicalization of parts of the Syrian opposition.

Assad was the "lesser evil"

It took the “Islamic State” for Assad to be considered a “lesser evil”, and the Syrian regime was accordingly little involved in the fight against ISIS.

Or even thwarted this fight by granting ISIS convoys safe passage through its territory or bombing the latter in clashes between ISIS and the rebels.

When the people of Sweida in southern Syria protested against the regime again in 2018, the ISIS regime invaded the city, massacring over a hundred and kidnapping women and girls.

Terrorism is the weak point of western states and Assad knows how to use it.

When 90 alleged threats make a country like Germany give in, he knows: its future does not lie in fewer, but in more threats in Germany.

Source: Stephan Röhl,

Bente Scheller heads the Middle East and North Africa division of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, where she previously headed their offices in Beirut and Kabul.