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Assad and Iran’s men in Deir Ezzor (3)
Ahmed al-Moah, or “Ahmed al-Shammari” as he calls himself now, from al-Buleil town. He lives in Deir Ezzor city. Al-Moah is known in the city for having good relations with the Assad regime’s security branches.
Al-Moah was a volunteer with Assad’s forces, then was imprisoned during his service for theft and fabrication, and spent a period of time in prison, during which he was able to get close to the security elements and have reactions with the senior officers.
After being released from prison, al-Moah joined the Khaznawi religious group in Deir Ezzor, to cover up his past, and to get closer to high personalities and officials, and because of his relation with the security branches, he was able to obtain a license to open a (kiosk) near the municipal stadium in Deir Ezzor. Those kiosks were Known in Deir Ezzor for being licensed by the Assad regime to its men, and soon he became a well-known figure in the city as a result of his sponsorship of the Fotuwa Sports Club for several years.
With the start of the Syrian revolution, the security branches in Deir Ezzor activated “al-Moah”, and since the first days of demonstrations in Deir Ezzor, he showed his support for the Assad regime in public, he was one of those responsible for the Assad loyalists tent set up in al-Sabi’ Bahrat area in Deir Ezzor, and he was tasked with reporting demonstrators, then he participated in the suppression of demonstrations by force.
Al-Mouh used his relations with the security branches, to form a fraud network in Deir Ezzor, where he was asking for huge sums of money from people in exchange for his mediation with the security branches to release their detained sons from Assad’s prisons, some of those scammed by him were his cousins and relatives.
In 2013, after the Free Army took control of the entire province of Deir Ezzor, except for some neighborhoods in the city and the military airport, al-Moah fled to Damascus, where he got closer to senior officials of the Assad regime, to be used again as a tribal baathist figure and was appointed by the Assad regime as one of al-Buleil town’s elders, booking him a suite at the Sheraton Hotel to be rehabilitated, then he was sent to attend a meeting of the tribal elders in Jordan in 2017.
After Assad’s forces took control of the southern bank of the Euphrates River in Deir Ezzor province (west of the Euphrates) in late 2017, al-Moah established the National Defense Militia in Buleil, under the name of “Shammar Forces”, and through his presence in the region, he became an official of the Reconciliation Committees of the Assad regime, in addition to offering his services to the Iranian militias, doing whatever he is told in al-Buleil town and the surrounding areas.