AMMAN // As he drove between meetings with rebel factions in Deraa province last month, Ahmed Nehmeh, a senior officer in the Free Syrian Army, was ambushed and, after a car chase and a gunfight, captured.
Three days later he reappeared, in a video uploaded to YouTube, a prisoner of Jabhat Al Nusra, Al Qaeda’s wing in Syria.
Battered and bruised, Col Nehmeh, confessed to having worked with foreign intelligence agencies to orchestrate a disastrous defeat for the opposition a year earlier, when regime forces unexpectedly retook Khirbet Ghazaleh, a strategically important town on the road to Damascus that had been all but won by rebels after two months of fighting.
Col Nehmeh's capture in the early hours of May 4 may prove to be a critical waypoint in the war for southern Syria, long the best organised opposition front, where moderates and radicals have cooperated, avoiding the infighting that has ravaged other parts of the country and damaged the cause of those seeking to overthrow President Bashar Al Assad.
Shadowy ties
Events leading up to and following Col Nehmeh’s abduction also highlight the murky landscape of the southern front, a complex layering of moderate rebels, foreign intelligence agents, Islamist extremists, gun runners and regime spies, along with egotistical militia commanders, betrayal, courage, and conspiracy.
Col Nehmeh, a former officer in the Syrian air force, defected from the regime in 2012. From relative obscurity, he quickly rose to become head of the Deraa Military Council (DMC), a key position in the weapons supply chain connecting rebel units in the field to their foreign backers working out of Amman, and to the FSA’s Supreme Military Council (SMC) in Turkey.
At least some of the billions of dollars in munitions and cash given to rebels by western and Arab governments would pass through Col Nehmeh’s command. As a bridge between rebels in the south and their financial backers, he was able to steer aid to rebel units he favoured and withhold it from those he disliked.
Greying and with the heaviness of middle age setting in, Col Nehmeh was usually found in a first floor suite of the rundown Crystal Hotel in Amman, where his handlers in Jordanian intelligence had given him an office and a place to sleep. They had also provided him a small, silver Chevrolet hatchback to drive around town.
Those who worked with Col Nehmeh describe him as ambitious, unsentimental, and often taciturn, an opaque man with powerful, unseen friends. He won some allies among the units he backed but also made powerful enemies among those he sidelined.
His close association with foreign intelligence agencies, and his status as a former Syrian military officer about whom little was known, meant he was mistrusted by many rebel units.
Some said Col Nehmeh put the interests of his foreign benefactors ahead of the revolution. There was also speculation that he was a double agent sent by the regime.
“Many rumours surround Nehmeh, this played against him in the end. He had allies and enemies but no real friends and no one actually trusted him,” said a senior rebel figure who moved in the same circles as Col Nehmeh.
Bitter defeat
The defeat at Khirbet Ghazaleh, where rebels were poised to win an important victory, seems to have sealed his fate.
Exactly what happened there last May remains disputed, but there is no question that key elements of the rebel force were pulled off the front line at a crucial moment, giving regime units a chance to counter-attack and rout their weakened opponents.
Bashar Zaubi, a former travel agent turned commander of the rebel Yarmouk Brigade, and Col Nehmeh were the key protagonists in the affair.
Mr Zaubi’s men, backed, it has now become clear, by Jabhat Al Nusra, were the main assault force and it was they who were ordered to leave the fight after Col Nehmeh arrived at the 11th hour, supposedly delivering a consignment of weapons, which never actually materialised, and to a claim victory that never happened.
The involvement of Jabhat Al Nusra was kept quiet at the time by rebels keen to stress their moderate credentials.
In his YouTube confession, evidently extracted under duress, Col Nehmeh said he helped make the defeat at Khirbet Ghazaleh happen under orders from foreign backers, who were alarmed at the prospect of Al Nusra making such a major gain in the south.
That, ostensibly, is the reason for Al Nusra capturing him and insisting he face charges of treason against the revolution, the same charges that Mr Zaubi had levelled at Col Nehmeh after the defeat a year ago. Mr Zaubi claimed essential ammunition resupplies had been diverted away from his forces, leaving him no choice but to withdraw them.
But questions linger about why the Yarmouk Brigade, as it was then called – it is now known as the Yarmouk Division – and some other rebel factions actually pulled out.
The ill-defined command structure of the FSA meant Col Nehmeh had little direct authority to order units off the line. Within the FSA, orders are routinely ignored by proud, independent-minded field commanders.
The defeat at Khirbet Ghazaleh may be explained as much by banality as grand conspiracy: Mr Zaubi and Col Nehmeh were rivals. Angered by Col Nehmeh’s attempt to seize the glory for a battle he had played no role in, Mr Zaubi and his men pulled out.
Pride and jealously of rival rebel commanders, rather than orders from foreign intelligence agents based in the secretive Military Operations Command (MOC) room in Amman may, therefore, lay behind the debacle.
Empty promises
Col Nehmeh's capture appears to have been prompted by various factors, central among them the steady surge in power of Al Nusra on the southern front. Emboldened, well equipped, disciplined and popular on the street, the group was able to move against Col Nehmeh, a well-connected FSA officer, without fear of coming under attack from other rebel units, something it previously feared and tried to avoid.
Al Nusra’s confidence that there would be no consequences to taking Col Nehmeh was boosted by his unpopularity among FSA fighters post-Khirbet Ghazaleh.
“Nehmeh was always making promises to everyone, saying that he would get us weapons and ammunition but in the end they never came, or not in the amounts he talked about. He was just a series of empty promises,” said a senior FSA officer.
“It might not have been his fault, Nehmeh may have been made empty promises by the MOC but in the end he was the one people saw lying to their faces,” the FSA officer said.
Increasingly, rebels bypassed him in search of supplies, dealing directly with both the MOC and independent donors based in the Arabian Gulf. Col Nehmeh, once the gateway to weapons, became increasingly irrelevant as rebels found other paths to supplies, with or without the MOC’s connivance. Col Nehmeh became dispensable and vulnerable to his enemies.
Elements of the FSA were almost certainly complicit in his capture, according to FSA commanders and opposition activists in Deraa.
Some have blamed the Yarmouk Division for settling old scores from Khirbet Ghazaleh, but a leading Yarmouk officer denied any involvement. He claimed Mr Zaubi, who also serves as second in command for the FSA’s Southern Front grouping - an FSA organisation separate from the DMC and more powerful than it - had amicably settled his differences with Col Nehmeh.
Instead, the Yarmouk Brigade officer said Col Nehmeh might have fallen foul of rifts within the opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) and its military wing, the SMC. Col Nehmeh was allied to Gen Selim Idriss, who was stripped of his command in February.
Al Qaeda threat
Another crucial element in the affair is that, at the time of his capture, Col Nehmeh was trying to recruit rebel brigades to a new alliance called The Rebel Front of Southern Syria. Little information has been released about this project, but an FSA source said that at a meeting on May 1 in the town of Tfas, Col Nehmeh had told prospective members that they would be well supplied with weapons if they agreed to fight Al Nusra.
“Nehmeh was going to go after Nusra, he was setting up a group to kill Nusra off in the south, that was the project and information about that was leaked by one of the people in the meeting, so Nusra decided the time had come to act,” the FSA source said.
If the account is true, Col Nehmeh was surely backed by powerful allies, likely foreign intelligence. Western and Arab states have watched Al Nusra’s growth in the south with alarm and have been seeking to weaken the Al Qaeda faction.
Another dynamic playing out in the Nehmeh affair, according to senior rebel commanders, is a trenchant the hostility between Jordanian intelligence and the exiled radical Jordanian Islamists who command Al Nusra in southern Syria.
“Nehmeh was seen as Jordan’s man and the Jordanian emirs in Al Nusra wanted to defy Jordanian intelligence so they got to him,” said another FSA commander familiar with the situation. “It was a way of Nusra flexing its muscle and embarrassing the Jordanians and the MOC. They are saying, ‘inside Syria, we are the real power, not you’.”
Col Nehmeh’s capture pushed the FSA and Al Nusra to the brink of war after negotiations to have him stand trial in a joint military tribunal failed. But the FSA backed down from threats to take their commander back by force.
Coordination between Al Nusra and the FSA has, however, been frozen – at least publicly. While some cooperation appears to be taking place still in the town of Nawa, the divisions are weakening the rebels just as the regime has launched a fierce counter assault in the south, one that appears to have been timed to coincide with the rebel schism.
Col Nehmeh’s fate remains unknown. He is either still in Nusra’s hands or, some say, has already been executed.
“The ones who have benefited most from all of this are the regime,” said an FSA commander. “In the end, it has just shown how weak we are”.
psands@thenational.ae
The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Monster
Directed by: Anthony Mandler
Starring: Kelvin Harrison Jr., John David Washington
3/5
Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
Graduated from the American University of Sharjah
She is the eldest of three brothers and two sisters
Has helped solve 15 cases of electric shocks
Enjoys travelling, reading and horse riding
The biog
Hobby: "It is not really a hobby but I am very curious person. I love reading and spend hours on research."
Favourite author: Malcom Gladwell
Favourite travel destination: "Antigua in the Caribbean because I have emotional attachment to it. It is where I got married."
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
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FIGHT%20CARD
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Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Company Profile
Name: JustClean
Based: Kuwait with offices in other GCC countries
Launch year: 2016
Number of employees: 130
Sector: online laundry service
Funding: $12.9m from Kuwait-based Faith Capital Holding
Honeymoonish
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Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
Heavily-sugared soft drinks slip through the tax net
Some popular drinks with high levels of sugar and caffeine have slipped through the fizz drink tax loophole, as they are not carbonated or classed as an energy drink.
Arizona Iced Tea with lemon is one of those beverages, with one 240 millilitre serving offering up 23 grams of sugar - about six teaspoons.
A 680ml can of Arizona Iced Tea costs just Dh6.
Most sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, five teaspoons of sugar in a 500ml bottle.
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