Profile of a Psychopath

"She was a student of Aleppo University.  It was daytime and I was driving around the city with my boss.  She was passing on the street.  I said to my boss, 'What do you think about this girl?  Is she not beautiful?'
"We grabbed her and put her into the car.  We drove to an abandoned home and we both raped her.  After we finished we killed her.  She knew our faces, she could not live."

This is a man who claims that he was raised in a normal family in a small village called Orem al-Kubra.  It was a village of Shia Muslim families.  Of the Alawite sect, loyal to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and his father before him.  "My friends were joining the Shabiha, and they encouraged me to come with them. 

"I hesitated, and men in the local air force base beat me until I agreed.  I informed on people who didn't like Assad, I captured them and I put them in a jail.  the government gave me a gun."

Mohammed, in his late twenties, suddenly discovered that to be a member of the civilian Shabiha, loyal to President al-Assad, was to have power.  To be above the law.  To be enabled to do dreadful things to people and never be concerned that he would be held to account.  He liked that.  To be exempt from punishment under the law.  To be seen as powerful.  To have money.

For he did have money.  He earned it.  Legitimately, in Syria.  He was paid, as a member of the Shabiha, a base monthly salary the equivalent of almost $500 monthly.  Along with a bonus of $150 for every kill.  For that's what the Shabiha excel at, they are killers-for-hire for the regime.  And Mohammed was having the time of his life.

"We love Assad because the government gave us all the power - if I wanted to take something, kill a person or rape a girl I could.  The government gave me 30,000 Syrian pounds per month and an extra 10,000 per person that I captured or killed.  I raped one girl, and my commander raped many times.  It was normal."

Mohammed was interviewed at a rebel detention centre in Idlib province in northern Syria, after his capture by the rebels.  There were twenty-five other men in that centre.  It was, in fact, a series of hillside limestone caves where the rebels used to hide from the regime's forces and where they kept their weapons.  They use them now as a prison for captured military.

The Syrian Army conscripts can always decide to join the rebels.  That would most certainly save their lives, becoming part of the opposition.  Mohammed, with his intimidating physique and acceptance of his fate, would never become part of the opposition.  He will likely be executed, his crimes well noted.

"It wasn't for Bashar.  I didn't care about Bashar al-Assad.  All I cared about was that I got the power.
I grew up in a normal family and I was taught to respect women.  But the devil took hold of my mind in those days."  

 His mother would most assuredly not be proud of him.