The Shabiha: Ghost Stories?

The Shabiha (singular Shabih) are an Alawi (Alawite) militia loyal to the government of president Bashar Al-Assad, who shares their religion (Alawi'ism is an offshoot of Shi'ism). Shabiha is generally translated "thugs," but apparently meant "ghosts" originally or, perhaps, to the local militias they actually belong to (see etymology). The Shabiha have been blamed, by the opposition, for most or all of the massacres in Syria that started with the armed opposition. There are however doubts that appear case-by-case about the truth of these crimes, as well as doubts about the Shabiha in general - to what extent does this elite killer force even exist?

Please note, this page is only a stub. It suggests only some of what should be here. See the discussion page for some more content awaiting proper inclusion.

Etymology of the Term Shabiha

 * Shibah (Ghost): The Arabic word is شبح, which is pronounced Shibah and means "Ghost," is the most widely-noted origin, too common to bother citing sources for it, aside from Daniel Bode, Middle East Online and the BBC. The slight distortion to Shabih is unexplained.


 * Shabeeba (Youth): According to Ziad Fadel, Arabic-English translator, the word Shabih doesn't exist in formal Arabic, but he sees the "ghost" thing, and also explains that the Ba'ath Party has a "Revolutionary Youth Movement" called "Shabeeba", which he compares to the boy scouts and some less friendly observers might liken to the Hitler Youth. It has been an honor for me to know over 50 members of the Shabeeba in my lifetime. He thinks "Shabiha" is a play-on-words propaganda term by some half-witted academic he suspects in Lebanon, to tap into that regime-connected term while adding a ghostly aspect.


 * Shaa'biya (Popular): Aziz Nakkash (pseudonym?) issued a report in March 2013 on the Alawite/Shabiha "dilemma" in Hama, apparently after meeting several there. He mentions a strangely plausible origin no one else has, popular committees or, in Arabic, "اللجنة الشعبية" Lijan Shaa'biya.
 * Soon after March 2011, Popular Committees (lijan sha’abiya) were created in the Alawite-dominated neighbourhoods of Homs and the villages in the city’s hinterland. The need for Popular Committees became immediately apparent with the presence of armed gunmen who patrolled the neighbourhoods shooting randomly into the air.
 * By the end of 2011, these had "slowly disappeared – or, to be more precise," merged with "the army and the secret service to fight in neighbourhoods held by the opposition," and so they "became the Shabiha." Nakkash does not, however, suggest Shabiya as an origin for the name Shabiha, even as the one emerged right from the other.
 * Consider also Wikipedia's Shabiha page and flanking not-quite Shabiha entities surrounding this "Lijan Shaabiya" model: Jaysh al-Sha'bi (only emerges late 2012 and on, however, and organized by Iran and Hezbollah, says the US) and "Lijan militias" on Wikipedia, seeming to be exactly "Shabiha" of the "visible" type, including "the Sunni Muslim Arab al-Berri tribe of Aleppo."


 * Shabaha (To Rip Apart): "A more likely explanation" for the new name Shabiha use for themselves, Nakkash suggests, "is that the term shabiha is derived from shabaha, a verb meaning to rip apart an object or a person, almost to the point of dismemberment."


 * Shabah (Mercedes Car): An article for Global Post reported that the Shabiha were "named either for the Arabic word for ghosts or the old Mercedes Shahab popular for its smuggling-sized trunk"

There is not necessarily any one correct origin, especially as it’s not quite any one of these words. Any combination of these or other, unlisted origins, could be why the term was invented, by whomever first, to describe this apparently new force in the Syrian conflict.

Visible vs. Invisible Shabiha
There are two types of Shabiha to consider, both of which could be the same or could not.
 * 1) Visible: The actual pro-government militias, supported by some evidence, with members who speak for themselves sometimes.
 * 2) Invisible: The Shabiha of the horrific massacre, always spoken of by the rebel first responders who always seem to be just a step behind these shadowy villains.

Visible Shabiha
The best name meaning for this group would be something between Shabeeba and Sha'abiya, Baath party/government-supporting popular militias. These seem to exist and have occasionally even spoken for themselves and the rest on the record, with different degrees of reliability. They fall into three broad groups: Those captured as Shabiha and made to talk, Those killed as Shabiha and spoken for, and Shabiha at large who give candid interviews. (details/examples forthcoming)

Invisible Shabiha
Never seen in action, the invisible Shabiha are best known for massacres of rural Sunni families and villages, at least as rebels explain it (see examples below, Shabiha massacres). The best name meaning for these is between Shibah and Shabaha: dismembering ghost army. Whatever the rebels say, there is usually compelling evidence that these killers are not the same people fighting with the government, but rather concealed black ops and false flag units on the anti-government side.

Reported History
Daniel Brode wrote for Middle East Online that "the Shabiha trace their roots back to the 1970’s, where they functioned primarily as an Alawite mafia. Operating under the auspices of Rifaat Ali Al Assad, the uncle of the current president, they smuggled contraband, all the while earning a reputation of unrelenting violence." For decades, there seems to be little or no information about them, and then "following the outbreak of the Sunni-led uprising in 2011, the Shabiha took on a different role" that, as we've seen, involves ruthlessly hacking up people of all ages. Aziz Nakkash argues that, at least in Homs, it was the militarization of neighborhood popular committees (Lijat Sha'abiya), especially the Alawite ones, into what was by the fall known as "Shabiha."

One article from May 2011 was already explaining the term in English, at the time mostly just shooting randomly at protesters. Otherwise, it wasn't commonly used in western media before late 2011. The dates of creation of the different wikipedia "Shabiha" articles might be of interest here. The oldest one is the Arabic one, from late March 2011. The English one is from August 2011, the German one from December 2011. In Farsi and Turkish people didn't bother writing about the term until early 2012.

Appearance
Middle East Online reported the Shabiha appearance is "defined by their camouflage trousers, white sneakers, and unquestionable willingness to viciously protect the Assad regime." The BBC heard of "heavily-armed men dressed in black." According to some alleged survivors of the Houla massacre, the Shabiha attackers there wore unspecified civilian clothes with white sneakers, joined in Alawite chants, stomped on a koran, specified to their victims where they came from (primarily the tiny town of Al-Fullah), and perhaps had Alawi slogans painted on their foreheads.

The Telegraph spoke to Dr. Mousab Azzawi, operator of the "Syrian Network for Human Rights" (London), who showed them "a video of the Shabiha in action." It shows a sequence of photos of one extremely muscular man, some other men posing with pictures of Assad and Syrian flags, sometimes with toy guns. Inset in the corner is a low resolution video of much skinnier men apparently beating up protesters. They reportedly speak their motto "Bashar, do not be sad: you have men who drink blood."
 * The door to Dr Mousab Azzawi's clinic, on the Mediterranean coast of Syria, was always open to anyone who needed help. But, operating in the heartland of the feared Shabiha militia, there were some patients the doctor would have preferred not to treat. "They were like monsters," said Dr Azzawi, who worked in Latakia. "They had huge muscles, big bellies, big beards. They were all very tall and frightening, and took steroids to pump up their bodies. "I had to talk to them like children, because the Shabiha likes people with low intelligence. But that is what makes them so terrifying – the combination of brute strength and blind allegiance to the regime."

Non-Alawite Shabiha
It's been reported that "blind loyalty to the Allawite sect and the Assad family in particular" is one of the few requirements for a Shabih. Contrasting that is an early reports from February, 2012, as Aleppo first saw serious militant activity Assad loyalist militiamen, known as 'shabbiha'" started killing protesters and firing randomly into neighborhoods to quell the spreading protests. Here, one pro-rebel businessman said, the shabbiha the regime has recruited are actually Sunnis from the city, not Alawites."

The July, 2012 mass-execution of alleged "Shabiha" boss, Ali Zein Al-Berri and dozens of his men, might support this: the only source specifying a sect says the Berri clan in large, powerful, and Sunni. This supports the notion that essentially the real people rebels refer to and intend "justice" for started as local, sometimes tribal, self-defense committees of whatever sect that probably call themselves something like Lija Shabiya, popular committees.

Latakia "Shabiha"
Alawite men (aka Shabiha) promise resistance to the rebels in Latakia.
 * Syrian Resistance by Latakia's Men: Message to FSA from Syria's Snowy Coast

Shabiha Massacres
The alleged Alawite militias are credited with a number and variety of crimes, but nothing stirs the world's disgust or spurs our scrutiny like a reported Shabiha massacre of men, women, and children in the Syrian countryside. There have been so, so many of these it's heartbreaking to an exponentially compounded degree.

(for evolving list with brief notes, see: Talk page, Shabiha Massacres)

Even among captured and amazingly candid self-described Shabiha, acknowledgments of running operations that hideous are few and far between. Latakia thug Abu Jaafar, speaking to Global Post, for one, strongly hints at things like the Houla massacre: “We started by facing the protesters, but when the opposition became armed we attacked them in their villages,” he said. Consider also “Sunni women are giving birth to babies who will fight us in years to come, so we have the right to fight anyone who can hurt us in the future,” suggesting women, children are considered fair targets. Otherwise, these crimes are only ascribed by rebels to the local Shabiha, with no sort of even alleged confirmation.