Syria's shadow rulers reshape economy
In the weeks after Damascus fell to Syria's rebels, a leading businessman got a late-night call to come see 'the sheikh.'
The address was familiar, a building where periodic shakedowns of businessmen like him occurred under Bashar al-Assad's economic empire.
But there were new bosses in town.
With a long, dark beard and a pistol on his waist, the sheikh gave only a fighter's pseudonym, Abu Mariam. Now the leader of a committee reshaping Syria's economy, he asked questions in courteous Arabic with a slight Australian twang.
'He asked me about my work, how much money we made,' the businessman said. 'I just kept looking at the gun.'
A Reuters investigation has found that Syria's new leadership is secretly restructuring an economy broken by corruption and years of sanctions against Assad's government, under the auspices of a group of men whose identities have until now been concealed under pseudonyms. The committee's mission: decipher the legacy of the Assad-era economy, then decide what to restructure and what to retain.
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