With international attention diverting away from Syria amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have secretly stepped up real estate purchases in areas of strategic value to them.
Activists and real estate owners stated that Hezbollah, which is affiliated with Iran, hides its role by using Syrian brokers who are complicit in its plan, and buys or confiscates property in an effort to bring about demographic change.
The party buys lands belonging to Syrians who need to sell them for financial necessity and to the displaced and those who vacated their property and fled the country during the Syrian and Russian attack.
Some Syrians who have property in areas desired by the party chose to sell their villas and lands reluctantly to get some money from them instead of confiscating them directly by the regime or Iranian militias
They are forced to sell their homes
Among those facing this situation is a family originally from the city of Moadamiyat al-Sham, which is located on the southwestern outskirts of Damascus, and its members have settled years ago in Lebanon.
A family member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the family owned a four-storey building in Moadamiyat al-Sham.
“We never thought that we would be forced to sell,” he said, adding that the family was forced to take this step because it was no longer able to access its accounts in a Lebanese bank.
He stated that the family studied the idea of selling at length, “and we reached the conviction of selling because the agent informed us that the broker would pay many times the real price of the property in dollars.”
He said that the sale process “wound our hearts, because the building embraces our memories and sums up the tiredness of parents.”
He added, “But if we had not done that, Hezbollah and its brokers would have seized it, and we would not have obtained our financial right.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated in January that Hezbollah had seized hangars that were used for vegetables in the Al-Sayeda Zeinab area in Damascus, and had taken them as its headquarters.
Likewise, groups of Hezbollah members moved to the al-Saboura area in Damascus and confiscated their villas after they left their headquarters in a villa in the Mezzeh area, near a villa owned by Bashar al-Assad’s cousin, billionaire Rami Makhlouf.
The Observatory pointed out that Iran is working with its militias to revive its expansion project near Damascus and extend its influence to the southern outskirts of Sayyidah Zeinab, which is a major stronghold of the militias .
Local brokers working for the Iranians offer attractive offers to the Syrian population to buy real estate from them, taking advantage of their destitution, to be used by the families of Iranian militia members.
The seizure of the lands of Damascus
In this context, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, said, “There is a major attack by Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards on buying villas and real estate in and around Damascus, and its heroes are Syrian merchants and brokers, most of whom are from Deir ez-Zor.”
They buy these villas and real estate from their owners and sell them specifically to Hezbollah, he told Al-Mashareq.
He added that they sell them “for amounts that exceed the real estate value, and the purchase is done by proxy because the owners are outside Syria.”
He said that the owners “prefer to sell it in order to avoid taking it by force.”
He pointed out that the focus of Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards on buying real estate in several Syrian regions, including the vicinity of Damascus, comes as part of a broader effort to ” bring about demographic change in Syria .”
He pointed out that they have created a real estate belt in the vicinity of the capital, Damascus, as a station for them on the road leading to Tehran, which passes through Al-Bukamal and Al-Mayadeen in Deir Ezzor.
Abdul Rahman said that since the beginning of 2023, Iranian militias led by Hezbollah have purchased no less than 29 properties in the city of Al-Mayadeen.
Exploit difficult circumstances
In this context, Syrian media activist Ahmed Obaid told Al-Mashareq that Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are taking advantage of the difficult economic conditions to buy real estate from Syrians.
He explained that they lend them money in exchange for mortgaging the real estate, and then expropriate it in the event that the mortgage is not paid on time, and this is done “through Syrian brokers cooperating with them.”
He added that Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards are implementing an organized plan to buy real estate with the aim of bringing about demographic change in their favour.
He said that real estate purchases are currently active in Moadamiyat al-Sham, under the supervision of the sheikh of the Marasmeh clan in Deir Ezzor, Farhan al-Marsoumi.
He explained that Al-Marsoumi was appointed as the sheikh of the clan, “in the presence of Russian officers and regime intelligence officers last September.”
He said that he is considered “the most prominent arm of the Revolutionary Guard in expropriation and real estate purchases in Damascus, its countryside, and Deir Ezzor, in which he bought hundreds of real estate.”
He pointed out that Al-Marsoumi’s property purchase efforts have recently turned to Eastern Ghouta and Moadamiyat al-Sham.
He added that Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards focused for a specific period on buying villas and real estate in the areas of Yafour and al-Saboura, where prices are higher in the vicinity of Damascus.
It is noteworthy that these areas are close to the Syrian-Lebanese border, the Dimas airport, the center of the Fourth Division of the Syrian regime , and their military positions.
Obaid pointed out that real estate purchases were recorded on behalf of Hezbollah figures in the old city of Damascus and the al-Maliki neighborhood, which is one of the prestigious neighborhoods in the city center, and the price of some of them exceeded one million dollars.
Obeid talked about “expanding the process of buying residential homes for Iranian and Iraqi personalities at the end of 2022.”
He stated that among these personalities are leaders of the Harakat al-Nujaba militia affiliated with Iran, and the purchases were made through a broker who is from Deir ez-Zor and resides in the city and works for al-Marsoumi.