Underground tunnels filled with safes and sealed armoured rooms have been discovered beneath the Damascus villa of Maher al Assad, the brother of ousted Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad.
Maher al Assad was the commander of the once-elite 4th Armoured Division of the now-collapsed regime military.
Located on a hilltop overlooking the capital near the Damascus-Beirut highway, the three-story villa features a heliport within its expansive courtyard, surrounded by high walls.
The ground floor includes a garage and a meeting room, while the lowest level houses an armoured door leading to a tunnel network.
A 22-step staircase descends to an intermediate section with a rest area, followed by 130 more steps leading deeper into the tunnels.
These underground passages include electrical wiring, ventilation, bedrooms, a kitchen and bathrooms, all reinforced with armoured doors.
Several rooms within the main tunnel, which branches into left and right sections, contain emptied safes and luxury watch brand displays.
Two heavily armoured rooms remain sealed, with their contents still unknown.
The tunnel network, spanning approximately 3 kilometres (1.86 miles), extends to the headquarters of the 4th Armoured Division, once one of the most powerful military units of the Assad regime.
Also visible is an entrance for vehicles leading toward the Syria-Lebanon highway.
Fayez Mohammed, a security guard at the villa, told said Maher al-Assad used the property as an office and retreat.
“There are vault rooms inside the tunnels beneath the villa,” he said.
“There are still two armoured rooms that cannot be opened. The villa also contains documents and records belonging to the 4th Armoured Division, including directives and correspondence from Maher al Assad,” he added.
Bashar al Assad, Syria’s leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia on December 8, ending the Baath Party’s regime, which had been in power since 1963.
The next day, Ahmed Al Sharaa, the leader of the new Syrian administration, who was appointed president on January 29, tasked Mohammed Al-Bashir with forming a government to oversee Syria’s transitional period.
