Syrian mukhabarat intercepting calls from overseas?

A Syrian student in the US sent me this:  "Hey As'ad,
I've been trying to reach family inside Syria for the past 2 hours and it seems that my calls were intercepted and rerouted to a recorded mock answer by a shabbee7/mukhabaraat. Its purpose is clearly intimidation and inducing fear in expatriates to worry about their families inside.
This is how I confirmed it was an intercepted call and a recorded answer (it's obvious it's recorded because the guy doesn't answer not matter what you say/ask and regardless of whether the call recipient is a guy or girl):
-I called my father's number few times and got the same message.
-I called other family members and got the same dude answering. (at this point I thought they all got arrested but one call miraculously made it through to my father!)
-I called different numbers throughout Syria (different provinces) and ended up with the same recorded message.
-I even called the syria-news.com's numbers and got the same thing.
so clearly the calls are intercepted and rerouted. whether only those originating from N.America or other places are intercepted is not known.
I recorded the message and attach it here to be published if you deem it worthy."