Extent of Syrian regime massacre exposed by new report

A new report has exposed the full extent of the brutal massacre that the Syrian regime inflicted on civilians in the town of Daraya 10 years ago. (File/AFP)
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Updated 26 August 2022
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Extent of Syrian regime massacre exposed by new report

  • The probe, supported by a British advocacy group, lays bare the details of hundreds of killings in Daraya
  • ‘Whether it’s in Syria or other conflicts, there will come a time for accountability,’ UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Arab News

LONDON/NEW YORK: A new report has exposed the full extent of the massacre the Syrian regime inflicted on civilians in the town of Daraya 10 years ago, The Guardian reported on Thursday.

In the first detailed investigation into the atrocities, a team from Syria — backed by advocacy group the Syrian British Consortium — found that at least 700 people were killed when regime loyalists pushed into the town between Aug. 24 and 26, 2012.

Soldiers moved door-to-door, killing or detaining men, women and children, sparing few. Terrified families hid in basements while troops shot dead innocent civilians.

The Syrian investigators and the SBC tracked down survivors and witnesses, many of whom had fled the country, to record their testimonies. The investigators now hope that the UN and legal groups will be motivated to prosecute the responsible parties.

“This report records the atrocities perpetrated in Daraya based on the testimony of witnesses and victims, thereby memorializing their accounts and maintaining a record for posterity,” the report said.

“It also showcases that despite the passage of 10 years and the collection of substantial evidence, accountability and justice continue to elude the people of Daraya.

“Despite their disappointment in the international system, witnesses provided their testimony, recounting the heinous crimes committed in Daraya by their own government, based on their belief that their story — their truth — is not only worthy of documentation but may one day assist in bringing justice and accountability.”

The 2012 killings were viewed as the worst atrocity of the conflict at that time. The regime of President Bashar Assad said the massacre was a counterterrorism operation.

Investigators amassed evidence that regime forces and Iranian and Hezbollah militias were present and involved during the attacks on Daraya, based on their uniforms and identifying patches. Experts were also able to identify some forces due to the weaponry and equipment they used. The team was able to identify some of the individuals responsible.

But despite the shocking events, the killings have not attracted significant international attention other than a small reference in a UN report on Syria in 2013, which concluded the Assad regime was carrying out war crimes.

“We chose to investigate this massacre because it was the beginning of the unraveling of Daraya,” Yasmine Nahlawi, a specialist in international law and atrocity prevention, told The Guardian.

“The army had engaged in skirmishes before, going into the city and shooting at demonstrators. But this was the first major event that led to a spiral of targeted campaigns against the city, further massacres, a siege and bombardments.”

Yafa Omar, an investigator who recalled hearing the bombardment of Daraya from Damascus, told the newspaper: “If you allow these crimes to happen in Syria it will become the norm and it will happen elsewhere.

“Syrians doing this paves the way for victims in other countries to use the same tools to pursue justice.”

The report found that the Assad regime and its allies carried out heavy shelling of Daraya in the days before the ground assault.

One witness said: “The regime’s escalation against the city of Daraya began on the first or second day of Eid (Aug. 19 or 20). The bombardments became worse than normal.

“There was mortar shelling and worse types of bombardments with weapons that we didn’t know, with new sounds.”

A different witness said: “We knew that our area’s turn came when the mortars stopped.” Another said that after the attacks the local hospital was “horrific, like doomsday.”

Legal efforts to prosecute regime soldiers have proved difficult but a recent court case in Germany resulted in the conviction of a Syrian officer for crimes against humanity.

Despite this success, attempts by the UN Security Council to refer the Assad regime to the International Criminal Court have been vetoed by Russia and China.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Arab News: “Whether it’s in Syria or other conflicts, there will come a time for accountability. There will need to be accountability for crimes committed against civilians.

“There are a number of mechanisms that are gathering information on Syria, notably the independent commission set up by the Human Rights Council and others, and it’s very important that everyone support those mechanisms so we can actually get to some accountability at some point.”

When he became secretary-general of the UN in 2017, Antonio Guterres promised to make resolving the Syrian conflict his top priority. Asked where the 12-year war ranks on the UN chief’s list of priorities now, Dujarric told Arab News: “I can tell you that it remains a focus.”

He noted in particular the secretary-general’s vocal advocacy of the need to renew the cross-border mechanism for the delivery life-saving aid, so that it can continue to flow to the 4 million Syrians in the northwest of the country facing the specter of famine.

“Any secretary-general has a set of priorities,” said Dujarric. “The world also comes up with priorities as we go. This question often comes up. It’s not as if there is a crisis that is a favorite child of his, right?

“I think Antonio Guterres, at the heart, is deeply humanitarian and he is trying to help everyone who needs our help.”

Dujarric added that the efforts of Geir Pedersen, Guterres’ special envoy for Syria, “in pushing on the political track” are ongoing. Pedersen visited Moscow on Thursday, where he met Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

(Ephrem Kossaify in New York contributed to this report.)


At least 100,000 bodies in Syrian mass grave, US advocacy group head says

Updated 17 December 2024
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At least 100,000 bodies in Syrian mass grave, US advocacy group head says

  • Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, are accused by Syrians, rights groups and other governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country’s notorious prison system

WASHINGTON: The head of a US-based Syrian advocacy organization on Monday said that a mass grave outside of Damascus contained the bodies of at least 100,000 people killed by the former government of ousted President Bashar Assad.
Mouaz Moustafa, speaking to Reuters in a telephone interview from Damascus, said the site at al Qutayfah, 25 miles (40 km) north of the Syrian capital, was one of five mass graves that he had identified over the years.
“One hundred thousand is the most conservative estimate” of the number of bodies buried at the site, said Moustafa, head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. “It’s a very, very extremely almost unfairly conservative estimate.”
Moustafa said that he is sure there are more mass graves than the five sites, and that along with Syrians victims included US and British citizens and other foreigners.
Reuters was unable to confirm Moustafa’s allegations.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad’s crackdown on protests against his rule grew into a full-scale civil war.
Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, are accused by Syrians, rights groups and other governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country’s notorious prison system.
Assad repeatedly denied that his government committed human rights violations and painted his detractors as extremists.
Syria’s UN Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He assumed the role in January — while Assad was still in power — but told reporters last week that he was awaiting instructions from the new authorities and would “keep defending and working for the Syrian people.”
Moustafa arrived in Syria after Assad flew to Russia and his government collapsed in the face of a lightning offensive by rebels that ended his family’s more than 50 years of iron-fisted rule.
He spoke to Reuters after he was interviewed at the site in al Qutayfah by Britain’s Channel 4 News for a report on the alleged mass grave there.
He said the intelligence branch of the Syrian air force was “in charge of bodies going from military hospitals, where bodies were collected after they’d been tortured to death, to different intelligence branches, and then they would be sent to a mass grave location.”
Corpses also were transported to sites by the Damascus municipal funeral office whose personnel helped unload them from refrigerated tractor-trailers, he said.
“We were able to talk to the people who worked on these mass graves that had on their own escaped Syria or that we helped to escape,” said Moustafa.
His group has spoken to bulldozer drivers compelled to dig graves and “many times on orders, squished the bodies down to fit them in and then cover them with dirt,” he said.
Moustafa expressed concern that graves sites were unsecured and said they needed to be preserved to safeguard evidence for investigations.

 


Syria’s Golani says rebel factions to be ‘disbanded’, calls for lifting sanctions

Updated 17 December 2024
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Syria’s Golani says rebel factions to be ‘disbanded’, calls for lifting sanctions

  • “Syria must remain united, and there must be a social contract between the state and all religions to guarantee social justice,” said Jolani

DAMASCUS: The leader of the Islamist group that toppled Bashar Assad said Monday that armed factions in war-torn Syria would be “disbanded” and their fighters placed under the defense ministry, and called for sanctions to be lifted so refugees can return.
Syrian president Assad was toppled by a lightning 11-day rebel offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group (HTS), whose fighters and allies swept down from northwest Syria and entered the capital on December 8.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed Al-Golani said Monday on the group’s Telegram channel that all the rebel factions “would “be disbanded and the fighters trained to join the ranks of the defense ministry.”
“All will be subject to the law,” said Golani, who now uses his real name, Ahmed Al-Sharaa.
He also emphasized the need for unity in a country home to different ethnic minority groups and religions, while speaking to members of the Druze community — a branch of Shiite Islam making up about 3 percent of Syria’s pre-war population.
“Syria must remain united,” he said. “There must be a social contract between the state and all religions to guarantee social justice.”
Several countries and organizations have welcomed Assad’s fall but said they were waiting to see how the new authorities would treat minorities in the country.
During a second meeting with a delegation of British diplomats, the HTS leader also spoke “of the importance of restoring relations” with London.
He stressed the need to end “all sanctions imposed on Syria so that Syrian refugees can return to their country,” according to remarks reported on his group’s Telegram channel.
HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and proscribed as a terrorist organization by many Western governments, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric.
Since the toppling of Assad, it has insisted that the rights of all Syrians will be protected.
 

 


UN chief welcomes aid commitments by new Syrian authorities

Updated 17 December 2024
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UN chief welcomes aid commitments by new Syrian authorities

  • Guterres called on the international community to rally behind the Syrian people as they “seize the opportunity to build a better future”

UNITED NATIONS: United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher met with the commander of Syria’s new administration, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, and newly appointed Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Bashir on Monday to discuss scaling up humanitarian assistance in the country.
Following Fletcher’s meeting, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he welcomed the caretaker government’s commitment to protect civilians, including humanitarian workers.
“I also welcome their agreement to grant full humanitarian access through all border crossings; cut through bureaucracy over permits and visas for humanitarian workers; ensure the continuity of essential government services, including health and education; and engage in genuine and practical dialogue with the wider humanitarian community,” Guterres said.
Syria’s Bashar Assad was ousted after insurgent forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham swept through Syria in a lightning offensive, ending more than 50 years of iron-fisted rule by his family.
Guterres called on the international community to rally behind the Syrian people as they “seize the opportunity to build a better future.” The United Nations says seven in 10 people in Syria continue to need humanitarian aid.
Fletcher also plans to visit Lebanon, Turkiye and Jordan, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols Editing by Bill Berkrot)

 


US strikes Houthi command and control facility in Yemen

Updated 17 December 2024
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US strikes Houthi command and control facility in Yemen

  • The Yemeni rebels say their attacks — a significant international security challenge that threatens a major shipping lane — are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza

WASHINGTON: American forces carried out an air strike on Monday against a Houthi command and control facility that was used by the Yemeni rebels to coordinate attacks, the US military said.
The Houthis began striking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, part of the region-wide fallout from Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, which militant groups in multiple countries have cited as justification for attacks.
“The targeted facility was a hub for coordinating Houthi operations, such as attacks against US Navy warships and merchant vessels in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
“The strike reflects CENTCOM’s ongoing commitment to protect US and coalition personnel, regional partners, and international shipping,” it added.
The Yemeni rebels say their attacks — a significant international security challenge that threatens a major shipping lane — are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Anger over Israel’s ongoing military campaign in the small coastal territory, which began after an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, has stoked violence involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
The United States and other countries have deployed military vessels to help shield shipping from the Houthi strikes, and the rebels have periodically launched attacks targeting American military ships.
Washington’s forces have also carried out frequent air strikes on the Houthis in a bid to degrade their ability to target shipping and have sought to seize weapons before they reach the rebels, but their attacks have persisted.
 

 


US-brokered ceasefire fails between Kurdish and Turkiye-backed forces in Syria

Updated 17 December 2024
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US-brokered ceasefire fails between Kurdish and Turkiye-backed forces in Syria

  • Shami blamed the collapse of the mediation on “Turkiye’s approach in dealing with the mediation efforts and its evasion to accept key points”

CAIRO: Syrian US-backed Kurdish Syrian forces (SDF) said U.S-brokered mediation efforts failed to reach a permanent ceasefire with Syria’s Turkiye-backed rebels in the northern cities of Manbij and Kobani, according to head of the SDF’s media center Farhad Shami on Monday.
Shami blamed the collapse of the mediation on “Turkiye’s approach in dealing with the mediation efforts and its evasion to accept key points.”
The Turks are not happy about the ceasefire deal and Turkiye prefers to keep maximum pressure on SDF, a Syrian opposition source told Reuters.
Last week, the SDF said they reached a ceasefire agreement with the Turkiye-backed rebels in Manbij through US mediation “to ensure the safety and security of civilians.”