ANKARA: A team of Turkish rescuers began an in-depth search of Syria’s infamous Saydnaya prison on Monday, a spokesman for Turkiye’s AFAD disaster management agency told AFP.
Located just north of Damascus, the prison has become a symbol of the rights abuses of the Assad clan, especially since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011.
Prisoners held inside the complex, which was the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, were freed early last week by the oppoition forces who ousted Syrian strongman Bashar Assad on December 8.
AFAD said it had sent a team of nearly 80 people to conduct a search-and-rescue operation to “find people thought to be trapped in Sadnaya military prison,” with its director due to give a press conference outside the prison about its mission, spokesman Kubilay Ozyurt told AFP.
The complex is thought to descend several levels underground, fueling suspicion more prisoners could be being held in as yet undiscovered hidden cells.
But the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP), believes the rumors are unfounded.
AFAD said the team, which is specialized in “heavy” urban search and rescue operations, would work with “advanced search and rescue devices,” the Anadolu state news agency reported.
The prison complex was thoroughly searched by Syria’s White Helmets emergency workers but they wrapped up their operations on Tuesday, saying they were unable to find any more prisoners.
Rescuers have punched holes in walls to investigate rumors of secret levels housing missing prisoners, but found nothing, leaving many thousands of families disappointed — their relatives are probably dead and may never be found.
ADMSP said the opposition forces freed more than 4,000 prisoners from Saydnaya, which Amnesty International has described as a “human slaughterhouse.”
The organization, which is based in southern Turkiye, believes more than 30,000 prisoners died there as a result of execution, torture, starvation or a lack of medical care between 2011 and 2018.
Turkish rescuers search infamous Syria jail
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Turkish rescuers search infamous Syria jail
Assad denies ‘planned’ exit from Syria
- Former officials said that the night before he left, Assad had asked his close adviser to prepare a speech
- He flew from Damascus airport to Russia’s Hmeimim air base, and from there out of the country: former officials
DAMASCUS: Bashar Assad on Monday said he fled Syria only after Damascus had fallen and denounced the country’s new leaders as “terrorists,” in his first remarks since militants seized the capital and unseated him.
An opposition alliance launched a lightning offensive from its northwest Syria bastion on November 27, swiftly capturing major cities from government control and taking the capital on December 8.
“My departure from Syria was neither planned nor did it occur during the final hours of the battles, as some have claimed,” said a statement from Assad on the ousted presidency’s Telegram channel.
“I remained in Damascus, carrying out my duties until the early hours” of Sunday December 8, it added.
“As terrorist forces infiltrated Damascus, I moved to Latakia in coordination with our Russian allies to oversee combat operations,” the statement said, adding that he arrived at the Hmeimim base that morning.
“As the field situation in the area continued to deteriorate, the Russian military base itself came under intensified attack by drone strikes,” it said, and “Moscow requested that the base’s command arrange an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening” of December 8.
Five former officials previously told AFP that hours before militant forces seized Damascus and toppled Assad’s government, the former Syrian president was already out of the country.
The officials said that the night before, Assad had even asked his close adviser to prepare a speech — which the ousted leader never gave — before flying from Damascus airport to Russia’s Hmeimim air base, and from there out of the country.
“When the state falls into the hands of terrorism and the ability to make a meaningful contribution is lost, any position becomes void of purpose,” the statement from Assad added.
Though Assad has long branded any who oppose his rule “terrorists,” Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the group that led his overthrow, has also been proscribed as a terrorist organization by the United States and other Western governments.
With its roots in a former branch of Al-Qaeda in Syria, HTS broke with the extremist group in 2016 and has sought to soften its image.
In recent days, both the US and Britain have established contact with the group.
Syria war monitor says heavy Israeli strikes hit coastal region
- It called the raids “the heaviest strikes in Syria’s coastal region since the start of strikes in 2012.”
TARTUS: Israeli strikes targeted military sites in Syria’s coastal Tartus region overnight, a war monitor said Monday, calling them “the heaviest strikes” there in years.
“Israeli warplanes launched strikes” targeting a series of sites including air defense units and “surface-to-surface missile depots,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
It said 18 raids “targeted strategic locations on the Syrian coast,” added the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside the country.
It called the raids “the heaviest strikes in Syria’s coastal region since the start of strikes in 2012.”
Tartus province also has a naval base belonging to Russia, a close ally of president Bashar Assad whom Islamist-forces ousted just over a week ago after capturing swathes of the country in a lightning offensive.
In the village of Bmalkah in the hills above Tartus, an AFP journalist saw roads filled with shattered glass and shreds of roller doors.
The force of blasts had stripped the leaves of olive trees in groves surrounding the village, and smoke still rose from nearby hillsides.
Residents told AFP that explosions began shortly after midnight and continued until almost 6:00 am (0300 GMT).
“It was like an earthquake. All the windows in my house were blown out,” said 28-year-old Ibrahim Ahmed, an employee in a legal office.
Clean-up crews sawed at fallen trees that had blocked the road to the next community. They also swept up missile and shell parts, even as the valley echoed to more blasts as pockets of stockpiled munitions caught fire.
“The village did not sleep last night. The kids were crying,” said one middle-aged man in a blue sweatshirt who refused to give his name.
“Most of the people had already left their homes toward the city, now they have lost their houses,” he added.
At a nearby military complex, smoke billowed from arched concrete bunkers cut into the hillside, and secondary explosions threw out shrapnel that fell among the trees.
Broken parts of mortars, rockets and missile launch tubes littered the hillsides.
According to the Observatory, 473 Israeli strikes have targeted military sites in Syria since the opposition alliance toppled Assad on December 8.
Germany urges Israel to ‘abandon’ plan to step up Golan Heights settlement
- A foreign ministry spokesman said it is perfectly clear under international law that this area controlled by Israel belongs to Syria
BERLIN: Germany on Monday urged Israel to “abandon” a plan to double the population living in the occupied and annexed Golan Heights at the southwestern edge of Syria.
A foreign ministry spokesman said “it is perfectly clear under international law that this area controlled by Israel belongs to Syria and that Israel is therefore an occupying power.”
The spokesman, Christian Wagner, added that Berlin therefore called on its ally Israel “to abandon this plan” announced Sunday by the Israeli government.
Syria’s Kurds call for end to all military operations in the country
- The Kurds faced discrimination during more than 50 years of Assad family rule
BEIRUT: Syria’s Kurds, who run a semi-autonomous administration in the northeast, called Monday for an end to all fighting in the country and extended a hand to the new authorities in Damascus.
Hussein Othman, the head of the administration’s executive council, called for “a stop to military operations over the entire Syrian territory in order to begin a constructive, comprehensive national dialogue.”
The call, made at a press conference in Raqqa, comes more than a week after Islamist-led opposition forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad after a lightning offensive in which they seized swathes of territory.
In parallel, pro-Ankara groups launched an offensive against Kurdish forces near the Turkish border, announcing they had seized Manbij and Tal Rifaat, two key Kurdish-held areas in the country’s north.
The Kurds faced discrimination during more than 50 years of Assad family rule, and the long-oppressed community fears it could lose hard-won gains it made during the war, including limited self-rule.
Othman said in the statement that “the political exclusion and marginalization that has destroyed Syria must end and all political forces must rebuild a new Syria.”
The statement called for “an emergency meeting in Damascus of Syrian political forces to unify viewpoints on the transitional period.”
It also emphasized the need to “preserve the unity and sovereignty of Syrian territories and protect them from the attacks by Turkiye and its mercenaries.”
The Kurds, which control sweathes of Syria’s oil-producing areas, also called in the statement for “the fair distribution” of the country’s wealth and economic resources.
Kurdish-led forces said Wednesday they had reached a US-brokered ceasefire with Turkish-backed fighters in Manbij, an Arab-majority city in the north, after fighting there left at least 218 dead.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, pro-Turkiye groups are preparing to launch an assault on the Kurdish-held border town of Kobani, also known as Ain Al-Arab.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, spearheaded the fight that defeated Daesh group jihadists in Syria in 2019 with US backing — putting Washington at odds with NATO ally Ankara.
Ankara views the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a key part of the SDF, as an extension of the banned militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has fought a decades-long insurgency inside Turkiye.
Turkish forces have staged multiple operations against the SDF since 2016.
Turkiye, long a Syrian opposition backer, has been among the first countries to reopen its Damascus embassy after Assad’s ouster.
Death toll in Israel’s Gaza offensive tops 45,000
- But real toll believed higher because thousands of bodies are still buried under rubble or in areas that medics cannot access
- Israel claims Hamas is responsible for the civilian death toll because it operates from within civilian areas
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Health officials in the Gaza Strip say the death toll from the 14-month war between Israel and Hamas militants has topped 45,000 people.
The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The Health Ministry said 45,028 people have been killed and 106,962 have been wounded since the start of the war in October 2023. It has said the real toll is higher because thousands of bodies are still buried under rubble or in areas that medics cannot access. The latest war has been by far the deadliest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas, with the death toll now amounting to roughly 2 percent of Gaza’s entire prewar population of about 2.3 million.
Israel claims Hamas is responsible for the civilian death toll because it operates from within civilian areas in the densely populated Gaza Strip. Rights groups and Palestinians say Israel has failed to take sufficient precautions to avoid civilian deaths.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead. Most of the rest were released during a ceasefire last year.
An Israeli strike killed at least 10 people, including a family of four, in Gaza City overnight, Palestinian medics said Monday.
The strike late Sunday hit a house in Gaza City’s eastern Shijaiyah neighborhood, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service. Rescuers recovered the bodies of 10 people from under the rubble, including those of two parents and their two children, it said.
