Syrians missing, dying from torture in militant-run prisons

Syrians missing, dying from torture in militant-run prisons
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Ahmad Al-Hakim prays as he sits by the tomb of his brother Abdul Qader, who was reportedly killed in torture while in captivity by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), in the village of Harbanush in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province on Mar. 8, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 27 March 2024
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Syrians missing, dying from torture in militant-run prisons

Syrians missing, dying from torture in militant-run prisons
  • “We protested and rose up against the Assad regime in order to be rid of injustice,” said Hakim, 30, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad
  • Accusations of torture and other rights violations have increased since last year when HTS launched a crackdown on suspected “agents” for Damascus or foreign governments

HARBANUSH, Syria: Ahmed Al-Hakim’s 27-year-old brother was tortured to death in prison in Syria’s militant-run northwest, sparking rare protests amid accusations from residents and activists of rights violations in the opposition bastion.
“We protested and rose up against the Assad regime in order to be rid of injustice,” said Hakim, 30, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Now “we find ourselves ruled with the same methods,” he told AFP, crouched near his brother Abdel-Kader’s grave, flowers and plants placed in the freshly turned soil.
Syria’s 13-year-old conflict, sparked by Assad’s brutal repression of anti-government protests, has drawn in foreign armies and militants and killed more than 500,000 people.
Around half of Idlib province and parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces are controlled by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), an alliance of Islamist factions led by Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate.
Accusations of torture and other rights violations have increased since last year when HTS launched a crackdown on suspected “agents” for Damascus or foreign governments.
Security forces from the Islamist group have detained hundreds of civilians, fighters and even prominent HTS members, providing no information to families, said residents and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
Abdel-Kader’s death triggered rare protests in Idlib province — home to some three million people, many displaced from government-held areas — in recent weeks and calls for the release of detainees, according to the Britain-based Observatory.
The war monitor said demonstrations are taking place daily in towns and villages, most recently on Sunday evening, when protesters chanted slogans against HTS leader Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani.
Jolani has said the protesters’ demands were “mostly justified,” and announced changes including the restructuring of the security force running the prisons.
HTS’s media office told AFP the group was “seriously examining” the protesters’ demands and would “tighten security bodies’ work (and) improve prison infrastructure... to deal with any dysfunction.”
Hakim, an accountant originally from Aleppo province, said his brother participated in anti-government protests before becoming a fighter and was part of the small HTS-aligned Jaish Al-Ahrar group.
He said the faction told Abdel-Kader to report to HTS, considered a terrorist organization by several Western countries, on suspicions of collaborating with the government.
Abdel-Kader handed himself in on March 16 last year “on the understanding that he would be out... in a week at most,” Hakim said.
After detaining him for several months and then saying he was “in good health,” HTS stonewalled the family’s requests for information, according to Hakim.
Months later, a factional contact and a former fighter told the family Abdel-Kader had died due to torture.
Jaish Al-Ahrar only notified them formally on February 22 that Abdel-Kader was dead.
The family found his grave was “new but the date of death written on it was around 20 days after his arrest,” a distraught Hakim said.
Former detainees told Hakim his brother was “beaten with piping until he lost consciousness, and tied up by his hands for days without food or water.”
Abdel-Kader denied any wrongdoing “so they increased the torture until they killed him,” they told Hakim.
One former detainee said Abdel-Kader was tortured so severely that “he couldn’t walk because his feet were swollen and filled with pus.”
The day he died, the guards “tortured him for six hours” and after he was returned to the cell he “kept vomiting,” Hakim was told.
The grim treatment echoes torture that rights groups have reported in Syrian government-run prisons, particularly since 2011, with tens of thousands of people forcibly disappeared and arbitrarily detained.
Amnesty International in 2017 accused authorities of committing secret mass hangings in the notorious Saydnaya facility.
The Observatory said HTS this month released 420 prisoners in an amnesty aimed at quelling the discontent in the northwest.
But it made no difference for Noha Al-Atrash, 30, whose husband Ahmed Majluba has been detained since December 2022, accused alternately of theft and belonging to an extremist group.
“He has been arrested five times... there is no proven reason for his detention,” she said from her home in Idlib city as her two young children held photos of their father, 38.
Majluba, a laborer, was shot in the leg “during a previous period” in HTS detention, Atrash said.
“I go to the protests, I make posters with pictures of my husband on them, and I take the kids,” said Atrash who was covered head-to-toe in a niqab.
She and her children were themselves detained for around 20 days after she hounded authorities for information.
During one prison visit, she saw her husband’s hand was broken and “his face was swollen from beatings,” she said.
“They’ve asked us to pay $3,000 to have him released,” Atrash said, but added that she doesn’t have the money.
“I have no choice but to protest... I won’t give up as long as they have my husband,” she said defiantly.
The UN’s independent commission of inquiry on Syria said recently it had “reasonable grounds to believe” HTS members had committed “acts that may amount to the war crimes of torture and cruel treatment and unlawful deprivation of liberty.”
Bassam Alahmad from the Paris-based Syrians for Truth and Justice said people were “fed up with HTS violations” such as “arbitrary arrests and torture.”
He urged families and rights groups to gather independent, credible evidence for potential future investigations.
In a camp near the Turkish border, Amina Al-Hamam, 70, said her son Ghazwan Hassun was detained by HTS in 2019 on suspicion of “informing for the regime.”
“Some people tell us he’s dead, others say he’s alive,” the distressed elderly woman said, sitting with her son’s children, aged five and nine.
Days before being detained, Hassun, a defector from the Syrian police, had published a video criticizing HTS, his family said.
During Hamam’s only visit — eight months after he was detained — Hassun told her guards used a torture method notorious across Syria where the victim has their hands tied behind their back and is suspended from them for hours.
The family has heard nothing since about the 39-year-old but has vowed to keep fighting.
“I cry for him night and day,” said Hamam.
“We fled from injustice, but here we have seen worse.”


Sharaa promises investigation into reports of mass killings in Syria's coastal cities

Sharaa promises investigation into reports of mass killings in Syria's coastal cities
Updated 21 sec ago
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Sharaa promises investigation into reports of mass killings in Syria's coastal cities

Sharaa promises investigation into reports of mass killings in Syria's coastal cities
  • “We will hold accountable ... anyone who was involved in the bloodshed of civilians...,” said interim president Ahmed Al-Sharaa
  • More than 830 Alawite civilians were killed in “executions” carried out by security personnel or pro-government fighterslnsays war monitor

LATAKIA, Syria: The interim president of the Syrian Arab Republic on Sunday vowed accountability and an investigation after the killing of Alawite civilians triggered an international backlash against the worst violence since Bashar Assad’s overthrow.
In its latest toll, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said 830 Alawite civilians were killed in “executions” carried out by security personnel or pro-government fighters in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus.
The Mediterranean area is the heartland of the Alawite minority community to which Assad, the toppled ruler, belongs.
United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said the killings “must cease immediately,” while the Arab League, the United Nations, the United States, Britain and other governments have condemned the violence.
“We will hold accountable, firmly and without leniency, anyone who was involved in the bloodshed of civilians... or who overstepped the powers of the state,” Syria’s interim president Ahmed Al-Sharaa said in a video posted by state news agency SANA.
Earlier Sunday, the presidency announced on Telegram that an “independent committee” had been formed to “investigate the violations against civilians and identify those responsible for them,” who would face the courts.
Fighting between the new security forces and loyalists of the former government erupted on Thursday, after earlier tensions, and escalated into reported mass killings.
The fighting has killed 231 members of the security forces and 250 pro-Assad fighters, according to the Observatory, taking the overall death toll to 1,311.
Sharaa, in a separate address from a Damascus mosque, appealed for national unity.
“God willing, we will be able to live together in this country,” he said.

‘Sweeping operations'
Images on social media showed Syrian security forces on pickups and trucks driving past thick black smoke that drifted over the road on their way into the city of Jableh, between Latakia and Tartus.
The interior ministry said on Sunday that government forces were conducting “sweeping operations” in an area of Tartus province to “pursue the remnants of the toppled regime.”
SANA quoted a defense ministry source as saying there were clashes in Tanita village in the same area.
An AFP photographer in Latakia city reported a military convoy entering a neighborhood to search homes.
In Baniyas, a city further south, resident Samir Haidar, 67, told AFP two of his brothers and his nephew were killed by armed groups that entered people’s homes, adding there were “foreigners among them.”
“They gathered all the men on the roof and opened fire on them,” Haidar said.
The mass killings followed clashes sparked by the arrest of a wanted suspect in a predominantly Alawite village, the Observatory said, reporting a “relative return to calm” in the coastal region on Saturday.
Chief US diplomat Marco Rubio said Syria “must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable,” while Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Damascus authorities “must ensure the protection of all Syrians and set out a clear path to transitional justice.”
In Jordan, Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani said that, “Anyone involved in this matter will be referred to the judiciary.”
The semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in Syria’s north and east condemned the “crimes” and underlined “that these practices take us back to a dark period that the Syrian people do not want to relive.”

‘Rule of law'
Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which led the toppling of Assad in December, has its roots in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. It is still listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and other governments.
The group has sought to moderate its image in recent years. Since the rebel victory, it has vowed to protect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities.
The new government has received diplomats from the West and its neighbors. It is seeking an easing of sanctions along with investment to rebuild a country devastated by 13 years of civil war under the repressive rule of Assad.
Sharaa has said Syria must be built “on the rule of law.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, speaking to German newspaper Bild, said Europe “must wake up” and “stop granting legitimacy” to the new Syrian authorities who he insisted were still jihadists.
The Alawite heartland has been gripped by fear of reprisals for the Assad family’s five-decade rule which included widespread torture and disappearances.
Social media users have shared posts documenting the killing of Alawite friends and relatives.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, reported multiple “massacres” in recent days, with women and children among the dead.
During a sermon in Damascus, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch John X said Christians were among those killed and called on Sharaa to “put a stop to these massacres... and give a sense of safety and security to all the people of Syria, regardless of their sect.”
Later on Sunday, Syrian security forces fired into the air to disperse rival protesters in Damascus who engaged in physical altercations over the killings in the coastal areas.
 


Syrian Kurdish commander demands accountability for those behind mass killings

Syrian Kurdish commander demands accountability for those behind mass killings
Updated 18 min 16 sec ago
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Syrian Kurdish commander demands accountability for those behind mass killings

Syrian Kurdish commander demands accountability for those behind mass killings
  • SDF leader accuses Turkiye-backed factions of being primarily behind the killings in the port city of Latakia
  • Urges interim President Sharaa to “reconsider the method of forming the new Syrian army and the behavior of the armed factions”

QAMISHLI, Syria: The commander of a Kurdish-led force in Syria said on Sunday the country’s interim president must hold the perpetrators of communal violence in Syria’s coastal areas to account, accusing Turkiye-backed factions of being primarily behind the killings.
The head of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazloum Abdi, said in written comments to Reuters that Ahmed Al-Sharaa must intervene to halt “massacres,” adding factions “supported by Turkiye and Islamic extremists” were chiefly responsible.

Syria’s semi-autonomous Kurdish administration likewise condemned the deadly violence against civilians. In a statement, it said it “firmly condemns the crimes committed against our people on the coast and underlines that these practices take us back to a dark period that the Syrian people do not want to relive.”

Syrian security sources have said at least 200 of their members were killed in clashes with former army personnel owing allegiance to toppled leader Bashar Assad after coordinated attacks and ambushes on their forces on Thursday.
The attacks spiralled into a cycle of revenge killings when thousands of armed supporters of Syria’s new leaders from across the country descended to the coastal areas to support beleaguered forces of the new administration.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said on Saturday more than 1,000 people had been killed in the fighting.

The Syria Campaign and the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which both advocated against Assad after the civil war began in 2011, said Saturday that both security forces and pro-Assad gunmen were “carrying out mass executions and systematic killings.”

Turkiye’s defense ministry declined to comment on Abdi’s remarks and the country’s foreign ministry was not immediately available to respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Kurdish forces and Turkish-backed groups clashed repeatedly throughout the nearly 14-year civil war and are still fighting in some parts of northern Syria.
Abdi called on Sharaa to “reconsider the method of forming the new Syrian army and the behavior of the armed factions,” saying some of them were exploiting their role in the army “to create sectarian conflicts and settle internal scores.”
Sharaa, who headed the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) faction that spearheaded the rebel offensive to oust Assad, was named interim president in January. Syria’s previous army was dissolved and rebel factions agreed to merge into a new national armed force.
Abdi said that he was in talks with Sharaa on incorporating his fighting force into the army.

 


Syria’s worst violence in months reopens wounds of the civil war

Syria’s worst violence in months reopens wounds of the civil war
Updated 10 March 2025
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Syria’s worst violence in months reopens wounds of the civil war

Syria’s worst violence in months reopens wounds of the civil war
  • In their ambush, the pro-Assad Alawite gunmen overwhelmed government security forces and later took control of Qardaha, Assad’s hometown, as Damascus scrambled to bring in reinforcements

DAMASCUS: An ambush on a Syrian security patrol by gunmen loyal to ousted leader Bashar Assad escalated into clashes that a war monitor estimates have killed more than 1,000 people over four days.
The attack Thursday near the port city of Latakia reopened the wounds of the country’s 13-year civil war and sparked the worst violence Syria has seen since December, when insurgents led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, overthrew Assad.
The counteroffensive against the Assad loyalists in the largely Alawite coastal region brought havoc to several cities and towns. Rights groups reported dozens of revenge killings resulting from Sunni militants targeting the minority Islamic sect, regardless of whether they were involved in the insurgency.
Here’s a look at the latest violence in the war-wracked country:
What started the violence?
Tensions have been on the rise since Assad’s downfall following sectarian attacks against Alawites, who ruled Syria for over 50 years under the Assad dynasty. The assaults continued despite promises from Syria’s interim president that the country’s new leaders will carve out a political future for Syria that includes and represents all its communities.
In their ambush, the pro-Assad Alawite gunmen overwhelmed government security forces and later took control of Qardaha, Assad’s hometown, as Damascus scrambled to bring in reinforcements.
Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Hassan Abdel-Ghani said Sunday that security forces have restored control of the region and will continue pursuing leaders of the galvanized insurgency.
But despite authorities calling for an end to the sectarian incitement, the clashes turned deadly, and many civilians were killed.
Who are the dead?
Most of the dead are apparently members of the Alawite community, who live largely in the country’s coastal province, including in the cities of Latakia and Tartous. Rights groups estimate that hundreds of civilians were killed.
The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam, and it once formed the core constituency of Assad’s government in the Sunni-majority country.
Opponents of Assad saw Syria under the family’s rule as granting privileges to the Alawite community. As the civil war intensified, militant groups emerged across the country and treated Alawites as affiliates of Assad and his key military allies, Russia and Iran.
Syria’s new interim government is under Sunni Islamist rule. Interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, a former HTS leader, has promised that the country will transition to a system that includes Syria’s mosaic of religious and ethnic groups under fair elections, but skeptics question whether that will actually happen.
Little is currently known about the Alawite insurgency, which is composed of remnants of Assad’s web of military and intelligence branches, and who their foreign backers might be.
Why were the Alawites targeted?
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 745 civilians killed, mostly in shootings. In addition, 125 members of government security forces and 148 militants with armed groups affiliated with Assad were killed. Electricity and drinking water were cut off in large areas around Latakia, the group added.
Meanwhile, the Syria Campaign and the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which both advocated against Assad after the civil war began in 2011, said Saturday that both security forces and pro-Assad gunmen were “carrying out mass executions and systematic killings.”
The SNHR estimated that 100 members of the government’s security forces were killed Thursday, while 125 of an estimated 140 civilians were slain over the weekend in “suspected revenge killings.”
The Associated Press could not verify those numbers, and conflicting death figures during attacks in Syria over the years have not been uncommon. Two residents in the coastal region said that many homes from Alawite families were looted and set on fire. They spoke from their hideouts on condition of anonymity, fearing for their lives.
Damascus blamed “individual actions” for the widespread violence against civilians and said government security forces were responding to the gunmen loyal to the former government.
Can Damascus restore calm after the clashes?
Damascus has struggled to reconcile with skeptics of its Islamist government, as well as with Kurdish-led authorities in the northeast and the Druze minority in the south. Al-Sharaa has lobbied to convince the United States and Europe to lift sanctions to pave the way for economic recovery to pull millions of Syrians out of poverty and make the country viable again.
Washington and Europe are concerned that lifting sanctions before Syria transitions into an inclusive political system could pave the way for another chapter of autocratic rule.
Al-Sharaa appealed to Syrians and the international community in an address over the weekend, calling for accountability for anyone who harms civilians and mistreats prisoners. Such human rights violations were rampant under Assad. Al-Sharra also formed a committee composed mostly of judges to investigate the violence.
In a statement issued Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Syrian authorities to “hold the perpetrators of these massacres” accountable. Rubio said the US “stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities.”

 


OIC welcomes Syria’s reinstatement as member state

OIC welcomes Syria’s reinstatement as member state
Updated 10 March 2025
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OIC welcomes Syria’s reinstatement as member state

OIC welcomes Syria’s reinstatement as member state
  • Decision was approved during extraordinary session of the OIC Council of FMs, held in Jeddah

JEDDAH: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha on Sunday welcomed the reinstatement of the Syrian Arab Republic’s membership in the bloc, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

He called it a historic decision that reaffirmed the organization’s support for the Syrian people during a critical period in the country’s history, SPA added.

The decision was approved during the 20th Extraordinary Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers, held at the OIC General Secretariat in Jeddah on Friday.

The meeting primarily focused on addressing the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and calls for their displacement from their land.

Taha emphasized that Syria’s reinstatement was aimed at facilitating a peaceful and secure political transition that restores the country’s institutions, territorial integrity, and standing among nations.

He also reiterated the General Secretariat’s commitment to working closely with Syria in support of the OIC’s objectives and strengthening joint Islamic action.

Syria was suspended from the OIC in 2012 following the outbreak of a brutal civil war, with member states citing concerns over human rights violations and the conflict’s impact on regional stability.

Its return marks a significant diplomatic shift, reflecting renewed engagement between Damascus and regional actors.

The OIC, comprising 57 member states, has long played a role in addressing issues of mutual concern across the Muslim world, including conflict resolution and humanitarian support.


Shelling kills 7 in Sudan city retaken by army

Shelling kills 7 in Sudan city retaken by army
Updated 10 March 2025
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Shelling kills 7 in Sudan city retaken by army

Shelling kills 7 in Sudan city retaken by army
  • El-Obeid, the state capital of North Kordofan, comes under intense RSF bombardment

PORT SUDAN: Paramilitary shelling on Sunday on a strategic city in Sudan’s south, where the army broke a prolonged siege last month, killed seven civilians and wounded nearly two dozen others, a medical source said.

El-Obeid, the state capital of North Kordofan, came under attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, at war with the army since April 2023, said the source at the city’s main hospital and several witnesses.
Witnesses reported intense bombardment by the RSF on Sunday, with one shell striking a public transport bus carrying passengers, on the third consecutive day of attacks from the north and east.

FASTFACT

Cholera was officially declared an outbreak on Aug. 12 last year by Sudan’s Health Ministry after a new wave of cases was reported starting July 22.

The hospital source said that the shelling killed seven people and wounded 23 others, all civilians.
Last month, the army broke a nearly two-year RSF siege on El-Obeid, which sits at a crucial crossroads connecting the capital Khartoum to the country’s western region of Darfur.
The RSF has captured nearly all of Darfur while the army controls the country’s north and east and recently won back large swathes of Khartoum and central Sudan.
The war, pitting army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan against his former deputy, RSF commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has claimed tens of thousands of lives, uprooted over 12 million, and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
An international aid group, meanwhile, said nearly 100 people died of cholera in two weeks since the waterborne disease outbreak began in Sudan’s White Nile State,
Doctors Without Borders — also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF — said that 2,700 people had contracted the disease since Feb. 20, including 92 people who died.
Of the admitted cholera patients who died, 18 were children, including five children who were no older than 5, and five others who were no older than 9, said Marta Cazarola, MSF emergency coordinator for Sudan.
The Rapid Support Forces group launched intense attacks last month in the White Nile State that killed hundreds of civilians, including infants.
The Sudanese military announced at the time that it made advances there, cutting crucial supply routes to the RSF.
During the RSF attacks in the state on Feb. 16, the group fired a projectile that hit the Rabak power plant, causing a mass power outage and triggering the latest wave of cholera, according to MSF.
Subsequently, people in the area had to rely mainly on water obtained from donkey carts because water pumps were no longer operational.
“Attacks on critical infrastructure have long-term detrimental effects on the health of vulnerable communities,” said Marta Cazorla, MSF emergency coordinator for Sudan.
The cholera outbreak in the state peaked between Feb. 20-24, when patients and their families rushed to Kosti Teaching Hospital, overwhelming the facility beyond its capacity, according to MSF.
Most patients were severely dehydrated. MSF provided 25 tonnes of logistical items such as beds and tents to Kosti to help absorb more cholera patients.
Cazarola said that numbers in the cholera treatment center were declining and at low levels until this latest outbreak.
The White Nile State Health Ministry responded to the outbreak by providing the community access to clean water and banning the use of donkey carts to transport water.
Health officials also administered a vaccination campaign when the outbreak began.
Cholera was officially declared an outbreak on Aug. 12 last year by Sudan’s Health Ministry after a new wave of cases was reported starting July 22.