Syrian rebels are drawing up a grisly hit-list of Bashar al-Assad’s vile kill and torture squads as the true extent of the regime’s decades-long blood-soaked horror spree was laid bare.
Leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has vowed to hunt “war criminals” down, using his multi-million pound warchest to fund bounties on their heads, even dragging them back from abroad. It came as Israel continued a relentless bombardment on Syria’s military sites, smashing missile launch HQs and chemical warfare silos to avoid rebel fighters getting hold of them.
But the ex-President is in hiding in Moscow, along with his family including his wife British-born Asma, once known for womens’ rights campaigning, now Syria’s ex-First lady of Hell. The far-reaching manhunt for Assad’s killers came launched as thousands flocked to Sednaya Prison dubbed “the slaughterhouse” and still blood-stained from years of horror.
Dozens of bodies recently killed inside the infamous and ominous-looking concrete complex show signs of torture, indicating Assad’s killers dealt atrocities out in his final hours of power. Rumours of secret dungeons turned to dashed hopes as rebels used sledgehammers and drills chasing reports of eerie sounds from below until they found no sign of more prisoners.
Industrial-sized horror was acted out inside Sednaya, among Assad’s prisons and kill-sites from where 157,000 have disappeared, including 5,274 children and 10,221 women. It is feared as many as 15,000 have died under torture in the labrynth of cells and chambers after Assad’s men used 72 different tortures, some even crushed to death.
Last night al-Sharaa, renamed from his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani as part of his post uprising rebrand, pledged the killers will be tracked down. He said: “We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people.”
Human rights campaigners say regime torture methods included electrocuting genitals, hanging weights from them; burning with oil, metal rods, gunpowder or flammable pesticides. Victims had their heads crushed between a wall and the prison cell’s door; needles or metal pins inserted into bodies; prisoners exposed to freezing cold water spraying.
One woman, Mariam Khleif, jailed for helping rebels, was repeatedly raped, she says, kept in a tiny with six other women and was hanged from the walls and beaten. She said a prisoner complained of hunger only for guards to stuff his face with excrement.
And female inmates, she said, were taken to a Colonel Suleiman, a security boss, to be raped. Gut-wrenching sadism was revealed in video – nasty footage from inside one of the jails of a medieval body-press used to break bones and execute prisoners.
Bloodied ropes used for hangings were revealed. Outside Sednaya, a hauntingly high concrete complex of tiny windows outside Damascus, Ghada Assad broke down in tears as she cried: “Where is everyone? Where are everyone’s children? Where are they?” She had rushed from her Damascus home to the prison on the capital’s outskirts, hoping to find her brother, who was detained in 2011, the year Arab Spring protests first erupted
She said: “My heart has been burned over my brother. For 13 years, I kept looking for him.” When insurgents last week seized Aleppo – her original hometown – at the start of their swiftly victorious offensive, she recalled: “I prayed that they would reach Damascus just so they can open up this prison.”
Civil defence officials helping in the search were as confused as the families over why no further inmates were being found. But few were giving up, a sign of how powerfully Saydnaya looms in the minds of Syrians as the heart of Mr Assad’s brutal police state.
The sense of loss over the missing – and the sudden hope they might be found – brought a dark unity among Syrians from across the country. During Mr Assad’s rule, and particularly after the 2011 protests began, any hint of dissent could land someone in Saydnaya. Few ever emerged.
In 2017, Amnesty International estimated that 10,000-20,000 people were being held there at the time “from every sector of society.” It said they were effectively slated for “extermination”. Thousands were killed in frequent mass executions, Amnesty reported, citing testimony from freed prisoners and prison officials.
Among the men to be hunted down are one prison guard dubbed “Hitler,” who dispensed beatings and forced prisoners to imitate dogs and cats, punishing those who refused. And the man suspected of repeated rapes named Colonel Suleiman, a security boss, will come under heavy scrutiny and face grisly justice if tracked down.
It is believed many Syrian army and security officers behind the crimes may have fled across the border into neighbouring Iraq, desperate to flee the rebellion. Others have holed up in desert hideouts but will be hunted down by al-Sharaa’s jihadist contacts in the wastelands of Anbar Province in neighbouring Iraq and elsewhere.
Prisoners were subjected to constant torture, intense beatings and rape. Almost daily, guards did rounds of the cells to collect bodies of inmates who had died overnight from injuries, disease or starvation. Some inmates fell into psychosis and starved themselves. Five White Helmet teams, with two dog teams, came to Saydnaya to help the search.
They even brought in the prison electrician, who had the floor plan, and went through every shaft, vent and sewage opening. But local man Abu al-Dahab said civil defence had documents showing more than 3,500 people were in Saydnaya until three months before the fall of Damascus.
He added: “There are other prisons.The regime had turned all of Syria into a big prison.” Legal experts homing in on Syrian war crimes warned the civil war-battered country is far from having the kind of legal system needed to conduct war crimes trials.
Rebel factions committed crimes throughout two decades of violence but the worst tsunami of horrors piled on Syria’s civilians was committed, it is believed, by the regime. Even Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is suspected of the detention and forced disappearance of more than 2,000 people including children.
UN Office for the co-ordination of Humanitiarian Affairs – OCHA – spokesman Jens Laerke said health facilities were “overwhelmed” by staff . The OCHA said humanitarian operations in some parts of northwestern Syria were put on hold in the early days of the recent escalation, and resumed on Monday.
Mr Laerke said: “As of yesterday, all humanitarian organisations in Idlib and northern Aleppo have resumed operations.” Even before the latest escalation, nearly 17 million people in Syria needed humanitarian assistance.
More than one million have been displaced across Idlib, Aleppo, Hama and Homs since the escalation. But thousands of refugees have flooded back over the border from Turkey and into Syria to seek the homes they fled years ago.
