But when the jeweler tested the coins, the results unveiled a different story. Although the coins appeared to hold evidence of meeting official standards, laboratory testing revealed that their gold content fell below the declared 21-karat purity.

Maher’s experience was far from unique.

Over the course of this investigation, similar accounts emerged from jewelers, gold traders and ordinary citizens, all pointing to a hidden flaw in one of Syria’s most trusted stores of wealth: gold.

This investigation seeks to answer two fundamental questions:

How could gold bearing the official hallmark of the Damascus Association of Goldsmiths and Jewelry Making contain less gold than its certified purity? And why do the findings suggest that these were not isolated incidents, but part of a broader pattern within Syria’s gold market?

The investigation draws on multiple sources, including 13 interviews with jewelers, workshop owners, former employees of the Syria Association of Goldsmiths and Jewelry Making, and gold traders who have since left Syria. Together, they describe how large quantities of under-karat gold entered the market despite carrying official certification.

Syria’s Law No. 34 of 2023 regulates the temporary entry of raw gold into the country, setting out applicable exemptions and fees. The law allows both Syrian and foreign residents—as well as non-residents—to bring raw gold into Syria without an import license, including as accompanied baggage, while prohibiting the import of processed gold jewelry.

Per this law, such entries are considered temporary admissions rather than permanent imports. Thus, Importers are required to export an equivalent weight of manufactured gold products, ensuring that the raw gold is processed domestically rather than treated as a commercial import.

Mahmoud Al-Nimer, head of the Association of Goldsmiths and Jewelry Making, told the investigation team that, following the fall of the Assad regime, the Association discovered gold items containing 760 shares of pure gold instead of the 875 shares required for 21-karat gold—a discrepancy he described as evidence of the scale of the problem.

In Syria’s jewelry industry, a “share” (sahm) is a precision unit used to express gold purity by dividing the karat into finer measurements. A purity of 760 shares is closer to 18-karat gold. The difference represents a significant loss of value in a market where even the smallest deviation in purity carries serious financial consequences.

Syria is not a major gold producer. The domestic market relies primarily on recycling existing gold stocks, supplemented by imported raw gold, temporary admissions for manufacturing, and smuggled supplies that circulate between workshops, jewelers and consumers.

According to Trading Economics, Syria’s official gold reserves—held by the Central Bank of Syria—were estimated at 25.8 metric tonnes as of 2024, with an estimated value of approximately 42 trillion Syrian pounds.

How It Began

Following the outbreak of the Syrian uprising in March 2011, cases of gold fraud began to emerge in Damascus. Goldsmiths secretly sold bullion, coins and jewelry whose actual purity was lower than the karat stamped on them.

According to the head of the Association of Goldsmiths and Jewelry Making, today’s market inherited large quantities of under-karat gold from that period. Gold traders and consumers who monitored the market and spoke to SIRAJ estimate that tens of kilograms of counterfeit or under-karat gold entered circulation.

Former Association chairman George Sarji said demand for gold surged after 2011 as the Syrian pound rapidly lost value.

“We were hallmarking around 500 kilograms of gold every month,” he recalled.

The accounts gathered from victims, jewelers and traders suggest that the problem went beyond isolated fraud, pointing instead to both regulatory and technical failures. They also raise a more troubling possibility: the existence of a system that allowed what goldsmiths refer to as “counterfeit” or “tampered” gold to enter the market by exploiting weaknesses in the inspection and hallmarking process.

This occurred within an economic environment largely controlled by the Fourth Division of the former Syrian regime’s army and the country’s security services, particularly Branch 251, commonly known as Al-Khatib Branch, one of the regime’s intelligence directorates.

Unlike many international markets dominated by large manufacturing companies, Syria’s gold industry is built around independent workshops that produce jewelry for local sale.

Traditionally, the Syrian market relied on a two-tier verification system to guarantee the authenticity of gold before it reached consumers.

The first hallmark identifies the workshop where a piece was manufactured. The second, issued by the Association of Goldsmiths and Jewelry Making, certifies that the item complied with officially approved purity standards.

In theory, this dual-hallmark system provides both traceability and regulatory oversight. In practice, however, investigators found that it did not always function as intended.

According to the General Authority for Precious Metals, Damascus currently has 250 gold manufacturing workshops, Aleppo has 225, and Idlib has 30.

Between the middle of last year and the beginning of this year, Damascus produced approximately two metric tonnes of gold jewelry, Aleppo produced four tonnes, and Idlib produced one tonne.

Gold prices in Syria are officially determined according to the official U.S. dollar exchange rate and pricing issued by the Central Bank of Syria.

However, the sharp depreciation of the Syrian pound and the existence of a parallel (black) foreign-currency market created persistent instability, causing gold prices to fluctuate dramatically.

What Is “Counterfeit Gold”?

In a market built almost entirely on trust, an official hallmark is supposed to be sufficient proof of authenticity.

Hallmarking is the official stamp engraved on gold jewelry to certify its purity, legal status and compliance with national standards. It functions as a government-backed guarantee of quality.

Yet the cases uncovered by this investigation revealed something very different: jewelry bearing an official hallmark indicating one purity level while actually containing significantly less gold.

A gold item’s karat—the proportion of pure gold it contains cannot be determined by visual inspection alone. It must be measured using specialized equipment such as precious-metal analyzers or chemical and spectrometric testing methods capable of accurately determining gold content.

As a result, a piece may appear flawless in terms of color, weight and official hallmark while still containing less gold than its stamp indicates.

In many cases, the discrepancy was relatively small, only 10 to 15 shares (parts per thousand) below the legal standard. For jewelry stamped as 21-karat gold, even such seemingly minor deviations represent a significant loss in value.

Within the trade, goldsmiths refer to this practice simply as “counterfeit gold.”

One workshop owner who operated during that period explained the financial incentive behind the practice: “The difference may seem small. But when you’re producing hundreds of kilograms, it becomes a fortune.”

According to five jewelers interviewed by SIRAJ in the Al-Hariqa Gold Souq and the Barzeh district of Damascus, the greatest challenge was that this type of fraud was extremely difficult to detect within the market itself.

In everyday business, most jewelers relied primarily on the official hallmark—alongside the workshop’s own maker’s mark as proof of authenticity, without subjecting every item to laboratory testing or re-smelting.

Even when suspicions arose, advanced analytical equipment such as X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometers was rarely available, particularly during the years of conflict, owing to high costs and import restrictions.

Musab Al-Aswad, Director of the General Authority for Precious Metals—a newly established government body tasked with restructuring the sector after years of overlapping authority between the Ministries of Finance, Economy and Industry, the Central Bank and other institutions—argues that the “counterfeit gold scandal” reflected the broader corruption that permeated the institutions of the former regime.

“It is only natural that corruption in the gold sector would be greater than elsewhere,” he said. “The financial returns are exceptionally attractive, and uncovering this type of fraud requires highly specialized expertise. The real problem was that the very institutions responsible for detecting violations were also managing the sector—and were themselves implicated. Once corruption reaches the oversight bodies, exposing it becomes vastly more difficult.”

A Market Under Pressure

As the Syrian pound rapidly lost value against foreign currencies, Syrians’ saving habits changed dramatically. Citizens increasingly sought safer ways to preserve their wealth, and gold—long regarded as the country’s most trusted store of value—became the preferred refuge. Within a short period, demand for gold coins and bullion ounces surged, placing unprecedented pressure on the market.

A Damascus jeweler who worked in the market during that period described the situation as “a state of madness.”

“Everyone wanted to convert their money into gold,” he said. “The quantities arriving at the Goldsmiths Association became enormous.”

According to former Association Chairman George Sarji, minting gold coins and bullion had originally been prohibited in Syria until he obtained approval from the Governor of the Central Bank of Syria, allowing locally produced coins to receive official hallmarks.

At the same time, however, Sarji acknowledged that some workshops had forged both the Association’s hallmark and the proprietary stamps of legitimate workshops by manufacturing counterfeit dies. As a result, part of the counterfeit gold entered the market entirely outside official channels, without ever passing through the Association’s inspection process.

An Association employee who served before, during and after the uprising—and remained in office following the fall of the Assad regime—described the immense pressure placed on the organization, which was the sole official body responsible for verifying gold purity and issuing hallmarks.

“On some days, we received more than 100 kilograms of gold,” he said. “Sometimes as much as 200 kilograms in a single day.”

Under normal circumstances, not every piece of jewelry undergoes an individual laboratory analysis before being hallmarked and released to the market. Instead, inspectors test random samples from each production batch before applying the Association’s official hallmark to the entire batch, certifying that it complies with legal purity standards.

As production volumes increased and pressure on the Association mounted, this quality-control system became increasingly vulnerable. Yet random sampling remained the primary verification method.

“That’s when the fraud started slipping through,” said an employee at a Damascus jewelry shop, referring to the declining ability of the regulatory system to detect every irregularity.

The First Signs of Suspicion

The issue of under-karat gold first surfaced as isolated rumors—cases that many jewelers hesitated to report to the security services for fear of retaliation or arrest.

Gradually, however, the issue became common knowledge throughout Damascus’s gold market.

The controversy reached a turning point in February 2013, when George Sarji was dismissed after serving 13 years as head of the Association of Goldsmiths and Jewelry Making (2000–February 2013), and Ghassan Jazmati replaced him.

Speaking to SIRAJ, Abu Maher, a veteran jeweler in Damascus’s Gold Souq, recalled what many in the industry consider the first public warning.

Between 2013 and 2014, he said, a well-known Syrian company distributed gold coins as prizes in commercial promotions, a common marketing practice at the time.

The problem emerged only when some of the winners attempted to sell their prizes.

“When people came to sell the coins,” Abu Maher said, “we discovered the purity wasn’t accurate. They contained around 800 parts per thousand instead of 875.”

According to Abu Maher, the matter quickly extended beyond isolated suspicions.

As similar cases multiplied, complaints spread throughout the market. Eventually, the coins were withdrawn, and the company responsible for minting them was required to compensate buyers for the difference in value.

But although that action appeared to resolve the immediate problem, it failed to restore confidence.

“At first we thought it was just a mistake,” Abu Maher said. “Later we realized the problem was much bigger.”

Former Association Chairman Ghassan Jazmati, however, rejected allegations that the market had been affected.

In an interview with SIRAJ, he insisted that all gold circulating during his tenure was legally compliant as long as it bore the Association’s official hallmark, implicitly denying any systemic failure in inspection or hallmarking procedures.

When asked about allegations of corruption, Jazmati dismissed them as “defamation” and subsequently ceased responding to journalists’ questions.

His account, however, is contradicted by judicial records and testimony from numerous goldsmiths describing what they characterized as a broad corruption network operating within Syria’s gold sector during that period.

An appeal filed by eight Damascus jewelers directly accused Jazmati of systemic corruption, of manipulating gold purity standards and of extorting jewelers in cooperation with officers from Branch 251 (Al-Khatib Branch) and other security agencies under the former regime.

According to the appeal, submitted before the First Referral Judge in Damascus on 29 December 2025, the plaintiffs accused Jazmati of abusing his authority within the Association and allowing counterfeit gold bearing the Association’s official hallmark to circulate in the market.

The filing also alleged the disappearance of financial records, assay registers and quantities of gold, while describing systematic manipulation methods, including altering tested samples and resealing production batches. The plaintiffs argued that an earlier decision shielding Jazmati from prosecution had ignored what they described as “conclusive evidence and compelling indications.”

The appeal was ultimately rejected after the court upheld the previous decision not to prosecute Jazmati, citing insufficient evidence, according to documents reviewed by the investigation team.

Multiple witnesses also alleged that Jazmati maintained direct relationships with senior officers at the Al-Khatib Branch, including Major General Ahmad Dib and Yasar Ibrahim, a senior economic adviser to Bashar al-Assad.

According to these testimonies, the names of wealthy Damascus jewelers were routinely passed to the security services. This was allegedly followed by summonses, arrests on pre-prepared charges, and pressure on some detainees to pay hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars in exchange for their release.

Payment receipts showing financial transfers made by gold traders to Branch 251 through the Central Bank of Syria – SIRAJ

Where the Fraud Began

Following the fall of the Syrian regime, journalists from SIRAJ began tracing reports of under-karat gold by following the metal’s journey through Syria’s gold market.

As they gathered testimonies from jewelers and industry insiders, nearly every account pointed to the same starting point: the workshops.

These workshops represented the first stage of production, where a gold item’s purity could be deliberately altered before it reached the Association of Goldsmiths and Jewelry Making for official hallmarking.

Throughout the investigation, one name repeatedly surfaced: a prominent businessman and gold trader, J. Z.

According to three well-informed sources within the jewelry sector, J. Z. owned his own workshop but did not always manufacture gold under his own name.

One market insider explained how the arrangement worked:

“He used another workshop’s hallmark, one whose owner had already died. That way, responsibility disappeared.”

The investigation was unable to obtain a response from the trader. Multiple sources later told SIRAJ that he had moved to an Arab country before the fall of the Assad regime and subsequently died there.

Neither the Syrian Ministry of Interior nor the Central Bank of Syria responded to requests for comment.

Using the names and hallmarks of inactive or abandoned workshops created an additional layer of obscurity around the true origin of the gold.

When a counterfeit item surfaced, tracing it back to its producer became significantly more difficult because the stamped hallmark no longer identified the workshop that had actually manufactured it. In the case of J. Z., the hallmark belonged to a workshop whose owner had already passed away.

Former Association Chairman George Sarji previously stated that he had reported cases of forged hallmarks to the relevant authorities and had attempted to trace their source within the market.

Taken together, these competing accounts illustrate the complexity of the scheme, in which direct responsibility, abuse of influence and regulatory failure often became intertwined.

Yet nearly everyone interviewed agreed on one point:

The workshops were no longer merely production sites—they had become the starting point for a chain of manipulation that eventually spread throughout the entire market.

Sarji told the investigation team that, during his tenure, the market was considerably more disciplined. The Association conducted regular inspection campaigns and destroyed any non-compliant gold it discovered.

He explained that the hallmarking process was never based on testing every individual item. Instead, inspectors randomly selected one or two samples from each production batch before applying the official hallmark.

“From every box we would take one or two samples,” he said. “Those boxes could contain rings, bracelets or other jewelry.”

From Guarantee to Loophole

If workshops marked the beginning of gold production, the official hallmarking tools—known within the trade as hallmark punches—served as the passport allowing jewelry to enter the market.

According to George Klass (a pseudonym), a former employee in the sector, the hallmarking system before 2011 relied largely on professional trust between workshops and the Association.

Workshop owners first had their gold assayed by specialized testing facilities before submitting it to the Association, where inspectors randomly tested samples to verify purity before applying the official hallmark.

Although the system was never entirely immune from abuse, Klass said that before 2011 cases of fraud remained relatively limited and never developed into a widespread phenomenon.

That changed dramatically in the years that followed.

According to Klass, regulatory oversight weakened while informal financial settlements increasingly replaced formal enforcement whenever purity violations were discovered.

Although SIRAJn could not independently verify every allegation, interviews consistently pointed to serious shortcomings in the control of the official hallmark punches after the Syrian uprising began.

Several witnesses stated that both workshop punches and Association hallmarking tools were not always kept under strict supervision.

A workshop owner identified only as Nihad said some Association employees routinely kept official hallmark punches in their personal possession outside working hours.

“Some people carried the punch with them all the time,” he said. “That meant they could stamp anything.”

Even more concerning, counterfeit hallmark punches themselves became increasingly common.

According to Nihad, forged punches circulated among certain workshops, allowing jewelry to receive what appeared to be legitimate official hallmarks despite failing to meet legal purity standards.

An Organized Operation

Gold and diamond trader Ahmad Al-Khayyat provided one of the clearest accounts of how the hallmarking system was exploited.

In a recorded interview for this investigation, he described 2013 as the turning point.

“Around 50 kilograms of under-karat gold entered the Syrian market that year,” he said. “They included gold coins and bullion ounces that looked completely legitimate, carried official hallmarks, but contained less gold than declared.”

He added that during the same period the Association replaced its official hallmark punch, officially claiming that the original had been stolen.

“That wasn’t simply a technical procedure,” Al-Khayyat said. “It opened the door to systematic manipulation of gold purity and jewelry quality.”

Musab Al-Aswad, Director of the General Authority for Precious Metals, believes forging an official hallmark punch was technically straightforward.

“Counterfeiting a hallmark punch was not particularly difficult,” he said. “In some cases it may even have happened with the knowledge of those responsible for overseeing the sector, in exchange for payments to facilitate the process.”

‘Just Fifteen Minutes’ at Al-Khatib Branch

Initially, cases of fraudulent gold were treated as commercial disputes.

A customer would discover a discrepancy, return to the jeweler, who would attempt to compensate the buyer or return the item to its supplier.

As complaints multiplied, however, the matter attracted the attention of the Assad regime’s intelligence services.

One Damascus jeweler described the shift as sudden.

“At first, we only heard about counterfeit pieces,” he said. “Then people started receiving security summons.”

Multiple witnesses told SIRAJ that intelligence officers transformed the issue into an opportunity for extortion.

Jewelers who had unknowingly traded under-karat gold were pressured either to recover the jewelry or compensate buyers while simultaneously becoming targets of security investigations.

Several Damascus jewelers said that some cases ended in arrests by Branch 251, better known as Al-Khatib Branch.

Possessing counterfeit gold or even violating official pricing regulations became pretexts for pressuring jewelers into paying substantial sums in U.S. dollars into intelligence-controlled accounts held at the Central Bank of Syria.

One jeweler from the Barzeh district recalled his arrest: “They told me, ‘Come with us for fifteen minutes.’ Those fifteen minutes turned into four months.”

He said he was transferred between several security branches before arriving at Al-Khatib Branch, where he underwent harsh interrogation and was later sent to Adra Prison.

Despite surrendering 1.3 kilograms of gold, he remained imprisoned for several months. The official accusation was manipulating gold prices.

“The charges were fabricated,” he said.

Jeweler Hanna Boutros described a remarkably similar experience.

In 2020, security officers raided his home before taking him to Al-Khatib Branch, which handled many of the gold market investigations during that period.

He too was accused of violating official pricing regulations.

According to Boutros, the charge was routinely used against jewelers.

After 15 days in detention, he secured his release only after paying the equivalent of five kilograms of gold.

His ordeal did not end there.

Approximately one year later, in 2021, he was arrested again and detained for several months.

This time, he says, his release was conditioned on paying 120 million Syrian pounds, a payment that consumed most of his capital and ultimately forced him to leave Syria.

During the investigation, several traders also showed SIRAJ payment receipts issued by Al-Khatib Branch bearing the names of jewelers and gold merchants.

For security reasons, they requested that the documents not be published.

The receipts instructed recipients to pay fines denominated in U.S. dollars to the Central Bank of Syria within a specified deadline or face imprisonment.

Alternatively, they could deposit the required amount in cash into an account controlled by the General Intelligence Directorate through Al-Fadel Exchange Company.

“Don’t Buy Second-Hand Gold Without Testing”

According to Mahmoud Al-Nimer, the current head of the Association of Goldsmiths and Jewelry Making, the industry’s approach has fundamentally changed.

“Today, there is zero tolerance,” he said. “Any item that fails to meet the required purity standard is immediately broken up and returned to the workshop.”

Al-Nimer said the Association has introduced modern gold-testing equipment that, he said, had previously been prohibited under the former regime.

He also urged customers to insist on receiving an official, stamped invoice from licensed jewelers.

“A proper invoice is the customer’s guarantee,” he added. “If any problem arises later, it protects their rights.”

Yet the new testing technology remains out of reach for many jewelers.

One market insider explained that the specialized analyzers cost between US$20,000 and US$35,000.

“Not every jeweler can afford one,” he said, highlighting the technological gap that still exists across Syria’s gold sector.

Alongside these measures, the Association has begun inspecting jewelry displays and prohibiting the sale of second-hand gold unless it has been re-tested.

But according to one Association employee, the scale of the problem remains enormous.

“There’s an ocean of counterfeit gold in Syria.”

The total quantity of under-karat gold that entered circulation cannot be accurately determined, nor can it easily be removed.

“Every kilogram may be missing 20 or even 25 grams of gold,” one Association employee said, referring to the cumulative losses embedded in jewelry already circulating among the public.

During an inspection campaign conducted by the General Authority for Precious Metals in the Damascus suburb of Qudsaya, attended by the investigation team, Nikola Al-Zahlawi, a member of the Authority’s Board of Directors, stressed that no second-hand gold should be bought or displayed before undergoing laboratory testing.

He said any item that fails to meet the legally required purity is immediately destroyed, while only jewelry that passes inspection is permitted to return to the market.

As a result, many Damascus jewelers now say they prefer to avoid second-hand gold altogether, choosing instead to sell only jewelry bearing the Association’s newly issued hallmarks.

One jeweler summed up this shift with a sarcastic remark: “Old gold? It’s plastic.”

Regarding consumers who previously suffered financial losses after unknowingly purchasing counterfeit gold, Al-Aswad, Director of the General Authority for Precious Metals, said the authorities have managed to restore compensation in many cases.

“People who have been affected can file a complaint with the Goldsmiths Association by presenting their original purchase invoice,” he explained. “If the invoice is available, the Association recovers the difference in value from the jeweler’s account. If the jeweler is still operating, compensation can be obtained from them. If the jeweler has already compensated the customer, they may in turn recover the loss from the workshop that originally supplied the jewelry. If this chain can be fully established, responsibility ultimately reaches the original producer.”

A version of this investigation was also published by Daraj Media

Creative Production and Visual Design: Radwan Awad

The post “Counterfeit Gold”: The Complete Account of Fake Jewelry in Damascus Markets appeared first on SIRAJ.

Fahd successfully completed his work inside the house, removing the unexploded ordnance he found. However, one of the villagers asked him to inspect the land surrounding the property as well. Unbeknownst to him, the adjacent area concealed a large minefield. Minutes later, an explosion rang out.

According to the account of a witness who was at the scene, as relayed by Walid al-Ghajr’s father, Fahd entered the area believing it to be safe after completing his inspection of the house, before a landmine exploded and killed him. He adds: “There was a minefield that nobody knew existed. The mine exploded in front of him and he was killed instantly. No one was able to reach him directly, and Civil Defence personnel had to retrieve his body using ropes because of the density of mines surrounding him.”

Fahd was no ordinary civilian. After obtaining his secondary school certificate in 2009, he enlisted in the army as a “non-commissioned officer” specialising in engineering. During his military service, he was seriously injured whilst on a mission to defuse an explosive device, leaving him with a permanent injury to his shoulder.

Following the start of the Syrian revolution in March 2011, al-Ghajr defected from the regime’s forces in 2012, completed his university studies, and then worked as a teacher in schools in his hometown of al-Tah and in displacement camps. In 2017, he was wounded again by an airstrike, which left him with a permanent disability in his left leg.

Despite his multiple injuries, Fahd returned after the fall of the Assad regime to take part in clearing mines and other remnants of war, travelling between Damascus, Afrin and Idlib to help secure areas to which residents had begun returning. Yet his end came from the very danger he had dedicated years of his life to tackling.

The man who survived war injuries and aerial bombardment, and who worked to clear mines across different parts of Syria, was killed in a landmine explosion while carrying out his work.

His father says: “My son survived the regime, he survived the bombardment, and he survived many injuries during the war, but a single landmine after liberation took him from us forever.”

While his children and their mother rely on aid and borrowing from local shops, his father, who is over seventy-five years old, says he was forced to sell his 25 dunums (approximately 2.5 hectares, or 6.2 acres) of olive groves in order to support his children and grandchildren after years of war.

“Fahd left behind four children without a breadwinner,” says the father. “He used to go out every day to save families from the danger of landmines, but today his children are waiting for someone to save them from poverty and hardship.”

The most dangerous job in Syria! 

The clearance of landmines and other remnants of war has become one of the most dangerous tasks in Syria. At the same time, the country is experiencing one of the largest waves of return among displaced people since the outbreak of the revolution, which the Assad regime turned into a war against the Syrian people.

According to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), around 1.6 million people returned to their home areas between the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 and the spring of 2026. This figure includes hundreds of thousands of refugees who had fled to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, as well as large numbers of internally displaced people.

Like Fahd al-Ghajr, volunteers and mine clearance workers are paying with their lives for inadequate training, a lack of equipment, insufficient funding and the absence of relevant maps, whilst Syrians are returning in increasing numbers to areas still contaminated with war ordnance.

To document the working conditions of mine clearance and explosive-remnants-of-war teams in Syria, and how a lack of equipment is costing the lives of volunteers engaged in demining operations, the investigative team adopted a multi-source methodology. Over three months of monitoring and reporting, the journalists compiled a database of 27 documented mine explosion incidents that resulted in the death or injury of demining personnel in Syria during 2025 and 2026. The incidents were identified through official and human rights sources, with each case linked to open-source material, video footage and visual content published online, particularly on social media.

To strengthen the reliability of the available evidence, the team collected first-hand testimonies from local residents and cross-checked them against the digital data it had gathered. Interviews were conducted with 12 experts and demining personnel, including members of the Syrian Ministry of Defence and the Syrian Civil Defence, as well as demining volunteers and relatives of victims.

The methodology subsequently included analysing dozens of published photographs and videos documenting mine clearance operations and the destruction of munitions, comparing them with the International Mine Action Standards (IMAS), whilst verifying the visual material by cross-referencing the locations, dates and information contained therein with independent sources.

The team also reviewed reports and documents issued by the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), as well as specialist human rights and international organisations.

The aim was to assess the impact of the absence of minefield maps and the shortage of equipment and supplies on the safety of those working to clear mines and other remnants of war across the country.

Whilst the lack of maps is one of the most significant risks to mine clearance workers, analysis of the visual material and interviews with workers reveals that the problem extends beyond a lack of information to the absence of a significant proportion of protective equipment and supplies, which are considered essential under international standards for mine action (IMAS).

After reviewing 104 photos and video footage collected by researchers documenting mine clearance and munitions disposal operations in various parts of Syria, the investigation team observed that the majority of workers were using “standard military clothing or partial protective gear instead of internationally approved specialist protective equipment, which costs thousands of US dollars”.

The analysis found that 71 visual items (68% of the material reviewed) showed personnel operating without full face protection. In addition, 53% of personnel appeared without protective vests specifically designed for mine clearance operations.

In many cases, specialised vehicles for transporting and destroying explosives were absent, whilst some footage showed munitions being transported or detonated using limited field resources compared to the equipment stipulated in the International Mine Action Standards (IMAS), reflecting a clear gap between the scale of the risks faced by workers and the resources available to them on the ground.

The findings revealed that between 2025 and 2026, 57 workers and volunteers were killed whilst carrying out clearance operations or handling unexploded ordnance; the majority of the victims were members of engineering units affiliated with the Syrian Ministry of Defence, whilst 26 out of 27 incidents were linked to direct field clearance operations, reflecting the scale of the risks faced by personnel in this field.

International standards for mine clearance require the use of a comprehensive system of personal protective equipment, including protective armour designed to withstand the effects of explosions and shrapnel, face and eye protection, as well as specialised detection equipment and safe mechanisms for excavation, transport and detonation. However, these requirements appear far removed from the reality on the ground in which several Syrian teams are currently operating.

According to estimations made by the investigation team, based on the prices of specialised mine clearance equipment, the minimum cost of equipping a single worker with an acceptable level of protection is approximately US$15,496. This sum includes a light protective suit priced at approximately US$9,500 and a specialised Vallon VMH3CS mine detector costing around US$5,996. These estimates do not include the costs of shipping, training and maintenance, nor equipment for safe excavation, transport and detonation. The International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) stipulate that personal protective equipment must provide protection against the effects of an explosion equivalent to 240 grams of TNT, depending on the nature of the work and the distance from the source of danger.

Demining expert Mohammed Adnan al-Farhoud believes that the lack of equipment not only increases the risk of injury to personnel, but also slows clearance operations, delays the return of residents to their areas, and raises the human and economic cost of the landmine problem, one of the most complex challenges facing post-war Syria.

Suhaib Mohammed Zarour, who was injured while taking part in mine clearance operations with the Military Operations Directorate following the liberation of Aleppo, says that the shortage of equipment was one of the factors that increased the dangers of the work.

“When I was injured, we did not have sufficient equipment, and I did not have an advanced detection device that I could fully rely on,” he says. “Even today, the equipment available still falls short of actual needs.”

The issue is not limited to detection operations alone, but extends to the transport and destruction of munitions.

Casualties on a rescue mission

Neither Suhaib’s injury nor the death of Fahd al-Ghajr were the first incidents in which someone was injured or lost their life whilst attempting to clear mines in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime.

In the town of Ain Issa, in the north of Raqqa governorate, two soldiers, Ibrahim Khalil al-Hassan and Musa Khalaf al-Salim, were killed whilst taking part in the clearance of mines laid by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Khalil Hamoud al-Ali, who runs a local demining team and whose team included the two young men, said: “The mine was a strip connected to two mines. The team defused the first mine and thought the area was safe, but the second mine exploded as soon as they moved forward, and they were killed instantly.”

Over more than 14 years of war, vast swathes of Syria have become contaminated with landmines and other remnants of war. Whilst attention is usually focused on civilian casualties, demining workers also pay a heavy price as they attempt to secure these areas. 

Maysara al-Hassan, commander of engineering operations for the 80th Division, says that the former front-line areas in the southern Idlib countryside, northern Hama countryside and western Latakia countryside alone saw an estimated 15,000 mine-related deaths and injuries between 2020 and 2024. The figure highlights the scale of the danger that continues to threaten both civilians and mine clearance teams.

According to Human Rights Watch, landmines have killed and injured more than 600 people, including children, since December 2024, whilst they continue to pose one of the most significant obstacles to safe return, reconstruction and the resumption of agricultural activity in many parts of Syria.

A large proportion of these returns are concentrated in the governorates of Rural Damascus, Homs, Aleppo and Idlib, which are among the areas most heavily affected by landmines, unexploded ordnance and the remnants of military operations. As the pace of return accelerates, the risks facing returnees are increasing, with many finding themselves facing homes, fields and roads that have not yet undergone full clearance or demining operations.

According to data from the Directorate of Social Affairs and Labour in Idlib, some 719,000 people are still living in more than 750 camps in north-western Syria, whilst the government aims to return some 35,000 families to their home regions by 2026. However, the return is not only linked to the rehabilitation of homes and infrastructure; it also faces another, less visible yet more deadly threat: landmines and unexploded ordnance that remain scattered across the vast areas of the cities, towns and fields. 

Fadl Abdul Ghani, Executive Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), believes that the documented figures represent only the minimum extent of the actual losses, explaining that many incidents occur in remote areas or are not fully documented.

He says: “The demining operations themselves have become a source of fatalities, with dozens of casualties occurring during clearance work. This highlights the gap between on-the-ground needs and available resources, and necessitates the establishment of a national coordination structure and the provision of systematic training and appropriate equipment for the teams carrying out the work.”

Data from local and international organisations indicate that landmines and unexploded ordnance continue to pose one of the greatest threats to civilians and humanitarian workers, particularly in areas that have witnessed rapid military withdrawals or frequent changes in control during years of conflict.

The Civil Defence describes the remnants of war resulting from the former regime’s bombardment as a long-term, ongoing threat affecting civilians’ lives, as they remain explosive for years and impact residential and agricultural areas as well as children’s play areas.

A field visit to one of the mine clearance and war debris removal sites in the Khan Sheikhoun area of the Idlib countryside, documenting the transport, processing and detonation of unexploded ordnance. May 2026 – SIRAJ

Mines Without Maps

Maps of mine contamination in Syria reveal the extent of the danger across a vast area of the country, where minefields and unexploded ordnance are scattered across dozens of sites in the governorates of Idlib, Aleppo, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor, Hama, Rural Damascus and Daraa. This widespread distribution reflects the scale of the explosive legacy left behind by years of war, and makes mine clearance an essential prerequisite for the return of residents, reconstruction and the restoration of normal life in the affected areas.

Three workers in this field say that the nature of the work has changed significantly since the fall of the regime. Instead of dealing with known minefields or specific military zones, teams are now faced with vast swathes of undocumented contaminated areas, ranging from homes and agricultural fields to schools, public facilities and roads.

The risks are not limited to conventional mines, but also include improvised explosive devices, unexploded ordnance and the remnants of combat left behind by years of war. All too often, workers find themselves confronted with various types of explosives laid by multiple parties – ranging from forces of the former regime to ISIS, the Syrian Democratic Forces and other factions – without any maps or records specifying their locations or nature.

According to the report by Mine Action Review for 2025, there is still no comprehensive national database or accurate map of mine contamination in Syria, as mines were laid by multiple parties during the years of conflict, including forces of the former Syrian regime, ISIS, the SDF and other armed factions. Furthermore, cluster munitions dropped by warplanes continue to pose an additional threat, the exact distribution of which is difficult to determine.

A report published by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR)  on 4 April 2026 indicates that the true extent of mine contamination remains unknown, as no comprehensive national survey has been carried out to date, meaning that those working on mine clearance often operate without prior knowledge of where the dangers lie.

In one of the videos reviewed by the investigation team, which was shared by Syrians on social media, an explosives expert appeared explaining how the team operates. Although he lost one of his legs in a previous explosion, he emphasised during the recording that locating these sites often relies on accounts from local residents and reports from the community, given the absence of official field maps.

Malik Salama, a former officer and volunteer in mine clearance, says: “One of the biggest challenges facing demining efforts in Syria today is the lack of official maps of minefields. After years of conflict, no accurate records have been provided specifying the locations or types of mines, which makes surveying and clearance operations more dangerous and exposes civilians and engineering teams to constant risk.”

“When we receive a report of an area where a mine has exploded, we treat the entire area as contaminated and dangerous, because in most cases we do not have reliable maps. And even when we do find maps, they cannot be fully relied upon, as many areas have been under the control of several successive parties, each of which laid mines without documenting them,” says demining expert Mohammed al-Farhoud.

Al-Farhoud defected from the Syrian regime’s forces at the start of the revolution; he had been carrying out his compulsory military service in Aleppo, specialising in the protection of embassies and diplomatic missions. Over the course of the revolution, he became one of the leading specialists in mine laying and clearance. He was injured whilst defusing a mine before later continuing his work with the Syrian Ministry of Defence’s mine clearance teams.

He adds: “If you have a clear map, you can move quickly and work along a specific route; but when you have no map at all, every step becomes a calculated one. You might be able to cover a hundred metres in an hour if the information is available, but without maps, you might need the same amount of time just to cover a few metres.”

Mine detection operations rely on two main methods. The first is technical surveying using metal detectors, which are capable of detecting metallic objects in general, but are not always specialised or advanced equipment designed specifically for mine detection. The second method is non-technical surveying, which relies on interviews with local residents and reports they provide regarding the presence of suspicious objects or remnants of war.

The investigation team contacted the Syrian Ministry of Defence to request a comment on the absence of maps and the number of casualties among engineering teams, but had not received a reply by the time of publication. The team also sought to verify the existence of military maps or records documenting the locations of mines laid by forces of the former Syrian regime or other parties during the years of conflict; however, officials and mine clearance workers confirmed that there is no centralised database or unified national register that can be consulted to identify areas contaminated by mines and remnants of war.

Given this reality, every mine clearance operation is akin to entering unknown territory, where workers do not know in advance what awaits them beneath the ground.

Whilst vast areas of the country remain contaminated with landmines and explosive remnants of war, experts and international organisations warn that the slow pace of clearance operations will lead to further civilian casualties among those returning to their home areas. Richard Weir, senior researcher in the Crisis, Conflict and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch, says in a report published by the organisation on 8 April 2025: “For the first time in more than a decade, there is an opportunity to systematically address the proliferation of explosive ordnance in Syria through the clearance of landmines and explosive remnants of war. Without urgent nationwide demining efforts, more civilians returning home to reclaim their basic rights, lives, livelihoods and land will be injured or killed.”

How are landmines cleared?

In the absence of accurate maps and given the vast extent of contamination by landmines and unexploded ordnance, mine clearance teams in Syria rely on a combination of field experience and strict safety procedures to identify and deal with hazardous sites. Whilst some missions begin with a report from a local resident or the results of field surveys, every clearance operation unfolds as a series of meticulous steps aimed at preventing further casualties among both civilians and personnel.

In the town of Killi, in the north of Idlib Governorate, near the Syrian-Turkish border, the organisation “HALO Trust” has been working for more than five years with a group of experts, volunteers and local residents to clear unexploded ordnance from homes, farmlands and residential neighbourhoods to which residents are gradually returning.

The organisation relies on two main teams for its work. The first is the non-technical survey team, which is responsible for surveying and documenting sites containing explosive remnants of war and identifying their types. Its members take photographs, carry out field measurements and record data relating to the munitions discovered. Members of this team are strictly prohibited from handling explosives directly or detonating them; their role is limited to documentation and risk assessment.

The second team is the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team, which responds to confirmed reports of the presence of landmines or unexploded ordnance and is tasked with removing or destroying them in accordance with strict standard operating procedures that must be followed prior to any field intervention.

Lama Haj Qaddour (age 32) works as part of this team; she has been leading operations to clear munitions, landmines and improvised explosive devices for around five years in the area stretching from Idlib and south of Saraqib to the M4 international highway.

Last September, a team from SIRAJ accompanied the organisation “Halo Trust” on a field mission to locate unexploded ordnance reported by a local resident near the town of Saraqib. During the journey, the scars of war were evident in the area, which had previously been a frontline between opposition forces and the ousted Assad regime, reflecting the scale of the burden placed on the survey and clearance teams working there.

Al-Haj Qaddour explains that disposing of any unexploded ordnance requires meticulous procedures and specialised training, which the team members have undergone over many years, giving them practical experience in dealing with these hazards. She adds that before commencing any operation to clear mines, bombs or other munitions, the team follows a series of strict safety protocols to ensure the task is carried out with the least possible risk.

This includes preparing the work environment and establishing what is known as a ‘safety perimeter’ – an area marked out around the target to be destroyed – whilst ensuring the area is completely evacuated of residents before the operation begins.

After the detonation, the team carries out a field inspection to ensure the munition has been completely destroyed and that no dangerous fragments remain at the site.

According to Al-Haj Qaddour: “This is of the utmost importance because large fragments may only be partially destroyed,” explaining that dealing with the shrapnel resulting from the detonation is no less important than disposing of the munitions themselves, given that some small fragments “are capable of killing a person”.

Although Lama works according to a structured methodology for the disposal of explosive devices, munitions and landmines, there remains a fundamental problem facing Syria as a whole: the absence of official records identifying the locations of landmines and remnants of war.

Who is responsible for these ‘fields of death’?

The landmine crisis in Syria cannot be understood in isolation from the parties that laid them during the years of conflict. Unlike many conventional conflicts, where minefields are associated with a single regular army or known defensive lines, the pattern of mine contamination in Syria has been shaped by years of control over the same areas by multiple forces, leading to the accumulation of successive layers of mines and unexploded ordnance in the very same locations.

Testimonies from demining experts interviewed by the investigation team indicate that large swathes of the country have seen successive military factions take control, with each laying its own mines without a unified database or mechanism to ensure the documentation of their locations or the subsequent handover of maps.

Expert Mohammed Adnan al-Farhoud explains that some of the areas in which he works today reveal the extent of the chaos left behind by years of war. He says: “At some sites, we found maps of mines laid by the Syrian regime, but then ISIS took control of the area and laid new lines, after which other groups came and laid additional mines. Therefore, even when we find a map, we cannot consider it complete or rely on it absolutely.”

Syria Is Not Party to International Mine Ban Treaties

More than 160 countries around the world have acceded to the Ottawa Convention, widely regarded as the leading international legal framework for banning the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines. However, Syria remains outside the convention. Nor is it a party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits the use of cluster munitions and obliges signatory states to clear their remnants and assist their victims.

The impact of non-accession is not limited to symbolic or political aspects alone; it also has practical implications for the mechanisms governing mine action within the country. These two conventions impose a range of obligations on States Parties, including clearing mines from contaminated areas within specified timeframes, establishing national risk education programmes, providing medical, psychological and social support to victims, and sharing technical information and maps relating to areas contaminated by landmines and unexploded ordnance.

Abdul Ghani says that the current situation places a particular responsibility on the new Syrian government in this regard, adding: “Accession to the Ottawa Convention and the Convention on Cluster Munitions must be part of the process of rebuilding state institutions after the war. It is not just a matter of banning the future use of these weapons, but also of recognising the rights of victims, drawing up a national demining plan, and ensuring that this tragedy is not repeated.”

Inadequate equipment… and avoidable risks

During a field visit to the Idlib countryside on 9 April 2025, the investigation team documented the destruction of explosive remnants of war carried out by engineering units affiliated with the Syrian Ministry of Defence.

The field inspection revealed that ordinary civilian and military lorries were being used to transport munitions, whilst a number of personnel involved in the operation were wearing standard military uniforms and light footwear, without any specialist protective gear.

The investigation also documented the use of relatively rudimentary field detonation methods, involving the wiring of explosives and manual ignition, in the absence of the specialised detonation equipment used in modern mine clearance programmes.

According to data from UNMAS, only a limited proportion of the funding required for mine clearance programmes has been provided in recent years, which has had a direct impact on the ability of operating agencies to purchase advanced equipment, train staff and secure the necessary protective equipment.

A battle without funding

Despite the widespread contamination by landmines and remnants of war in Syria, organisations working in this field face an additional challenge: a lack of funding to carry out survey and clearance operations in accordance with international standards, and to scale up their response to match the extent of contamination across Syria’s various governorates.

According to UNMAS, the mine action sector in Syria is suffering from a severe funding shortfall. The 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan estimates that $67.2 million is required to fund survey and clearance activities, risk education and victim assistance, with the aim of reaching approximately 15.4 million people affected or at risk. The programme has warned that the lack of funding is limiting the ability of operating agencies to scale up their operations and respond to the extensive contamination across the country. 

Those working in the field emphasise that limited funding directly affects the ability of implementing agencies to expand survey and clearance operations and to provide equipment and training in line with international standards.

The problem is not limited to the cost of equipment alone, as mine clearance operations require long-term investment, including the establishment of national databases, the conduct of extensive field surveys, the training of specialist teams, and the provision of medical and rehabilitative care for the injured. Both non-technical and technical survey operations also require significant human resources, and it may take years to obtain an accurate picture of the actual extent of contamination.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the clearance of explosive remnants of war may take several years.

In an attempt to address part of this gap, the Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management, through the National Centre for Mine Action and War Remnants, partnered with UNMAS and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).  Together, they launched a project, funded by the Japanese government, to clear mines and unexploded ordnance and rehabilitate agricultural infrastructure in affected areas.

The project aims “to support clearance operations, focusing on affected agricultural areas near former front lines, with the aim of enhancing civilian safety, supporting agricultural recovery and improving livelihoods in the governorates of Idlib, Aleppo and Hama, however, the scale of contamination across Syria far exceeds the capacity of current projects and requires long-term investment and programmes at the national level”.

Amid growing international attention to demining efforts in Syria, Michael Ohnmacht, Chargé d’Affaires of the European Union Delegation to Syria, said during a field visit to the Damascus countryside: “We have witnessed the scale of the destruction. Yet hope still lives on through the courageous work of mine clearance and raising awareness of the dangers. The European Union will continue to work with Syrian partners to make the land safer.”

In an effort to reduce the risks faced by demining workers, the National Centre for Mine Action, under the Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management, announced in late 2025 that it would test a drone equipped with ‘magnetometer’ technology, capable of detecting mines and unexploded ordnance at depths of up to six metres below ground. The Civil Defence stated: “This technology can significantly reduce the risks faced by conventional survey teams by minimising the need to approach areas suspected of being contaminated directly.”

Despite these initiatives, data from the Syrian Civil Defence indicates that around 900 sites contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance have been identified, whilst other estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of mines and remnants of war are scattered across the country, making the scale of the challenge far greater than the resources currently available.

When volunteers take on the task

Local communities have been forced to rely on volunteers to secure agricultural land and residential areas in preparation for their return. In the town of al-Bara, located in the Jabal al-Zawiya region, some 30 kilometres south of Idlib, residents recount how their area has been turned into a minefield after years of war. Three of the town’s leading figures explain that the former Syrian army forced most of its residents – numbering around 300 families – to flee between 2018 and 2019, before turning the town and its surroundings into a military zone and planting mines in the land adjacent to the front lines with what were then opposition-held areas.

A few days after the fall of the Assad regime, residents began returning to inspect their homes and farmland, only to find widespread destruction: damaged houses, burnt fields, and landmines planted in farmland and on nearby roads.

Ibrahim Mohammed, a local resident, says that a number of civilians were killed when landmines exploded whilst they were attempting to return to or work on their land. Following repeated incidents, a team of volunteers arrived in the town and spent around a week carrying out mine clearance operations, during which they managed to remove nearly 50 landmines, including around 20 that had been planted on his farmland.

During their search operations, the team of volunteers discovered various types of anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines that had been planted around the town and on its agricultural land. According to one team member, the mines discovered included anti-personnel mines of the OZM-72, PMN-1, YM-1 and POM-2S types, as well as PMN mines, and anti-vehicle mines of the YM-2 and YM-3 types. The variety and density of these mines reflect the extent of the contamination left behind by years of conflict in the region, and the ongoing risks this poses to both returning residents and those working on mine clearance.

Today, more than a year after Fahd al-Ghajr’s death, his wife and four children continue to live in a makeshift home made of corrugated iron sheets amidst olive groves. The man who spent years clearing mines from other people’s homes was unable to clear the mine that ended his own life.

• Creative coordination and visual solutions: Radwan Awad. 
• A version of this investigation was published on the Daraj website.

The post Explosive terrain… The unspoken cost of demining in Syria appeared first on SIRAJ.

To this day, his grandfather, Walid Al-Suwaidan Al-Sarhan, sits beside the very well that swallowed him. In silence, he runs his hands over the soil, struggling to comprehend how the family’s long-awaited return home after years of displacement turned into an open-ended tragedy.

Since 2017, the Al-Sarhans had lived in forced displacement after fleeing their village of Mazraat Al-Sarhan, in the Tal Al-Daman district between south of Aleppo and northern rural Idlib. Following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, they finally returned home, hoping to rebuild the life they had lost. They began repairing their house, worn down by years of bombardment and neglect, believing that their suffering was finally coming to an end.

But on March 2, 2026, Walid accompanied his uncle, who had taken the family’s sheep to graze in the fields surrounding the village. The young boy, deeply attached to his uncle, followed him with small steps across farmland the family had not seen since their displacement years earlier.

“We adults didn’t even know there was a well in that field,” his grandfather told the investigation team. “It had been dug during the war.”

In a matter of seconds, Walid disappeared.

The child stepped onto a thin metal sheet covered with small stones. The makeshift cover gave way beneath his weight, sending him plunging into a narrow well just 40 centimetres wide and nearly 80 metres deep.

“His uncle told us the boy vanished in the blink of an eye,” his grandfather recalled. “He was simply gone.”

For hours, rescue teams tried every possible method to reach the child. Every additional metre underground increased the risk of the well collapsing and consumed precious time the rescuers simply did not have.

Gradually, what began as a rescue operation turned into an impossible mission. Despite attempts to dig a parallel shaft, large rocks lodged 20 to 30 metres below the surface blocked any access to the child.

Ibrahim Al-Hassan, head of the Search and Rescue Department of the Syrian Civil Defence (White Helmets), described the incident as one of the most complex rescue operations his teams had handled in recent months.

“A large rock fell into the well after the child and became lodged at a depth of around 30 metres,” he recalled. “It prevented us from reaching him despite using cameras and various search techniques.”

Today, Walid’s grandfather asks for only one thing: no other child suffers the same fate.

Looking toward his grandson’s grave, he says quietly: “An open well is a death trap for children.”

Deep beneath dozens of metres of earth and rock, the child still rests where he fell months ago. The well that claimed his life became his final resting place.

The grandfather says the owners of the well offered the family blood money (diya) after Walid’s death, but they refused.

“Our only request,” he said, “was that they leave a path leading to Walid’s grave, so we can visit him and mourn him whenever we miss him.”

Open Wells Left Behind by War

Walid’s death was not an isolated tragedy.

As SIRAJ investigated child falls into wells across northern Syria to assess the scale of a largely overlooked threat to children, particularly in agricultural areas, it became clear that what happened in Mazraat Al-Sarhan is being repeated in other parts of the country.

The investigation was based on extensive field reporting across the governorates of Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama. Journalists visited the sites where children had fallen into wells, interviewed victims’ families, survivors, and members of the Syrian Civil Defence, and reviewed legal documents, photographs, and rescue videos, verifying them through both field reporting and digital analysis.

The team also obtained official statistics covering well-related accidents over the past three years. It documented testimonies from 56 farmers describing how wells and underground cisterns had been looted during the war and left open and unsecured.

In Arabic, the words bi’r (well) and jubb (plural: jubab) are closely related but differ in usage. A bi’r refers generally to any excavation dug to access groundwater, while a jubb typically describes a deep, dark, often abandoned well lacking protective infrastructure. Historically, the term has also been used to describe a pit where objects—or even people were concealed.

Across northern Syria, hundreds of abandoned, damaged and unsecured wells and underground cisterns have become an escalating danger to children. Years of war, displacement, and the looting of infrastructure have left many of these sites uncovered and unprotected, while rescue and Civil Defence teams continue to operate with limited resources.

“The capabilities currently available are still insufficient to deal with this type of complex rescue operation,” said a relative of a child who fell into a well in the village of Tal Awar, south of Idlib.

“The Civil Defence does not have enough equipment for these operations. We need advanced cameras capable of reaching great depths, oxygen supply systems that can operate down to 100 metres, and more rescue ropes, the most essential tool used during these missions.”

A Split-Second Fall

On the morning of March 2, 2026, while Walid’s family in Mazraat Al-Sarhan waited for a miracle that would never come, another tragedy was unfolding more than 100 kilometres away in the eastern countryside of Hama.

In the village of Halban, the family of Dam’a Al-Baroush had barely begun to feel safe again after returning to their home following more than two and a half years of displacement from the Salamiyah area. Their long-awaited homecoming soon turned into the beginning of another nightmare.

Just one week after returning, Dam’a, who had not yet reached her second birthday, was playing near the family home while her parents were busy with work on the roof. In a single moment, they caught a final glimpse of their daughter before she disappeared into a nearby well.

On March 2, 2026, the very same day Walid fell into the abandoned shaft, Dam’a lost her life after falling into a well approximately 110 metres deep, more than 70 metres of which were filled with water, according to her father, Miqdad Al-Baroush.

Al-Baroush recalled the first moments after the accident: “Her mother and I were on the roof when we suddenly saw Dam’a fall. We couldn’t comprehend what had happened. We jumped off the roof ourselves trying to reach her, but everything happened within seconds.”

Rescue teams arrived in about twenty minutes and launched a complex recovery operation inside the deep well.

According to the girl’s father, Syrian Civil Defence teams used every available method—including ropes, steel cables and vertical rescue techniques—in an effort to reach and save Dam’a. But the well’s extreme depth and the presence of water made the mission exceptionally difficult.

After nearly six hours, rescuers managed to recover the child. She had not survived.

The tragedy devastated not only her family but the entire village. Following Dam’a’s death, residents began sealing and securing open wells throughout the area to prevent similar accidents.

Her father concluded: “Any open well is a real danger to children. No one imagines that a single moment can be enough to lose your child forever.”

From Isolated Accidents to a Pattern

Since the fall of the Assad regime, Aleppo, Idlib and Hama have witnessed a series of similar incidents that have forced Syrian Civil Defence teams to carry out highly complex rescue operations, some lasting many hours.

The danger posed by unsecured wells extends beyond children.

Just weeks after Walid’s death, Civil Defence teams responded to another incident in the village of Tal Halawa, southeast of Idlib, where 18-year-old Ahmad Hassan Al-Mutair fell into a narrow well approximately 100 metres deep.

According to the Civil Defence, the young man remained missing for more than 24 hours before his family located the site where he had fallen and alerted rescuers. When rescue teams lowered a camera into the well, they found no signs of life. The operation continued for approximately 18 consecutive hours, after which rescuers, assisted by local residents, recovered his body from a depth of around 56 metres.

These incidents suggest that falls into wells and underground cisterns are no longer isolated accidents but an increasingly recurring danger across several parts of Syria, particularly in agricultural areas where uncovered or poorly secured wells are widespread.

The investigation team obtained exclusive statistics from Syria’s Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management, which consolidated and reviewed records previously held by local institutions operating in opposition-controlled areas before the ministry’s establishment. The records cover child falls into wells over the past three years in northern Syria.

The data show that Aleppo, Idlib and Hama recorded the highest number of rescue responses related to these incidents, highlighting the scale of the problem in areas where open and unsecured wells remain widespread.

Ibrahim Al-Hassan, who supervised several of the rescue operations, said the repeated accidents are directly linked to the absence of even the most basic safety measures around open wells and deep excavations.

“Many excavation sites are left without covers, warning signs or protective barriers to keep children away,” he said. “As a result, they become permanent hazards.”

He added that preventing many of these tragedies does not necessarily require sophisticated equipment or significant financial resources. “Simple measures can save lives—placing warning signs during and after drilling, sealing well openings with metal covers or concrete slabs, or even installing barriers and large stones to prevent people from falling inside.”

Open Death Traps

As incidents continue to recur, a broader question emerges: How did hundreds of wells across northern Syria become exposed death traps? And who bears responsibility for leaving them in this condition for years?

In many agricultural areas across the countryside of Hama and Idlib, the proliferation of open wells and underground cisterns is linked to looting and the absence of basic safety measures.

Although Syria’s Water Legislation Law No. 31 of 2005 regulates the drilling and operation of wells and establishes licensing procedures, it contains no clear provisions requiring well owners—particularly on private land—to secure well openings or implement safety measures to prevent accidents and unauthorized access.

Behind the repeated tragedies, however, testimonies collected by SIRAJ reveal another factor that has significantly contributed to the problem: the systematic looting of hundreds of agricultural wells during the war, leaving them dry, abandoned and dangerously exposed.

According to testimonies and documents obtained for this investigation, following their capture of large parts of the Idlib and Hama countryside between 2019 and 2020, forces loyal to the former Syrian regime and affiliated militias dismantled and looted the equipment of hundreds of groundwater and surface wells in farming communities that depended on irrigation as their primary source of livelihood.

SIRAJ documented 56 consistent testimonies from farmers who returned to their hometowns in northern Hama after the fall of the Assad regime. They said they found their wells completely stripped after years of forced displacement.

During that period, units of the Fourth Division, commanded by Maher al-Assad, alongside the National Defence Forces (NDF), locally led by Simon Al-Wakil and Nail Al-Abdullah, maintained a long-term military presence across large parts of northern and western Hama after residents had been forcibly displaced.

In the Qalaat al-Madiq district alone, the journalists documented the looting of 638 groundwater and surface wells.

Groundwater wells are deep boreholes drilled to access underground aquifers, while surface wells are shallower excavations used to collect near-surface water to supply irrigation. According to this investigation, pumps, electrical cables, generators and metal infrastructure were removed from these wells before they were abandoned, often left open or heavily damaged in the middle of agricultural fields.

A similar pattern emerged in the town of Al-Habit in southern Idlib.

According to the head of the town’s Agricultural Association, Al-Habit contains approximately 350 groundwater wells. After returning home following years of displacement, residents found that most of the wells had either dried up, been destroyed or left open after their equipment had been looted. By then, nearly 95 percent of the town had been destroyed.

The investigation also documented the presence of former Iranian-backed militia positions in the surrounding area, including sites near the town of Ma’arrat Hurmah, where the team obtained photographs showing military compounds displaying militia flags and religious materials.

From Lifeline to Death Trap

Across the countryside of Idlib and Hama, thousands of farmers were forced to abandon their land and irrigation wells during successive waves of displacement. Many of those wells have since become abandoned, looted pits posing a danger to nearby communities.

Abdulsalam Al-Ahmad, from the Mhardeh area in northern Hama, shared one such story.

In 2006, his family drilled a 289-metre-deep agricultural well that supplied irrigation for their pistachio orchards. When regime forces advanced into the area in 2019, the family was forced to flee, leaving behind both the well and its equipment.

After the Assad regime’s fall, Al-Ahmad returned to discover that the well had been extensively looted.

“Almost nothing was left,” he said. “Even the floor tiles had been stolen.”

He purchased a new pump in an attempt to restore the well, only to discover that it had been deliberately filled with rocks, scrap metal and other debris to a depth of nearly 100 metres, making rehabilitation technically difficult and prohibitively expensive.

Faced with those conditions, Al-Ahmad abandoned the old well and drilled a new one to irrigate his land. The damaged well, however, remains open, like dozens, if not hundreds, of others that have fallen out of use after being looted or destroyed.

Testimonies from local residents, together with data collected duringthe investigation, indicate that many of the wells posing a threat to children and rural communities today were once productive agricultural wells that sustained local livelihoods before the war. Over time, however, many became deep, abandoned shafts after their owners lost the ability to restore or operate them. In the absence of any systematic efforts to seal or secure them, these wells have become permanent hazards across northern Syria’s agricultural landscape.

Seconds Between Life and Death

Not every child who fell into a well met the same fate.

In some cases, rescue teams managed to pull children from the depths before it was too late.

In the village of Tal Awar, south of Idlib, the family of Askar Al-Diab, aged seven, had been drilling a new groundwater well in June 2024, hoping to secure drinking water and irrigate their farmland.

Instead, the well they had dug in search of life nearly became a deadly trap for their own child.

On the evening of June 8, 2024, while the family was gathered outside their home, they suddenly heard Askar scream before disappearing into the open shaft.

The boy’s uncle told SIRAJ that the first moments were marked by shock before frantic calls for help began, amid fears that the child had already plunged to the bottom.

According to both the family and the Syrian Civil Defence, timing proved decisive.

The nearest Civil Defence station was only minutes away, allowing search-and-rescue teams to reach the scene almost immediately.

Rescuers later discovered that Askar had not fallen all the way to the bottom. Instead, he had become trapped approximately five metres below the surface, clinging to the steel cables and ropes connected to the water pump inside the well—an extraordinary stroke of luck that kept him alive.

Reaching him, however, was far from straightforward.

Rescue teams employed both vertical and horizontal excavation techniques alongside specialized rope-rescue equipment during a complex operation that lasted nearly four hours, while fearing that unstable soil could collapse or the child could slip deeper into the shaft.

In many such incidents, the difference between life and death amounts to only a few metres—or just a few minutes separating the arrival of rescue teams from a fatal delay.

Ultimately, rescuers succeeded in pulling Askar out alive before transferring him to Al-Rahma Hospital in the city of Darkoush, where the investigation team verified his admission to the emergency department and subsequent resuscitation and medical treatment.

Footage from the rescue operation of seven-year-old Askar Al-Diab after he fell into an artesian well in Tal Awar village, western Idlib, on June 8, 2024. Source: Syrian Civil Defence

Different Endings to the Same Story

In March 2026, Syrian Civil Defence teams operating as part of the Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management carried out another rescue operation after a young girl fell into a well in northern Aleppo.

Using specialized cameras and rope systems to inspect the shaft and attempt access, rescuers eventually recovered the child—but she had already died before reaching the surface.

Only days later, a nearly identical incident unfolded in northern Aleppo—but with a different ending.

In the town of Shamarikh, a three-year-old boy fell into a well 18 metres deep. Civil Defence teams launched a delicate rescue operation using rope systems and vertical rescue equipment. Assisted by a local volunteer who descended into the well, rescuers secured the child and brought him to the surface before administering first aid and transferring him to a hospital in Azaz.

Rescue of a three-year-old child after falling into an 18-metre-deep well in Shamarikh, northern Aleppo. Source: Syrian Civil Defence

These recurring incidents highlight the extraordinary challenges faced by rescue teams operating inside narrow, deep wells, where, according to multiple rescuers interviewed by SIRAJ, every passing minute can determine whether a victim survives.

The depth of the well, its narrow diameter, unstable soil conditions, the presence of water, rocks or internal collapses all combine to make rescue operations exceptionally complex, particularly given the limited technical equipment and resources currently available.

Ibrahim Al-Hassan, head of the Search and Rescue Department at the Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management’s Civil Defence, says the greatest obstacle often begins with the wells themselves.

“The biggest challenge we face is the narrow diameter of many wells,” he explained. “Their openings are often too small for a rescuer to enter and reach the victim, forcing us to rely on rope rescue systems and other specialized techniques.”

Poor ventilation presents another major danger.

“A lack of oxygen inside the well can cause victims to suffocate,” Al-Hassan said. “The extreme depth is another critical factor. Once a child falls more than fifty metres, rescue becomes extraordinarily difficult.”

While some incidents end with dramatic rescues after desperate races against time, others conclude far more tragically: bodies trapped deep underground, families returning home after years of displacement only to lose their children within moments, and entire villages living with the daily fear that a deadly shaft may lie only a few steps from their homes.

Al-Hassan urged residents of rural communities to focus on prevention above all else.

“The most important recommendation is to keep children away from areas where wells are being drilled, remain open or have been abandoned, and to ensure these wells are properly sealed using whatever simple means are available.”

Interview with Ibrahim Al-Hassan, Head of the Search and Rescue Department, Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management, April 2026 – SIRAJ

The testimonies collected from families, rescuers and official data obtained by SIRAJ indicate that these incidents are no longer isolated accidents. Rather, they are the cumulative consequence of years of war, weak oversight, and the abandonment of hundreds of wells and underground cisterns after their equipment was looted during the years when the former Syrian regime and its affiliated militias controlled large areas of northern Syria.

Despite the efforts of Civil Defence teams working with limited resources and technical capacity, rescuers insist that many of these deaths could have been prevented through simple precautions: a secure metal cover, a concrete slab, or even a large stone placed over the opening of an abandoned well.

Geologist and researcher Thabet Al-Kassha agrees that preventing falls does not require sophisticated solutions, but rather the consistent application of basic safety measures once wells are completed or taken out of service.

He says the most important steps include securing every well opening with a firmly fixed metal cover, whether the well is active or abandoned, and installing a metal casing extending at least 50 centimetres above ground level, reducing the risk of accidental falls.

Al-Kassha also noted that the diameter of a well plays a crucial role in rescue operations. Wells wider than 35 centimetres provide rescuers with greater room to operate, while narrower shafts significantly hinder access and increase the risk to victims, particularly young children.

As official records continue to document new incidents, children across northern Syria continue to play near uncovered wells—unaware that a single step may be enough to put their lives at risk.

Creative Production and Visual Design: Radwan Awwad

The post Syria’s Abandoned Wells Turn into Death Traps for Children appeared first on SIRAJ.

However, the document signed by Tlass—widely regarded as one of President Hafez al-Assad’s closest and most trusted ministers—and endorsed by a Field Court ruling, was in fact an execution order. It authorized the public hanging of two civilians in Damascus’ Marjeh Square, Syria’s capital, for ordinary criminal offenses that could have been prosecuted in virtually any country under civilian law.

More than four decades later, following the collapse of the Assad dynasty, reporters from the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ) and the newspaper Zaman al-Wasl obtained a digital copy of the document. It sheds new light on the brutality of Syria’s notorious Military Field Courts, which were established after the Baath Arab Socialist Party came to power and remained one of the regime’s most feared instruments for most of the Assads era.

The two civilians targeted by the execution order were convicted of stealing and selling subsidized food supplies. Yet rather than being tried before a civilian criminal court, they were sentenced to death by a Military Field Court. 

The tribunal had originally been created during the state of war with Israel following the Baath Party’s seizure of power in the March 1963 coup. Later, however, Hafez al-Assad expanded its jurisdiction, allowing it to prosecute civilians accused of ordinary criminal offenses.

In practice, legal experts say, these were courts in name only. They did not conduct genuine trials, offered no right to defense, and provided none of the guarantees associated with a fair judicial process. Instead, they became an effective instrument for eliminating Syrians deemed disloyal to Assad’s rule. They operated as a parallel judicial system, bypassing ordinary courts to dispose of political opponents through expedited proceedings cloaked in legal legitimacy, while instilling fear throughout Syrian society, according to Nawras Al-Abdullah, a legal researcher at the Syrian Dialogue Center.

“The Field Court was originally created to deal with serious wartime crimes and enforce strict military discipline,” Al-Abdullah said. “But from the outset, it reflected the Baath regime’s broader mindset, which prioritized the elimination of political opponents above all else.”

The use of these courts did not end with Hafez al-Assad. They continued to operate under Bashar al-Assad, particularly during the Syrian uprising. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), the Assad regime executed 7,872 people, including 114 children and 26 women, out of at least 14,843 death sentences issued by Military Field Courts between March 2011 and August 2023.

Field Courts formed part of Syria’s system of exceptional courts. Their proceedings were secretive and often lasted only minutes. They ignored even the procedural safeguards of military courts, denied defendants the right to legal representation, and issued unappealable judgments. Verdicts were based not on evidence presented in court, but primarily on security reports and confessions allegedly extracted under torture.

Baathist Ideology and Brutal Sentences

Although the offense attributed to the two defendants amounted to an ordinary criminal violation—one that would normally fall under consumer protection laws or the criminal code—the regime referred their case to a Military Field Court, which sentenced them to death by hanging.

The execution order approved by Mustafa Tlass begins with the handwritten instruction “Execute.” Classified “Top Secret,” it was issued by the Army General Command, specifically the Military Administration Branch – Military Discipline Division, and references Field Court Decision No. 59, dated June 19, 1983.

The document is filled with terminology characteristic of Baathist ideology under Hafez al-Assad. It accuses the two civilians of “committing criminal acts contrary to the implementation of the state’s socialist system” and of “stealing and distributing food supplies belonging to the Arab people in Syria.”

It also sets out, in meticulous detail, how the executions were to be carried out. The commander of the Southern Military Region was assigned responsibility for overseeing the executions and all logistical arrangements, while also serving as chairman of the supervisory committee. The executions were scheduled to take place in Marjeh Square, central Damascus, at 5:00 a.m. on July 18, 1983.

To ensure the executions proceeded as ordered, the document instructed officials to erect two gallows in Marjeh Square by 4:00 a.m. and to assign a military police unit to carry out the hangings under the supervision of the head of the Military Police Branch.

A non-commissioned officer was designated to blindfold the two prisoners immediately before the executions, while military police personnel responsible for guarding them were to be selected by the head of the Military Police Branch.

According to the order, responsibility for transporting the condemned men to and from the execution site also rested with the Military Police Branch.

The executions were to be witnessed by the Military Field Court’s prosecutor, one of the judges who issued the sentence, and the court clerk. Upon arrival at the execution site, the supervising officer was instructed to read the death sentence aloud before the prisoners were blindfolded and the executions carried out.

Afterward, the supervisory committee was required to prepare an official execution report, signed by all committee members. The Military Public Prosecutor’s Office would retain one copy, while another would be attached to the case file.

The document further assigns the Syrian Army Medical Services Administration the responsibility for burying the bodies. The same institution would later be implicated in the burial of thousands of detainees in mass graves during the Syrian conflict. Meanwhile, the Military Judiciary Administration was tasked with arranging the required religious rites before and after the executions.

Following the executions, the supervising officer was instructed to notify the General Command of the Army and Armed Forces immediately by telegram, followed within six hours by a written report accompanied by the signed execution record for inclusion in the official case file.

The order also stipulated that the executions be carried out under strict secrecy, with local authorities responsible for enforcing the directive.

At the end of the document appears the signature of an official identified as Jamil, along with distribution copies sent to the Field Court at the Air Force Command, the Ministries of Health and Interior, the Military Police Branch for coordination with the Interior Ministry, and the regional military commander.

The document concludes with the signature of Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass and the official seal of the General Command of the Army and Armed Forces – Organization and Administration Branch.

A Seven-Minute Trial

Samir Turko is among the few Syrian civilians known to have survived after being brought before a Field Court shortly after Hafez al-Assad expanded its jurisdiction.

On November 26, 1981, Turko, who is still alive today, was arrested by the State Security Directorate in Damascus because his maternal uncle was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.

He was initially held at the Internal Security Branch before being transferred to the State Security Branch for interrogation. Over the next three years, he was moved through multiple security branches in Damascus and the southern city of Daraa. After years of detention and interrogation, he was finally brought before a Field Court.

What followed, he told SIRAJ, bore little resemblance to a judicial proceeding.

“There were 22 of us chained together,” Turko recalled. “The hearing was purely symbolic. It lasted no more than seven minutes before Judge Suleiman al-Khatib.”

According to Turko, the judge opened by asking only one question: “Are you Samir Turko?”

When Turko answered yes, the judge immediately launched into accusations.

“He called me a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and an American agent,” Turko said. “I replied, ‘I am a patriot. I love my country.'”

The response appeared to anger Judge al-Khatib, who signaled to security officers inside the courtroom. They immediately beat Turko so severely that his face began bleeding.

The judge then questioned him about his uncle, threatening to arrest every member of his family before concluding with the words:

“I swear I’ll have you executed.”

Turko said the courtroom itself looked nothing like a court of law. There was no defense lawyer, no public hearing, no examination of evidence, and virtually no questioning. Defendants were never informed of the verdicts issued against them. Instead, prisoners tried to decipher their fate from the judges’ gestures.

According to Turko, Judge al-Khatib would snap his pen after interrogating a defendant—a signal that he had decided on a death sentence. Another judge communicated his decision through hand gestures: pointing with his left hand meant execution; pointing with his right meant the prisoner had escaped execution, though often only to receive a life sentence.

“What remains etched in my memory is that they wanted to execute as many people as possible,” Turko said. “They wanted to eliminate anyone they considered an opponent. They forced people not only to confess to whatever they wanted, but also to implicate family members, friends, and anyone they knew.”

Turko was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment. He was transferred first to the notorious Tadmur (Palmyra) Military Prison and later to Saydnaya Military Prison, where he remained until his release in 2010.

During his years in detention, Turko endured repeated torture. The worst came after his arrival at Tadmur, where guards repeatedly beat the soles of his feet until they became severely infected.

“My foot became gangrenous and worms emerged from the wound,” he said.

According to Turko, the prison guards’ solution was to allow him to cauterize the wound with fire. More than four decades later, he continues to suffer permanent damage, including the loss of much of the tissue on the sole of his foot.

Legal researcher Nawras Al-Abdullah said the logic of Syria’s Field Courts rested on speed, repression, and the swift elimination of perceived threats to the Assad regime.

“Their purpose was to dispose of cases within minutes,” he said. “This pattern has been consistently documented by survivors from different periods, as well as by Syrian and international human rights organizations.”

Al-Abdullah added that Hafez al-Assad deliberately expanded the courts’ jurisdiction as the regime confronted growing opposition in the late 1970s.

“As the regime perceived an increasing threat from Islamists and other political groups, Legislative Decree No. 32 of 1980 extended the jurisdiction of the Field Courts to cover internal disturbances,” he said. “In practice, this transformed them into a tool for suppressing both civilians and members of the military.”

The Evolution of the Regime’s Most Feared Court

Syria’s Military Field Court was established on August 17, 1968, under Legislative Decree No. 109/3, based on Recommendation No. 2 issued by the Provisional Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Baath Party on February 25, 1966, which at the time held legislative authority.

The court remained in operation for more than five decades until September 3, 2023, when Bashar al-Assad issued a legislative decree formally abolishing it.

When it was first created, the court’s jurisdiction was limited to offenses within the authority of military courts, as referred to by the Minister of Defense. Its jurisdiction applied retroactively to the aftermath of the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War, reflecting its original purpose: to prosecute military personnel deemed responsible for wartime losses or offenses committed during military operations or armed confrontation with the enemy.

Its mandate, however, steadily expanded.

In February 1970, as Hafez al-Assad was rising to power, Legislative Decree No. 61/6 broadened the court’s jurisdiction to include crimes committed “in the presence of the enemy” whenever referred by the Minister of Defense, in addition to its existing authority over offenses committed during wartime or military operations.

A decade later, on July 1, 1980, Hafez al-Assad issued Legislative Decree No. 32/7, dramatically expanding the court’s powers to cover crimes committed “during internal disturbances.” The amendment enabled the Field Court to prosecute members of the Muslim Brotherhood during the violent confrontation between the regime and Islamist groups in the early 1980s, culminating in the 1982 Hama massacre. Decades later, the same legal framework was used to prosecute participants in the Syrian uprising that began in March 2011.

The amendment introduced broadly worded provisions that effectively opened the door for the prosecution of civilians. From that point onward, the Field Court could hear virtually any case already falling within the jurisdiction of military courts if the alleged offense occurred during wartime, military operations, or internal unrest, provided the Minister of Defense chose to refer the case.

According to Fawwaz al-Khouja, a lawyer and member of the Damascus Bar Association, these legislative changes were not intended solely to increase penalties or expand the use of the death sentence. They also created opportunities for corruption and political patronage.

Al-Khouja recalled one case in which a defendant charged with murder and rape before a criminal court had relatives who managed to reach Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass. Tlass allegedly ordered the case transferred to the Military Field Court, where the defendant received a sentence equivalent only to the time already served in detention.

According to Al-Khouja, many criminal cases were transferred to the Field Court through political influence or bribery. In some instances, serious offenders sought referral to obtain lighter sentences; in others, relatively minor offenses were transferred so that defendants could receive significantly harsher punishments.

“The defining characteristic of the Field Court,” Al-Khouja said, “was that it was not bound by the penalties prescribed in law. It could sentence someone to death for an offense punishable by only one year in prison, or impose only a short prison term for a crime that ordinarily carried the death penalty.”

The Mystery of the Number 22

To this day, no one knows why the number 22 became synonymous with the chains used to transport detainees to Field Courts.

For decades, beginning under Hafez al-Assad and continuing throughout the rule of his son Bashar, Syria’s security services insisted on shackling 22 prisoners together in a single chain before taking them to the Military Field Court.

Former detainee Fouad Naal, now head of the Association of Freed Saydnaya Prisoners, recalls that his own transfer was delayed simply because his group consisted of only 21 prisoners. Security officials postponed their appearance before the court until another detainee arrived, bringing the total to the required twenty-two.

Naal was arrested on April 13, 2004, in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He was transferred between Branch 227 (the Regional Security Branch), Saydnaya Military Prison, and later Adra Prison, where he remained until the collapse of the Assad regime.

According to Naal, after the invasion of Iraq, Syria’s Grand Mufti Ahmad Kaftaro, acting under the direction of the Assad regime, issued a religious ruling urging Syrians to wage jihad against U.S. forces in Iraq. Buses carrying volunteers began departing for Iraq under the supervision of Syrian intelligence.

Naal says he soon noticed that many of those buses were being targeted near the Iraqi border and that everyone aboard was killed.

He believes the operations were coordinated by Syrian intelligence.

“It was effectively a liquidation operation targeting anyone who embraced the idea of jihad,” Naal said.

In response, Naal publicly issued a religious opinion opposing Kaftaro’s fatwa. He began visiting the Damascus International Fairgrounds, where buses carrying prospective fighters assembled, and he urged young men not to travel through channels organized by Syrian intelligence.

“I told them: if you want to fight, don’t go through the Syrian regime. It’s a plan to eliminate you,” he recalled. “We tried every possible way to persuade them to turn back, and we succeeded in convincing some of them.”

The campaign soon made him a target.

After going into hiding inside Syria, Naal was arrested in 2004 together with his wife and their four-month-old daughter at the Harasta bus station during a joint operation involving four security agencies: the Regional Security Branch, Palestine Branch, the Raids Branch, and Military Intelligence.

He remained imprisoned until December 8, 2024, when the Assad regime fell.

According to Naal, immediately after their arrest, security officers separated his infant daughter from her mother.

To secure his daughter’s release, Saeed Samour—who would later become Syria’s Interior Minister—allegedly demanded that Naal confess to every accusation brought against him.

While being interrogated at the Palestine Branch, Naal was informed that he faced 33 criminal charges.

None, he says, related to the religious opinion he had issued or to incitement against the state.

“I was interrogated by Saeed Samour, who headed the Regional Security Branch at the time, by Assef Shawkat, Assad’s brother-in-law, and by Manhal Al-Suwaid. During one interrogation session, Hassan Khlouf, head of the Palestine Branch, was also present.”

Instead, investigators accused him of plotting to assassinate senior officials including Bashar al-Assad himself and planning to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Damascus.

Naal says Assef Shawkat later offered to release his wife if he agreed to confess to an additional accusation.

A list containing several names was placed before him, and he was instructed to admit that he had planned to assassinate every person on it, including Shawkat himself.

Fearing for his infant daughter, Naal says he agreed.

In 2005, he was brought before the Military Field Court, where Major General Mohammad Kanj sentenced him to what prisoners referred to as “Field Court life imprisonment,” which means incarceration until death.

Later, Syria’s State Security Court imposed two additional life sentences and two death sentences.

Prisoners were transported to the court under brutal conditions. Chained together, they were loaded into what Naal described as a refrigerated meat truck.

When they arrived, the rear doors were opened and guards violently pulled them from the vehicle, causing prisoners to fall on top of one another before being dragged into the courtroom, still bearing visible signs of torture inflicted during interrogation.

Within roughly 30 minutes, at the end of the court’s Sunday session, every defendant had been sentenced.

Naal says no evidence was presented, no witnesses testified, and no meaningful charges were examined.

Judge Mohammad Kanj sat alongside a military officer holding the rank of major general and another man wearing a leather jacket and dark sunglasses. Naal later learned that the latter was an officer from the National Security Bureau.

The judge asked only two questions:

“What is your name?”

“Do you confirm the confession you gave?”

After Naal answered yes, the judge motioned with his right hand, signaling that he should leave.

By then, Naal had learned the meaning of the judges’ gestures.

A motion with the left hand meant immediate execution by firing squad.

A simple gesture was enough to determine whether a prisoner would live or die.

“The Field Courts executed thousands of people in the name of justice,” Naal said. “In reality, they functioned as instruments of systematic sectarian and political extermination.”

Documents reviewed by SIRAJ show that thousands of detainees were referred to the Military Field Courts during 1982 and 1983. Most were accused either of membership in the Muslim Brotherhood or in the so-called ‘Suspicious Right-Wing Organization’—a movement led by former Syrian military officers opposing Hafez al-Assad’s purge of senior commanders and reportedly backed by Iraq. Many of those referred came from Suwayda Province. Another significant category consisted of individuals accused of belonging to the Lebanese Kataeb Party.

The documents do not indicate what ultimately happened to these detainees. However, available evidence suggests that many were executed over subsequent years. The exact number of people put to death by Military Field Courts under either Hafez or Bashar al-Assad remains unknown.

Against that backdrop, Mustafa Tlass’s signature on execution orders for civilians appears less an exception than a routine element of the machinery of death.

Tlass and Hafez al-Assad shared one of the closest political relationships within Syria’s ruling establishment. The two met while studying at the Military Academy in Homs during the 1950s, later working together inside the Baath Party. Tlass played a significant role in Assad’s rise to power and was rewarded with the post of Minister of Defense in 1972, a position he retained until 2004, remaining in office for four years after Bashar al-Assad inherited the presidency.

In a 2005 interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel, Tlass admitted that he could no longer remember how many death warrants he had personally signed.

He said that during parts of the 1980s, as many as 150 public hangings were carried out each week in Damascus alone.

Smiling, he concluded: “We used weapons to seize power, and we wanted to keep it. Anyone who wants power will have to take it from us by force.”

A version of this investigation was also published by Daraj Media

Creative Production and Visual Design: Radwan Awad

The post Exclusive: Assad’s Military Field Courts Executed Two Civilians Over Alleged “Opposition to Socialism” appeared first on SIRAJ.

Alongside the poverty that left public hospitals as the mother’s only option for treatment, another obstacle emerged: the need for official documents that the child does not possess, through no fault of her own, but because she and her younger brother were born from Najwa’s marriage to a man whose true identity was never known before he later disappeared.

Najwa (a pseudonym) says, “The girl’s condition was critical. The mass was pressing on one of her eyes, and she urgently needed surgery. But the hospitals refused to admit her. After several disputes and arguments with the [hospital] administration, it admitted her exceptionally, as an act of help, under the name of one of her relatives.”

Najwa’s daughter after undergoing surgery to remove a tumor from her face – SIRAJ

After several days of delay due to overcrowding at the hospital, the operation was finally performed. The child is now recovering, though the results of the surgery revealed that she requires chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

What worries Najwa most is that this temporary solution will not always work. She says she desperately needs a permanent legal resolution for her children’s situation.

In 2014, Najwa, then a 16-year-old girl living in extreme poverty with her mother in the town of Al-Bab in the Aleppo countryside, married a Libyan man affiliated with ISIS.

The marriage was conducted through a “Sheikh’s contract,” an informal religious marriage not officially registered in court, as was common in areas under the group’s control at the time.

In 2018, her husband decided to travel to Turkey. Since then, she has lost all contact with him.

Najwa became the family’s sole provider, struggling not only with poverty but also fighting to obtain civil registration documents for her two children that would officially recognize their existence as human beings and secure for them the most basic rights, primarily education and healthcare, under Syrian law.

Bigger Than ISIS

The issue of Syrian women marrying foreigners during the years of the Syrian revolution is often portrayed as being mainly linked to women who married ISIS fighters during the group’s control over eastern Syria between 2014 and 2017. However, the problem and its consequences, especially the price paid today by Syrian wives and their children, extend beyond marriages to ISIS fighters alone, as illustrated by the story of Um Saad.

Um Saad, who is in her forties now and living in Idlib, married a man from Uzbekistan during the uprising. But in 2019, just one year after their marriage, he disappeared.

All she knows about him is that he worked as a “Sharia official” within an armed faction in the area. Given the sensitivity of his situation, the marriage took place through a religious ceremony conducted by the faction’s sheikh.

At the time, the husband concealed his true identity for fear of “spies,” a move that later prevented Um Saad from legally registering the marriage in court.

This reality, she says, deprived her and her son, whose father disappeared when he was only two months old, from receiving aid or assistance, especially programs designated for widows and divorced women. Her marriage and her child remain unrecognized by Syrian authorities because the marriage was never officially documented in a recognized court. Most critically, her son possesses no civil registration records whatsoever.

The ideological factor, namely extremism or radicalization, does not appear to have been the primary driver behind Syrian women marrying foreign fighters.

Civil activist Fayhaa Al-Shawash from the Idlib countryside explains:
“The phenomenon of Syrian women marrying foreign fighters spread because of poverty, the loss of breadwinners, and the growing number of widows in war-affected areas. There was also fear that unmarried daughters over the age of eighteen would be labeled as ‘spinsters,’ so many families viewed foreign fighters as an opportunity to provide someone who could take care of them.”

Many women, according to several interviews conducted in rural Idlib for this investigation, were encouraged to marry foreigners because of their modest demands and because they often expressed willingness to sponsor orphans and take care of the children of divorced women.

These same circumstances pushed Um Omar to marry a man from the Republic of Dagestan.

She had previously divorced a Syrian husband, forcing her to return to her family home, where she lived in cramped conditions alongside her displaced brothers’ families during the war.

She explains that she suffered from severe hardship and helplessness, which is why she accepted marriage to the Dagestani man after being introduced to him through a relative who recommended her to a man seeking to marry a widow or divorced woman and help raise her children.

Um Omar describes the single year she lived with her Dagestani husband as “very good.” She says he treated her three children kindly and never hesitated to bring joy into their lives. Later, she became pregnant.

But during that period, her husband traveled to Turkey and was unable to return to Syria.

“My husband hopes the nationality issue will eventually be resolved so our son can obtain Syrian citizenship and a passport, allowing us to travel to him,” she says.

“He constantly asks me: Why am I not Syrian? Why am I Dagestani? He also suffers from bullying because of his father’s nationality.”

Because she possesses her husband’s identity documents and knows his real name and lineage, Um Omar was eventually able to register her marriage through a court affiliated with the Salvation Government, which administered Idlib before the fall of the former Syrian regime in December 2024.

Still, the process took her two full years.

She ultimately obtained a family statement renewed every three months, confirming her son’s lineage. That document allowed her to enroll her son in school, but it remains insufficient for obtaining a national ID card or passport.

Beyond these wartime cases, there are also children of Syrian women who have remained stateless since before the revolution itself.

Feminist activist Sawsan Zakzak, a board member of the Syrian Women’s League, explains that this issue often stems from marriages between Syrian women and Gulf nationals during tourism seasons.

Such marriages were frequently conducted through unofficial “sheikh contracts,” meaning they were never formally registered either in the husband’s country or at his country’s embassy in Syria, leaving children born from those unions without nationality.

In other cases, the marriage may have been officially recognized in Syria but not accepted in the husband’s country.

Saudi Arabia, for example, requires prior government approval for Saudi men to marry non-Saudi women.

Zakzak adds: “Political tensions between the Syrian state and other countries also contributed to this phenomenon, as was the case with Iraq during certain periods.”

“During Ba’ath Party rule in Baghdad, large numbers of Iraqi opposition figures sought refuge in Syria and married Syrian women, but they could not officially register those marriages in the civil records of the husband’s country, especially given the absence of embassies between the two states.”

Stateless: No Education, No Work

Facing the hardships of daily life, Um Saad had hoped she might at least be able to grant her son Syrian nationality so he could live a normal life like other children.

“I am the sole person responsible for my son because his father is absent,” she says. “He was born here, raised here, and lived off the goodness of this country. He knows nothing about foreign fighters. He only knows that he is Syrian. His father is missing, and in any case, he would never be able to grant him citizenship because he is classified as a terrorist in his own country.”

But Um Saad soon discovered that granting her child Syrian nationality was not an option either.

Syrian law does not grant mothers the right to pass citizenship to their children. This right is reserved exclusively for fathers, which causes a problem for hundreds of Syrian women, not only those who married “foreign fighters” during the revolution, but also women married to non-Syrians before and after the conflict.

Syrian nationality is governed by Legislative Decree No. 276 of 1969.

Article 3(a) of the law limits automatic acquisition of Syrian nationality by birth to anyone “born inside or outside the country to a Syrian Arab father.”

Meanwhile, Article 3(b) states that a person “born in the country to a Syrian Arab mother whose legal paternity has not been established” may obtain Syrian nationality. The same applies, under Article 3(c), to children born to unknown parents.

According to lawyer Rahada Abdoush, this discriminatory provision in Syrian law against women is unjustified because it contradicts constitutional principles that have consistently affirmed that “citizens are equal before the law in rights and duties,” while also emphasizing that “the family is the fundamental unit of society and is protected by the state.”

These principles, she adds, were reiterated in the Constitutional Declaration issued on March 13, 2025, whose Article 10 states: “Citizens are equal before the law in rights and duties, without discrimination based on race, religion, gender, or lineage.”

Abdoush explains that: “The former regime used to justify denying women this right by citing the issue of non-naturalized Kurds, and Palestinian refugees and the need to preserve their right of return, in addition to reasons related to national security.”

However, according to the lawyer, who specializes in women’s and children’s rights, these arguments are no longer valid.

“The situation changed after the issuance of the decree granting Kurds the right to obtain Syrian nationality. The concept of national security itself has also changed, and most Palestinians around the world now hold other nationalities.”

The suffering of stateless children becomes especially visible once they reach school age.

Najwa says schools agreed this year to enroll her two children “reluctantly,” on the condition that she provide official civil registration documents next year if they are to continue their education.

This means their educational future remains uncertain if she fails to obtain those documents.

The difficulties facing children of Syrian mothers and non-Syrian fathers living in Syria continue even after they complete their education, notes activist Sawsan Zakzak.

They are subject to the same restrictive labor regulations applied to foreigners.

Most of those children are also barred from practicing professions regulated by Syria’s professional syndicates law, since careers such as law or medicine require membership in their respective syndicates.

Membership itself is governed by the principle of “reciprocal treatment” between states. Even those who meet that requirement are denied access to the syndicates’ social benefits because they are considered non-Syrians.

Zakzak adds: “They are not allowed to own property except under the Law on Arab and Foreign Ownership, which pushes families to register property under the Syrian mother’s name. If the mother dies, the children must dispose, within one year, of any inherited shares exceeding what is permitted under the foreign ownership law.”

In addition to these restrictions, residency remains another major problem.

Researcher Rasha Al-Tabashi, founder of the campaign “My Nationality Is My Right,” explains that children of Syrian mothers do not receive permanent residency. Instead, they are treated under Law No. 2 of 2014 regulating the entry and residency of Arabs and foreigners in Syria.

The law defines five categories of residency permits: special, ordinary, temporary, tourist, and work residency.

Under Article 19(2), children of Syrian mothers are granted only an “ordinary residency” permit valid for three years.

Beyond depriving them of any sense of long-term stability, Al-Tabashi argues that these residency permits also impose financial burdens.

Each ordinary residency permit costs 150,000 (old) Syrian pounds (roughly 12 US dollars), with no exemptions or exceptions for vulnerable groups such as stateless children or the sons and daughters of Syrian women.

Transcending Borders and Regimes

In 2018, Syrian activists launched the campaign “Who Is Your Husband?” in Idlib province, western Aleppo countryside, and northern Hama countryside. The campaign aimed to shed light on the phenomenon of Syrian women marrying foreign fighters and to raise awareness among women about the risks such marriages posed to them and their children.

The campaign included billboards, leaflets, wall writings, graffiti art, discussion sessions, and both individual and group meetings at women’s and children’s support centers, alongside a parallel social media campaign.

Although some young women who were more aware of the risks married men whose origins and nationalities were known, many underage girls and women living in displacement camps were married off without understanding the consequences or with families deliberately overlooking those dangers because of the harsh conditions they faced, according to Idlib-based activist Fayhaa Al-Shawash.

There are no precise statistics regarding the number of children born to Syrian mothers who remain stateless.

However, a 2023 needs assessment of women in areas outside Assad regime control conducted by “Al-Warsha” in partnership with the “My Nationality Is My Right” campaign documented around 600 cases involving more than 1,200 children, according to campaign founder Rasha Al-Tabashi.

Most of those children lack official documents.

The assessment also revealed cases in which some children within the same family were officially registered while others were not, largely because of multiple marriages.

Furthermore, Al-Tabashi explains that the campaign’s work revealed that the nationality issue is not limited to children born to wives of foreign fighters.

Displaced Syrian women who married in Jordan or Lebanon through unofficial “sheikh contracts” also face similar legal complications.

Nor has the fall of Assad and the political transition in Syria so far eased the problem. If anything, it may have made things worse.

Before the collapse of the Assad regime, Najwa, for example, had not fully grasped the consequences of having an unregistered marriage to a man of unknown identity.

Today, everything has changed from trying to enroll her children in school to securing her daughter’s right to medical treatment.

While Um Omar and Um Saad lost contact with their husbands, there are likely hundreds of women who still live with their “foreign fighter” spouses without knowing what future awaits them.

Many of those husbands, once fighters within opposition factions, are now permanently injured from war wounds.

At the same time, these women do not know what future awaits their children, since many fathers are unable to pass on their nationality because they are classified as terrorists in their home countries, as in the case of Um Maryam, a 27-year-old woman.

Um Maryam, who lives in Idlib city and is originally from the province’s countryside, was previously married to a Syrian man.

Five years ago, she married a man from Uzbekistan and has since given birth to a daughter. She is currently pregnant with another child.

Her husband, she says, suffered three injuries during separate battles.

Although he remains formally a fighter, his mobility is severely limited, and he needs treatment that is difficult to secure due to the family’s limited income.

He is also unable to find other work because he lacks Syrian nationality, and employers refuse to hire him.

According to her husband, he once owned homes in his country but abandoned everything to come and help Syrians.

In Um Maryam’s opinion, these men should be helped rather than persecuted or marginalized.

“If something happens to my husband,” she says, “I want to have at least a family booklet proving my marriage and my children’s lineage, because the current family statement paper proves nothing and guarantees nothing.”

Waiting for Permanent Solutions, the Crisis Deepens

The pressures faced by women because of their stateless children have driven many of them to invent “solutions” that, while temporarily easing the problem, may create even greater disasters in the future, warns Omaya Shaker Al-Mousa, head of legal affairs at Mazaya Women’s Organization.

One such “solution” involves registering children under the name of the mother’s father or brother. In legal terms, her son effectively becomes her “brother” or her “nephew,” resulting in serious distortions of family lineage.

Al-Mousa stresses the need to “develop permanent solutions instead of resorting to temporary fixes that will create catastrophic consequences in the long run.”

Among those who resorted to such a solution is Layla, a 28-year-old woman living in rural Aleppo.

For the past seven years, she has spent long hours at a physical therapy center treating her nine-year-old daughter, who was born under bombardment and suffered oxygen deprivation that affected her ability to walk and speak.

Layla (a pseudonym) married through a “sheikh’s contract” in 2014, when she was only 17, to a 23-year-old Saudi man.

She gave birth to a daughter and a son, both of whom suffer from health problems. In addition to the girl’s disabilities, the boy suffers from a perforated eardrum caused by shelling, as well as malabsorption issues.

“My children’s health conditions were the reason I discovered the problem of marrying a non-Syrian man,” she says.

Hospitals refused to admit the children for treatment because they lacked official documents. When she approached the court to obtain civil registration records for them, she says officials told her it was impossible because “ISIS members have no papers.”

Initially, her husband fought with Jabhat al-Nusra (later became known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) before defecting to ISIS. He was later captured by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and eventually died of tuberculosis in prison.

As her circumstances worsened, Layla says her only option was to register the children under her father’s name.

She fully understands that her children’s lives are now legally built on falsified identities. They carry her family name, while her father is officially registered as their father rather than their grandfather.

But she says she had no other solution that would allow her to treat the children or enroll her son in school.

Beyond these forms of falsification, the wives of foreign fighters have also begun pressuring Syria’s new government directly.

They have organized themselves through a WhatsApp group that currently includes more than 500 women.

Um Omar, one of the group’s founders, explains that they are working on every possible level to make their voices heard through meetings and media appearances, especially because some of the children are now fourteen years old and have reached the age at which they should receive national identity cards.

Every day, Um Omar communicates with the group members as they work to document cases and demonstrate the scale of the problem.

She insists their issue does not concern one or two women, but hundreds. “They are Syrian women who lived through extremely difficult wartime conditions, and it is unjust to burden them with new suffering.”

One member of the group, Shaimaa, says: “Our children should obtain our nationality, the nationality of our land. Our children are here. We spent ten years enduring oppression and suffering, and in the blink of an eye, ten years of our lives disappeared. But today, after liberation, our children have the right to live stable and happy lives.”

Shaimaa married a fighter from Tajikistan when she was only 17 years old.

She lives in rural Idlib and says she endured severe wartime hardship and poverty before finding stability with her husband, with whom she now has four children.

Her two sisters also married “foreign fighters.”

All of them, she says, dream of educating their children and allowing them to live normal lives. But every dream remains suspended until the issue of nationality is resolved, a reality that motivated them to support the women’s group and organize their collective efforts.

“After the decree granting citizenship to the Kurds was issued, we hoped we would also be included,” Shaimaa adds, “and that a decree would finally grant Syrian women the right to pass their nationality on to their families.”

Earlier this year, President Ahmed Al-Sharaa issued Presidential Decree No. 13 of 2026, granting Syrian citizenship to all Kurdish origin who had previously been denied nationality based on the 1962 census conducted in Al-Hasakah province.

Sharia Supports Syrian Mothers’Right to Nationality

For more than two decades, civil society efforts advocating for Syrian women’s right to pass their nationality to their children have never ceased.

The first movement to launch this campaign was the Syrian Women’s League in 2002.

Activist Sawsan Zakzak explains that the League’s campaign, titled “My Nationality Is a Right for My Family and Me,” was part of a broader regional initiative carrying the same name.

The campaign began by conducting two studies.

The first was a legal study demonstrating the discrimination embedded in Syrian nationality law against women.

The second was a field study involving interviews with women directly affected by this discrimination, as well as conversations with their children to document the impact of legal inequality on families where the mother is Syrian, and the father is not.

Following these studies, the campaign began working toward amending the nationality law, Zakzak says.

Ten members of the Syrian parliament formally submitted a proposal to amend the law, including the legal justifications for the change. However, according to Zakzak, the Speaker “put it in a drawer” and never presented it before parliament.

Zakzak explains: “Our campaign relied on two main references. First, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which affirms that every child has the right to a nationality. Second, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which includes a clause affirming women’s right to pass their nationality to their children.”

“We encountered difficulties because Syria had entered a reservation to Paragraph 2 of Article 9 concerning nationality.”

According to Dr. Mohammad Habash, professor of Islamic jurisprudence at Abu Dhabi University and a former member of the Syrian parliament who publicly supported the “My Nationality Is a Right for My Family and Me” campaign at the time, several parliamentarians succeeded in bringing the proposed amendment to discussion. Still, parliament never approved referring it to the legal committee.

The main justifications offered by representatives of the former authorities, he explains, centered on rejecting the naturalization of children born to Palestinian fathers and Syrian mothers, arguing that this would result in the loss of Palestinian nationality and, consequently, the Palestinian cause itself.

In response to objections based on Islamic law, Habash says supporters of reform presented Quranic evidence affirming the mother’s right in this matter.

“The Quran explicitly attributes children to their mothers in two places,” he explains.

“In Surat Al-Baqarah, God says: ‘Mothers shall breastfeed their children,’ and again in Surat Al-Mumtahanah: ‘Nor shall they kill their children or fabricate falsehoods.’”

According to Habash, attributing children to their mothers is entirely normal within the Quranic tradition and also appears frequently in the Prophetic Sunnah.

“I do not believe there is any religious obstacle preventing justice for Syrian women and for children who deserve this right,” he says.

Habash considers it deeply disappointing that no Arab country has managed to make a real breakthrough on this issue over the past twenty years.

After Algeria granted women in 2005 the unrestricted right to pass nationality to their non-Algerian husbands and children, Tunisia also introduced reforms. However, their scope remained limited because Tunisian mothers can grant nationality to their children only under certain conditions.

“I believe it is unfortunate that Arab states have failed to make meaningful progress in this direction,” Habash says. “But today we will once again raise the same demands we raised in the past, and Syria should lead the way on this issue.”

Following the fall of the Assad regime, the work of the “My Nationality Is My Right” campaign entered a new phase.

Its activities are no longer limited to Idlib and its countryside or rural Aleppo, but have expanded into Damascus, Aleppo, and Homs.

The campaign has formed a team of Syrian women directly affected by the nationality issue to serve as ambassadors advocating for their cause.

Rasha Al-Tabashi and her team are also attempting to establish something resembling a lobbying group with newly elected members of parliament, given that any legal reform in Syria ultimately requires parliamentary approval.

Al-Tabashi and her colleagues have already contacted several newly elected MPs who are expected to join parliamentary sessions once the new parliament convenes.

The initiative hopes to prepare the political ground for passing an amended nationality law with majority support.

Among those now publicly supporting the campaign is Nour Al-Jandali, a parliament member representing Homs.

Al-Jandali recently participated alongside fellow MPs in a workshop organized by the Hawiyati Organization and UN Women.

“I will support amending the law as quickly as possible, with clear wording that leaves no room for interpretation,” she says.

“At the same time, it is important to address fears associated with this law and work toward procedural safeguards without denying the right itself.”

Al-Jandali argues that it is unacceptable for society and the law to grant men the right to pass nationality to their children while denying women the same right.

“By doing so,” she says, “they treat mothers as second-class citizens. This is an injustice and a structural flaw in the construction of a true citizenship-based state.”

Dr. Fadi Al-Halabi, a neurosurgeon and newly elected MP for Damascus, echoes this position.

Beyond granting children of Syrian mothers full rights in education, healthcare, property ownership, and public services, he argues, the reform would also “contribute to social stability.”

Meanwhile, as the Syrian Women’s League continues its advocacy efforts, Zakzak emphasizes that the League’s campaign predates both the Syrian uprising and the issue of foreign fighters.

She therefore fears “that the issue of granting Syrian nationality to children of Syrian mothers will become tied to the fate of foreign fighters.”

She stresses: “Our demand concerns the children only. As for the fighters themselves, that is a matter for the state to decide whether to permit or deny their status.”

Zakzak notes that most countries do not automatically grant nationality to spouses upon marriage, but instead impose conditions and restrictions.

As for Um Omar and the many Syrian mothers who share her struggle, what they ultimately seek, she says, is simply “the right to life” for their children.

This investigation is part of the 2026 Journalism Fellowship Program for Syrian journalists at SIRAJ, supported by the French Media Development Agency (CFI).

An Arabic version of this investigation was also published on Daraj Media.

Creative coordination and visual solutions: Radwan Awad.

The post “Why Am I Not Syrian?”: The Silent Tragedy of Children of Syrian Women with Foreign Fathers appeared first on SIRAJ.

The minutes of the meeting on May 29, 2024, show how much pressure Assad’s regime was under during its dying days from one of its closest allies. 

At one point in the talks, Russia’s deputy defense minister, General Yunus-bek Yevkurov, even threatened to cut off financing for oil operations if Syria didn’t pay up.

Russia had built up extensive interests in Syria’s oil sector under the Assad regime. In 2015, Russia intervened militarily in Syria, helping regain territory taken by the rebels. In return, Assad’s government had offered contracts to Russian companies to rebuild the energy sector.

“We do not want oil extraction and production to stop, because this will be a strong blow to the Syrian economy,” said Yevkurov, according to the meeting minutes obtained by OCCRP’s Syrian media partner SIRAJ.

Yevkurov did not respond to a request for comment on the meeting. 

Negotiations about the much larger debt owed to Russia have continued under Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former rebel commander who now serves as Syrian president. The Kremlin has reportedly sought to maintain military bases it established under Assad, while Damascus has asked for debt relief and other concessions.

That puts Syria in a delicate position as the new government attempts to rebuild the country, along with its relationships to the international community — including countries at odds with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. 

But Syria needs help from whoever can offer it. The country is devastated after 13 years of war, and the government has few options to pay for reconstruction, which will cost an estimated $216 billion, according to the World Bank. 

To make matters worse, Syria faces a total debt of about $27 billion, according to its central bank. As much as $22.3 billion of that debt is external, with at least $1.2 billion owed to Russia, according to a World Bank assessment of the country’s economy in 2025, referencing official data.

Military Chokehold

Russia also has a chokehold on Syria’s military, which gives the Kremlin even more leverage in negotiations. The Assad family, which ruled for half a century, built up a military primarily on Russian weaponry. This leaves the new government dependent on Russian arms to maintain the strength it needs to enforce security.

“For the past 50 years, all of Syria’s military capabilities have been of Russian origin,” said Osama al-Qadi, a senior economic policy advisor for Syria’s Ministry of Economy and Industry. “Therefore, it needs spare parts, new weapons to modernize its older Russian arsenal.” 

Under Assad, Syria also allowed the Russian military to establish bases directly on its territory.

Al-Qadi has not participated in the talks with Russia, but he said that, in addition to arms purchases, he believes the two sides have discussed Russia’s continued use of its naval base near the city of Tartus. Russia may also be allowed to maintain its Hmeimim Air Base near the coastal city of Latakia “on the condition that it remains under Syrian administration to prevent it from becoming a haven for remnants of the old regime.”

“In return, any debts or contracts signed by the regime with the Russians could be overlooked,” al-Qadi told SIRAJ.

He said he believed negotiations around such an agreement constituted “a significant part of the joint Syrian-Russian talks during President al-Sharaa’s visit to Russia” in January 2026.

When al-Sharaa took over the presidency a year earlier, one of the first things he did was ask for Russian loans taken out by the Assad regime to be cancelled, Reuters reported. By October, he said his government would honor deals the Assad regime had made with Russia.

The Syrian Foreign Affairs and Finance Ministries did not respond to questions about debt negotiations, while the Ministry of Energy said the matter was not with them.

A recent report by the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, noted that 

“Russia retains influence through debt leverage, military basing and security mediation.”

Tough Talk

The leaked minutes, obtained by SIRAJ and its Syrian partner Zaman Al Wasl, show Russian officials using similar leverage in talks with Assad-regime officials.

The May 2024 meeting at the presidential palace in Damascus was attended by a delegation led by Yevkurov, the Russian deputy defense minister, who met with Mansour Azzam, then Syria’s Minister for Presidency Affairs. 

“We have been paying the costs of the Russian soldiers and the Syrian workers,” Yevkurov said, at a monthly tally of $4.5 million. He also demanded that Syria pay an additional $1.16 million monthly for “re-equipping Russian support points that will protect the sites”. 

Yevkurov then said Russia would stop paying those costs from June 2024, and he demanded that Syria pick up the bill. 

Alluding that Syria was withholding payments, Yevkurov warned: “I do not like anyone cheating me… The dialogue with the minister of oil will be in another style.”

Yevkurov said the total debt for the specific services under discussion — which was only part of the much larger bill owed to Russia — amounted to $37.16 million. 

Yevkurov said Russian President Vladimir Putin did not know about that $37 million owed, which put him in a “predicament.” 

“The new Russian Minister of Defense will raise the topic of this debt… or he will inform President Putin about it,” he said. “Surely then the president will ask, how did this happen… I cannot say to the president that I fell short and I do not know how to justify this debt.” 

Azzam was conciliatory as he tried to alleviate Russian concerns, saying: “I believe that we will be able in a very short span to solve all these problems.”

OCCRP could not contact Azzam directly. The Syrian consulate in Moscow, where Azzam is reportedly located, did not respond to a request for comment.

Oil for Protection

Nine years before Azzam and Yevkurov spoke in Damascus, Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war, giving the Assad regime a much-needed advantage.

By that time, the regime was financially depleted and incapable of securing its own energy infrastructure. In return for military support, Damascus reportedly began offering “all possible incentives” to Russian companies to rebuild the energy sector. 

According to the European Union sanctions list, the Russian company Evro Polis LLC “signed a number of contracts with the Syrian regime, through the state-owned General Petroleum Corp.” The company received 25 percent “from the production of oil and gas in fields captured by the Wagner Group,” a Russian paramilitary force fighting for Assad.

The EU called Evro Polis “a front for the Wagner Group,” which was run by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin. 

Prigozhin turned against Putin in 2023, leading a group of Wagner fighters from the Ukrainian front towards Moscow in a short-lived rebellion. He called off the uprising, but died in a mysterious air crash two months later, in August 2023.

By the time of the meeting in Damascus, the minutes show that Russia was intending to transfer the oil contracts away from Evro Polis. Yevkurov asked why the company was still receiving fees for the Ebla and Hayan gas and oil facilities in central Syria.

“According to our information, Ebla and Hayan still pay amounts to the Evro Polis company and we request that you investigate this,” said Yevkurov, asking: “Why do they pay Evro Polis?”

He demanded the Syrian Ministry of Oil sign a contract with a different company, ERPOST-M, which reportedly opened an official branch in Damascus in 2024 to provide security services for facilities, including oil fields. 

By the end of that year, the Assad regime had fallen and Syrian-Russian relations had taken a dramatic turn. 

Syria’s negotiations with Russia have since been complicated by a host of other geopolitical considerations, according to analysts. Al-Sharaa’s government is concerned with preventing both internal rebellion, and Israeli incursions over the border. The new government also needs to balance its relationship with Russia vis-a-vis its diplomatic rapprochement with ِEurope and the U.S.

“The Syrians certainly take into account the fact that the Russians are — among the big countries — the only ones possibly willing to send troops to southern Syria to protect them from Israel,” said Jihad Yazigi, a Syria expert and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. 

Russia could also choose to prop up the new government’s adversaries, explained Soqrat al-Alou, a Syrian political economy researcher at the Arab Reform Initiative, a Paris-based think tank.

The Kremlin could “stir or contain unrest along the coast through networks linked to Alawite constituencies and remnants of former regime military,” he said.

But accommodating Russia’s desire to maintain a military presence in Syria could alienate countries Damascus wants to have good relations with.

Al-Alou noted that the U.S. appears to accept “a limited Russian presence” in Syria, as “its concerns lie elsewhere.”

“European actors, by contrast, appear more sensitive to the entrenchment of Russian influence,” he said.

Fact-checking was provided by the OCCRP Fact-Checking Desk.

Fact-checking was provided by the OCCRP Fact-Checking Desk.

The post Russia Threatened to Halt Syrian Oil Operations if Assad Regime Didn’t Pay Debt appeared first on SIRAJ.

One of the most prominent examples is the former frontline south of Idlib Governorate, which separated regime forces from opposition forces led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). This line extends across large parts of the countryside of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia. It is considered one of the most heavily contaminated areas with landmines, according to Abdul Razzaq al-Qantar, Director of Victim Support Department at the Syrian Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management’s National Mine Action Center.

Between 2020 and 2024, the region witnessed thousands of deaths and injuries caused by landmine explosions, reaching around 15,000 cases, according to statements by Maysara al-Hassan, Operations Commander of the Engineering Regiment in the 80th Division of the Syrian Ministry of Defense.

The absence of maps documenting minefields laid during the years of conflict due to the destruction or removal of documents by regime officers responsible for these operations has been one of the main reasons behind the continued deaths and injuries among civilians and demining personnel after the regime’s fall. According to Fadel Abdul Ghany, Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the former regime deliberately left these areas without minefield maps or warning signs to maximize casualties after losing control of them.

A previous investigation published by the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism – SIRAJ in March revealed a systematic targeting of agricultural areas along the frontline, estimating the cost of mine clearance in the examined area at approximately $137 million (around 15.2 billion new Syrian pounds).

This report, based on open-source intelligence, reveals, through images of hand-drawn maps, a site containing nine minefields. By translating these maps, along with the local mapping systems used by Assad’s forces, into precise coordinates, journalists were able to locate the site in eastern rural Latakia, south of Kabana village. The area spans approximately three square kilometers, yet its threat extends to the lives of residents in several surrounding villages.

SIRAJ’s team reviewed images of nine minefield maps left behind by regime officers after withdrawing from their positions (frontlines) in rural Latakia during the “Deterrence of Aggression” battle in November 2024. The labels on these maps reference several locations in the Latakia countryside, including Kabana village and Jabal al-Zwayqat.

However, unlike standard mapping systems commonly used in modern applications, which rely on latitude and longitude or conventional metric coordinates, the Assad regime’s forces used a different metric system. While globally recognized systems are based on the intersection of the Greenwich meridian and the equator as a zero point, the system used by Assad’s army was a local one with an unknown reference origin. This makes it difficult for conventional mapping systems to interpret the coordinates found on these maps.

In collaboration with experts using open-source techniques, journalists analyzed these maps and converted their locally based coordinate system into globally recognized coordinates that can be accurately identified using publicly available mapping tools such as Google Earth, Google Maps, and Alpine.

We presented the maps to an engineering officer, a colonel in the Syrian Ministry of Defense, who requested anonymity, to understand better why the former regime’s army relied on this type of mapping and its military significance. “The Assad regime used this type of mapping and its own coordinate system,” he explained, “to protect its information, making it more difficult for any group that might obtain these maps to interpret them or dismantle the mines.”

These hand-drawn maps use a scale of 1:25,000, meaning that 1 centimeter on the map represents 25,000 centimeters (250 meters) in reality. For example, if a square marking a minefield on the map measures 4 square centimeters, it corresponds to an area of 250,000 square meters, or 0.25 square kilometers on the ground.

We examined nine maps, each marking one of nine minefields numbered from 1 to 9. By converting the metric coordinates used by former regime officers into global coordinates using specialized techniques, we identified five minefields that form the outer boundary of the contaminated area, in addition to four others located within those boundaries.

The coordinates show that the total area covered by the nine minefields is approximately three square kilometers, equivalent to more than 400 football fields. These minefields span large areas of hills south of Kabana village and southeast of the villages of Aiko, Bouz al-Kharba, and Basharfa in the Latakia countryside areas that continue to experience injuries and fatalities due to landmines.

At the center of the minefield zone lies Raqraqiyeh Park, placing the lives of many families and children from nearby villages at significant risk due to the high density of mines in the area.

The terrain further compounds the danger: the nine minefields are not located at the same elevation, as the area consists of multiple hills of varying heights. The rugged landscape also makes it more difficult for residents to detect mines, increasing the risk of moving through the area.

The exact types of mines deployed by the former regime forces in this area remain unknown, including whether they are anti-personnel or anti-vehicle mines. However, the positioning of these minefields suggests that the regime intended to use them as a first line of defense for its positions in the Latakia countryside if opposition forces advanced beyond the former frontline.

To accurately determine the geographic extent of these minefields on the ground, we identified six key coordinate points that outline the boundaries of the contaminated area, forming a hexagon encompassing the nine minefields. The coordinates are as follows:

35.6898، 36.24565

35.69881، 36.24585

35.70798، 36.235

35.70814، 36.22395

35.69913، 36.22376

35.68996، 36.23461

The following map also includes all coordinates of the minefields, along with the surrounding area and nearby villages.

The Colonel added, “Decoding this type of maps is critically important for accelerating demining operations, narrowing search efforts within a clearly defined geographic scope, reducing the number of casualties, and enabling the use of mine-clearing equipment that typically does not rely on precise maps. Most importantly, it helps warn residents in affected areas about the presence of landmines.”

The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the deaths of 3,485 people, including 872 children, as a result of landmine explosions between March 2011 and the beginning of this year.

SIRAJ has shared all maps, coordinates, and findings from this report with the relevant Syrian authorities responsible for mine action and UXO.

• Creative direction and visual solutions: Radwan Awad.

The post Secret maps left behind by Assad’s army reveal the locations of minefields in the Latakia countryside appeared first on SIRAJ.

The company, Matchworld Group SA, was promoted as possessing the expertise, capabilities, and tools of innovation and artificial intelligence to restore “Syria’s presence on the regional and international stage,” as stated in the announcement. It was expected to “support the marketing of Syrian sports tournaments and activities, and organize international matches and professional training camps.”

However, documents reviewed by the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ) reveal that the company’s regional director, who is also responsible for the Middle East, as stated on his personal social media accounts, had been convicted, on October 4, 2023, of the felony of “abuse of entrusted public funds.” He was sentenced to five years in prison and fined the equivalent of $50,000 for previous sports investments in Syria made under another company.

MoU and the New Syrian Government

Commitment to implementing memoranda of understanding signed with the government has become a topic of public debate among Syrians. Although an MoU is not legally binding, according to lawyer Saeed Manna, the new government began signing MoUs and agreements after the fall of the Syrian regime in December 2024, paving the way for contracts with Arab, regional, and international companies.

Government representation in these agreements varied by sector, with relevant ministries and institutions acting as counterparts. The MoU signed between the Ministry of Sports and Matchworld Group falls within this framework.

This MoU is part of a broader, high-level government effort to attract foreign investment to a country whose economy has been devastated by 14 years of war. Around 50 agreements and MoUs were signed in 2025 to strengthen infrastructure through projects in aviation, ports, bridges, and energy, as well as to improve essential services. These agreements also covered vital sectors such as sports, healthcare, education, agriculture, and humanitarian relief.

However, questions arise regarding the seriousness of these MoUs and their potential to translate into actual projects, particularly given the lack of a clear distinction between a “memorandum of understanding” and a “contract,” especially with respect to rights and obligations, which creates confusion around these initiatives.

Economic expert Dr. Karam Shaar explains that “the difference between an MoU and a contract is often highly ambiguous,” noting that contracts can sometimes be written in vague language similar to MoUs, allowing parties to evade obligations later. Conversely, MoUs may include stricter clauses defining conditions for withdrawal without legal consequences.

Nevertheless, this does not absolve government entities from conducting due diligence on companies entering into agreements, according to economic expert Hayyan Hababeh. This raises a critical question: How was an MoU signed with a company regionally represented by an individual convicted by Syrian courts of abuse of entrusted public funds, especially since such MoUs are expected to lead to formal contracts governed by Law No. 51 of 2004, which stipulates in Article 11/4 that contractors with government entities must not have been convicted of a felony or dishonorable crime unless rehabilitated?

Who is Matchworld Group SA?

On July 3, 2025, the Syrian Ministry of Sports and Youth announced via its official Facebook page that it had signed what it described as a “Memorandum of Understanding” with Matchworld Group during an official visit by Minister Mohammad Al-Hamid to Qatar.

According to the announcement, the company is “one of the leading global entities in sports marketing, providing advanced consultancy in sports management and innovation,” and will support Syrian sports marketing, organize international matches and professional camps, and introduce artificial intelligence tools to enhance performance and decision-making.

The MoU includes provisions for developing sports management, modernizing administrative structures, adopting technological solutions, and integrating AI-based performance analysis tools.

Despite these claims, open-source research conducted by SIRAJ, including sports news platforms and international football association websites, found no evidence of prior partnerships, contracts, or notable activities carried out by Matchworld Group SA.

Mentions of the company were largely limited to its own website, which references a partnership signed in April 2024 with a Saudi sports consultancy firm, along with older images of training camps in Switzerland and ticketing services for select events.

Furthermore, a document from the Swiss commercial registry shows that Matchworld Group SA was established on January 31, 2007, and underwent several administrative changes before reaching its current structure on July 6, 2020.

Records also reveal that another company, Matchworld Football SA, part of the same group and specializing in football, was declared bankrupt in the Swiss canton of Vaud on April 2, 2019, before the bankruptcy was lifted on May 24, 2019.

“Background checks should have been conducted on any entity signing MoUs with the Syrian government, but this did not happen, as the state is newly formed and lacks sufficient databases on such companies,” says economic researcher Hayyan Hababeh.

He adds that globally, not all MoUs are expected to materialize into actual projects, but implementing even 30–40% of them could positively impact Syria’s economy.

Economic consultant Osama Al-Qadi notes that an MoU is “closer to a declaration of intent, often non-binding and lacking clear implementation details.” However, cooperation agreements may require investors to submit documentation, clarify project details, and provide company profiles within a specified timeframe; otherwise, the MoU could be considered void.

It remains unclear whether the MoU signed with the Ministry involves any financial commitments or projected expenditures, as the Ministry declined to provide SIRAJ with a copy of the document despite formal requests from the investigation team.

Misuse of Public Funds

In June 2023, Mazen Haj Khalil, a Palestinian-Syrian-Russian businessman since 2016, joined Matchworld Group SA as a partner and regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also appeared in the same capacity at the Sports Investment Forum held in Riyadh in April of the previous year, during the signing of a partnership with a Saudi sports consultancy firm.

However, Haj Khalil is not new to sports investments in Syria. His name appears in documents issued by the General Sports Federation.

According to a document dated June 2, 2012, Major General Mowaffaq Jomaa, then-head of the Federation, requested that Haj Khalil, then-head of the “Smart Sport” company, appoint an arbitrator to resolve a dispute arising from his company’s failure to fulfill financial obligations amounting to $50,000, plus late payment interest.

The contract had granted his company rights to sponsorship, marketing, advertising, and television broadcasting for the 2011 Asian Cup qualifiers in Doha.

A lawsuit filed on July 23, 2012, states that Haj Khalil collected substantial revenues from the investment contract but left the country without fulfilling his obligations.

Subsequently, on June 24, 2013, the Federation’s lawyer was instructed to file a lawsuit demanding repayment of $50,000 plus 9% legal interest.

Under Judicial Decision No. 353 (Case No. 476), issued on June 4, 2014, Haj Khalil was charged with the felony of embezzlement of public funds under Article 8 of Economic Crimes Law No. 3 of 2013, which stipulates a minimum prison sentence of 5 years for such offenses.

On June 30, 2015, the Third Criminal Court sentenced him to five years in prison, fined him $50,000 (or equivalent in Syrian pounds), stripped him of civil rights, and imposed legal guardianship, while waiving residency restrictions.

A Decade in the Courtrooms

After the initial ruling was issued against him, Mazen Haj Khalil filed an appeal, which was accepted. One document indicates that by the end of 2017, the appeal he had submitted against the 2014 indictment had been formally approved.

Eight years later, on June 22, 2022, Judge Mohammad Jassem Al-Abdullah, the First Referral Judge in Damascus, issued Decision No. 300, charging Haj Khalil with the felony of “abuse of entrusted public funds” under Article 8 of Law No. 3 of 2013. The decision also ordered the issuance of arrest and transfer warrants against him and required him to bear all legal fees and court expenses.

On October 4, 2023, the Damascus Criminal Court issued a final in absentia ruling against Haj Khalil under Decision No. 406, convicting him of the felony of abuse of entrusted public funds and sentencing him to five years in prison, along with a $50,000 fine.

Ties and Cooperation with Firas Mualla

Furthermore, Mazen Haj Khalil maintained a relationship with Syrian swimmer Firas Mualla, son of Major General Hashem Mualla, former commander of the Special Units Battalion, which was responsible for the massacre in the Al-Masharqa neighborhood of Aleppo in the 1980s, according to reports by the Syrian Human Rights Committee.

Firas Mualla later held several prominent positions in Syrian sports, most notably as President of the General Sports Federation and the Syrian Olympic Committee, succeeding Major General Mowaffaq Jomaa in 2020.

According to a Facebook post by Mualla dated September 20, 2018, Haj Khalil was responsible for organizing all administrative and logistical arrangements for Mualla’s participation in the Russian Federation Open Water Swimming Championship (Masters category), held on the Black Sea coast in the city of Anapa in 2018.

The team also included Majd Shehadeh, son of Brigadier Moeen Shehadeh, who headed the unit responsible for the protection and escort of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Photos shared by Mualla show Haj Khalil, Mualla, and Shehadeh together on the winners’ podium.

In one of his posts, Mualla described Haj Khalil as a “brother and friend,” praising his support, encouragement, and role in facilitating “all organizational and administrative procedures in the Russian Federation” for the European-level participation.

On October 6, 2018, the Facebook page “Tartous, the Beating Heart of Syria” published a photo taken by Majd Shehadeh during a ceremony in which Murat Kumpilov, Head of the Republic of Adygea, honored Firas Mualla and his accompanying team during the republic’s annual celebrations in the capital, Maykop.

The team also included Majd Shehadeh, son of Brigadier Moeen Shehadeh, who headed the unit responsible for the protection and escort of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Photos shared by Mualla show Haj Khalil, Mualla, and Shehadeh together on the winners’ podium.

In one of his posts, Mualla described Haj Khalil as a “brother and friend,” praising his support, encouragement, and role in facilitating “all organizational and administrative procedures in the Russian Federation” for the European-level participation.

On October 6, 2018, the Facebook page “Tartous, the Beating Heart of Syria” published a photo taken by Majd Shehadeh during a ceremony in which Murat Kumpilov, Head of the Republic of Adygea, honored Firas Mualla and his accompanying team during the republic’s annual celebrations in the capital, Maykop.

Haj Khalil also shared several photos on his Facebook account on September 8, 2018, showing himself alongside Mualla and Shehadeh on a winners’ podium.

Unanswered Questions

It remains unclear whether the Ministry of Sports and Youth or the Swiss parent company, Matchworld Group SA, was aware of Mazen Haj Khalil’s criminal record and his ties to figures associated with the Assad regime prior to signing the Memorandum of Understanding.

Neither party responded to journalists’ inquiries regarding this matter or the fate of the MoU months after its signing.

Additionally, no response was received from the company’s regional director, Mazen Haj Khalil, to questions sent via email on December 26, 2025

• Haneen Omran contributed to this investigation.
• An Arabic version was published on Daraj and in the Syrian newspaper Al-Mawqif Al-Riyadi.

The post “Deal in the Shadow”: MoU between Syria’s Ministry of Sports and Youth and a Company Linked to a Person Convicted of “Abuse of entrusted public funds” appeared first on SIRAJ.

A relative, Abdullatif Rajbou, described the tragedy to SIRAJ during a visit to Jana’s family, who had recently returned after 12 years of displacement to live amid the ruins of their destroyed home in rural Latakia. He also spoke of the constant fear of hidden landmines: ‘Demining teams removed 140 mines from my land, including a tank mine, as well as eight detonators for which we did not find the associated mines. We are not afraid of the mines we can see, but rather those that are hidden.’

The ‘hidden mines’ Abdullatif refers to are not confined to the village of Ako. They are a reality experienced by thousands of Syrians in areas that were previously on the front line between Syrian opposition forces and the Syrian regime forces. Those areas are now littered with mines and unexploded remnants of war, posing a continuing threat that may persist for years to the lives and futures of Syrians returning home. 

This investigation by the Syrian Investigative Journalism Unit – Siraj draws on open-source tools, interviews with residents and victims, and field visits to examine the reality and conditions in some of the towns and villages that previously lay along former frontlines in the southern countryside of Idlib, Hama and Latakia. It documents the suffering of their residents due to the danger, including the human, livelihood and environmental costs they pay as a result, and the impact on the present and future return of displaced Syrians. 

By collecting dozens of reported deaths and injuries in that area using open-source material and databases maintained by independent organisations, determining approximate geographical locations, and tracking patterns of those incidents, our investigation concludes that agricultural land was a primary target of minelaying along the line of contact. 

Based on observed mining patterns in specific areas of the former frontline, our investigation estimates that 13,700 hectares of agricultural and civilian land remain at risk from mines. According to this report, the cost of demining this area alone amounts to US$137 million (approximately SYP 15.2 billion at the official exchange rate). 

The investigation team also conducted field visits in rural Hama and Latakia, which enabled us to document the most prominent types of mines scattered in that area. Many were manufactured in the Soviet era and were held by the former government’s forces, posing a threat to civilians, civilian vehicles and military vehicles.  

The landmines are closely linked to the 14-year military campaign waged by the former Syrian regime against the opposition between 2011 and 2024, and to the repeated shifts in control over large parts of the country—especially in what later became known as the “lines of contact”.

The line of contact: a method of collective punishment 

The areas known as the ‘line of contact’ include southern Idlib province and large areas of eastern rural Aleppo, as well as Jabal al-Zawiya in Idlib, extending to the Kurdish and Turkmen mountains in western rural Latakia and continuing through northern Sahel al-Ghab in rural Hama. 

The region includes dozens of towns and villages, including Ma’arat al-Nu’man, al-Bara and Kafr Nabl in the Idlib countryside, Qastoun, al-Ankawi, al-Ziara and al-Sarmaniya in the Hama countryside, and Ako in the Latakia countryside. Since the formation of the “line of contact” in early 2020, these areas have been a clear target for mining operations by Assad regime forces, which caused hundreds of deaths and injuries until the fall of the regime. Today, returnees face the same threat that prevents them from settling in the villages they were forced to abandon years ago. 

To gain a deeper understanding of the reality of this region, the SIRAJ team, with support from the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), conducted research using open-source data on reported deaths and injuries caused by mines recorded by various civilian and humanitarian sources in these ‘line of contact’ areas. The team also extracted data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED)’s database, an independent US-based non-profit organisation that documents data on armed conflicts around the world. 

Based on this research, the investigation recorded 75 deaths and injuries caused by mines between January 2020 and till the end of 2024, when Assad’s regime fell. This only accounts for a fraction of the overall civilian harm caused. 

According to Maysara al-Hassan, commander of engineering operations in the Syrian Ministry of Defence’s 80th Division, the number of deaths and injuries caused by mines in these contact line areas between 2020 and 2024 is estimated to total 15,000 cases.

Statistics based on open-source data helped the team map the towns and villages that have seen documented and reported cases of mine victims to form a broader understanding of the patterns of targeting that this region has experienced through the use of mine laying, with civilians bearing the brunt of the impact. 

The cases analysed by the investigation team show that mines caused the deaths of 58 civilians, including three demining volunteers and injured eight others. Vehicles belonging to the White Helmets (now known as the Civil Defence) were also destroyed while carrying out relief work in those areas. 

A clear and recurring pattern emerged: mines were heavily concentrated in agricultural land. This directly contributed to many of the deaths and severe injuries, as farmers returned to cultivate fields and were killed or maimed by explosives. 

Warning: Some links on the map contain graphic images. Please exercise caution. 

This pattern that SIRAJ has observed and documented is not a coincidence. In an interview with SIRAJ, Muayad al-Nofali, director of operations at the non-governmental organisation Halo Trust, which specialises in mine clearance, said that “the Syrian regime was carrying out mining operations with the aim of protecting its forces and directly harming civilians.” Therefore, it deliberately targeted all civilian facilities, such as schools and agricultural land, in areas along the front-line. 

The director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), Fadel Abdul Ghani, echoed this view, adding that the regime was working to contaminate agricultural land with mines to weaken the livelihoods and production of the population, and as a form of collective punishment. He said the former government also failed to provide maps of minefields or warning signs, thereby increasing the likelihood of casualties after areas fell out of its control. 

Abdul Razzaq Qantar, director of victim support at the Syrian National Mine Action Centre at the Syrian Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management, also warned that these agricultural areas are among the most heavily contaminated areas due to the intensive minelaying. 

Indiscriminate mining and ongoing retaliation 

The policy of retaliation after losing control, referred to by Abdul Ghani, has killed thousands and left many more with permanent injuries and disabilities. SNHR has documented the deaths of 3,485 people, including 872 children, from landmine explosions between March 2011 and the beginning of this year (2026). 

Since the fall of Assad in particular, mines have killed 607 people, including 177 children, and injured 1,087 people, including 443 children, between 8 December 2024 and 16 January 2026, according to Abdulrazzaq Qantar. 

Among those injured is farmer Muhammad Marai Mazan, who was injured by a mine explosion on his farmland near the village of al-Ziara, north of Sahel Al-Ghab in Hama governorate, in December 2025. 

Mazan, who grows wheat and vegetables to support his wife and six children (aged between two and fifteen), said he was injured after pulling a strange black string on his land for fear that it would get caught in the harvester. This caused a mine planted about 2.5 metres away to detonate. The shrapnel burned the right side of his body, disfigured his face and arm and the loss of sight in his right eye, as well as damage to his left eye. These injuries continue to hinder his ability to work to this day. 

Mazan explains that his land is located near military headquarters that belonged to the former regime’s army, and that the incident came as a shock to him because the area had previously been cleared of mines and the land had been ploughed. He adds that the mines were cleared by ‘a volunteer from the village of al-Sarmaniya who was also killed by a mine’. 

The 47-year-old farmer now visits the doctor weekly for treatment of his left eye, after undergoing an initial operation. He also suffers from constant pain due to being bedridden for more than a month after his injury. Mazan insists his case is not unique in the area. Al-Nofali, from Halo Trust, described the minelaying as indiscriminate. He explains that “the regime had no clear methodology for planting mines. In addition, Russian forces also planted some minefields, as did Iranian and Lebanese militias such as Hezbollah. It is noteworthy that there was no coordination between these parties in planting mines, and this is the major challenge we face.” 

Death by Russian-made mines 

On 30 September 2015, Russian aircraft carried out their first airstrikes in Syria, marking the beginning of Russia’s direct military intervention at the request of the former regime’s president, Bashar al-Assad. Russian military campaign has claimed the lives of 6,993 civilians, according to a SNHR report released in 2025, the Russian military campaign has claimed the lives of 6,993 civilians. Moscow’s involvement, the report argues, extended beyond shifting the military balance. It says Russia tested weapons in Syria and used civilians as a testing ground. This is an allegation reinforced, noted in the report, by statements from President Vladimir Putin, who said the experience gained in Syria supported the development of Russian weapons. 

Although the fall of the Syrian regime in December 2024 ended Russia’s direct intervention, mines supplied to the former government and mines used in mining operations continue to kill Syrians. 

During our field trips accompanied by volunteers and demining workers in the villages of al-Ankawi, al-Ziara and al-Sarmaniya in rural Hama, the village of Ako and the Kurdish Mountain areas in Latakia province, and through open-source research, the team collected dozens of photos and videos showing mines scattered across agricultural land. Some were buried in the soil and difficult to see, while others were clearly visible. Several mines that were found bore markings and symbols in Russian. Residents also showed us the remains of mines that had already exploded or had been removed by volunteers and clearance teams from the Ministry of Defence. It was not easy to identify the types of these mines and the extent of damage they could cause to civilians and the environment. The team archived these photos and videos and compared them with photos and videos from other areas in the Idlib countryside, revealing a recurring pattern in the mining, the type of mines and the extent of the damage possible. The team shared the photos and videos with a weapons expert who concluded that most of the mines identifiable were Soviet made, though they varied in size, purpose, and the type of explosion they caused. 

According to the expert, one of the mines photographed on farmland in the village of Ako, near the site where Jana Rajbou was injured, is a Soviet OZM-72 anti-personnel mine. It does not explode immediately upon activation but has a mechanical mechanism that propels it into the air to explode and disperse shrapnel over a wide area, increasing the likelihood of multiple casualties.

Other photos from the Latakia countryside show Soviet POM-2 anti-personnel mines, identifiable by their propeller shape. Plastic wires ranging from 9.5 to 10 metres in length, called ‘trip wires,’ extend from the mine. The mine is activated immediately when someone trips or steps on the wire, exploding and scattering its fragments over a wide area in a mechanism similar to the OZM-72.

Open-source footage from mine clearance operations in Jabal al-Zawiya and the forests near al-Bara and Kafr Nabl shows dozens of Soviet-made TM-62M anti-armour mines, which are usually used against tanks and military armoured vehicles. 

The presence of these mines in agricultural forests pose a tremendous danger to farmers who use harvesting machines or their vehicles on agricultural roads, as this mine explodes under pressure ranging from 150 to 550 kilograms to activate the conventional detonator. The danger of this mine is increased if it is equipped with more sensitive secondary detonators, making it susceptible to explosion under much lower levels of pressure or movement.

Video shows the dismantling of dozens of TM-62M mines in Al-Bara and Kafranbel in Idlib Governorate – Facebook

In one of the photos taken during the demining operations, Syrian teacher Fahd al-Fajr appears with eight Russian-made PMN-3 mines behind him. This anti-personnel mine is specially designed to hinder clearance operations, as it is equipped with anti-handling devices and a self-destruction mechanism that make it one of the most dangerous anti-personnel mines.

The Syrian volunteer, who was a schoolteacher and member of the Olive Branch organisation, was killed on 21 February 2025 while volunteering to clear mines in the village of Fatira in the southern rural Idlib.

An environmental disaster 

Mines in agricultural land put thousands of Syrians at direct risk of death or injury from mine explosions and also create a dilemma about how to remove them. Despite mine-clearance efforts since the fall of the Assad regime, many agricultural areas remain contaminated.  Even remote detonations or clearance using mechanical equipment can damage soil and deepen farmers’ losses. In response to questions from the investigation team about the consequences of mine explosions on agricultural land, a spokesperson for the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture explained that there are immediate and long-term effects that could last for years, and possibly decades, if not dealt with carefully. 

The ministry said immediate effects include disruption of soil structure from shock waves, loss of fertile topsoil rich in organic material, deposition of explosive residue and metal fragments, and the death of soil microorganisms essential to crop growth. Long-term impacts can include degraded soil quality, depleted organic matter, and the accumulation of toxic compounds that inhibit plant growth.

The danger is not limited to the soil, warned Dr. Ma’an Daniel Daoud, a researcher specialising in water resource management and investment. He said it can also extend to the contamination of groundwater and surface water in agricultural areas, which can lead to the poisoning of plants and animals. In an interview with SIRAJ, he added that some mines may contaminate drinking or irrigation water, as some contain substances designed to render water resources unusable. 

The Ministry of Agriculture warned that some explosive materials, such as TNT, can remain partially stable in water and soil for many years unless treated appropriately.  

In addition to the direct damage to the soil in the event of a mine explosion, mines continue to keep thousands of farmers away from their land in many areas, such as in al-Ankawi village, north of the Al-Ghab Plain in the Hama governorate. The village is littered with warning signs to not approach due to the danger of mines. Aerial drone imagery of the village shows vast areas of agricultural land that owners cannot approach because of the danger of mines. This forced displacement threatens farmers’ livelihoods and the fertility of their land, which has been left untilled and untreated for long periods. 

Using distance-area calculations in satellite applications and based on the pattern of landmines in agricultural and residential areas, the investigation team estimated that 13,700 hectares of agricultural land and civilian areas in the Idlib countryside, northern Al-Ghab Plain, and Latakia countryside are at risk from landmines. This is roughly equivalent to 19,200 football pitches. This area is equivalent to approximately 10% of the total area of the al-Ghab Plain, which covers 141,000 hectares and is considered one of the largest and most important agricultural areas in Syria. In Ako village, farmers were forced to burn dozens of trees on their land out of fear of mines, which led to many of them exploding. According to farmer Abu Adel, this was the only way to get rid of them. Speaking to SIRAJ, the farmer, who is a native of the village, expressed his sadness, saying, “These trees survived for years after we were displaced, and now we have returned to burn them today because of the mines underneath them, instead of caring for them.”

These desperate efforts by farmers are not a coincidence, but rather the result of the significant challenges surrounding the landmine issue in Syria today, despite the considerable voluntary efforts of many individuals and local and international organisations. 

Victims without support 

Since being injured by a mine that blinded his right eye and impaired his mobility, farmer Muhammed Marai Mazan, his wife and their six children have been living without any source of income. At the same time, he has to cover the cost of the necessary medication he needs following his injury, which amounts to 450,000 SYP (about $40) per week, in addition to the cost of his ambulance and emergency surgery, which amounted to $3,200. 

“In this area, we rely on God and agriculture, and we have no other source of income,” he tells the SIRAJ team, pointing out that no mine action agency has visited him since his injury. He has withdrawn from the outside world and barely leaves his home since his injury, wearing gloves, glasses and a scarf to cover the disfigurement caused by the injury. 

In the village of Ako, where 20 families have returned after displacement, the men of the village gather to drink coffee near the school, and their only topic of conversation is the mines. Farmers continue to suffer daily from the danger that hinders all aspects of their normal lives. 

Speaking to SIRAJ in front of the rubble of his house, farmer Khaled Sando explains the difficulty of living among the mines. “The car is always ready to transport the injured. I have transported four injured people from the village in my car.” He adds that the poor road conditions make reaching the nearest medical centre a difficult task that can take up to two hours. As for the school, which shows signs of recent renovation, Sando says, “They built this school for nine villages.” But “I live 200 metres away and I don’t dare send my children there because of the mines. Who would send their children to school in such conditions?”

Farmer Abu Adel says that organisations working to repair destroyed villages and houses have refused to work in their village because of the mines. “Since we returned, one person has been killed and seven injured by mines, and who knows how many more will be killed and injured in the future.” 

He adds that the Ministry of Defence’s engineering teams respond to all reports of mines and dismantle them, but they have not carried out a comprehensive survey of the village, and their equipment is old and unable to detect all the mines. 

However, outdated equipment is not the only obstacle to demining in Syria. The process is complex and requires years of work and huge funding, according to the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture, which confirmed to SIRAJ that the cost of removing mines from agricultural land ranges from $3,000 to $10,000 per hectare. 

Based on these figures, the cost of clearing the agricultural areas in the area covered by our investigation ranges from $41 million to $137 million.

Furthermore, the reclamation of land damaged by mines requires stages of removal and environmental treatment of the soil, followed by agricultural rehabilitation. The ministry emphasises that farmers are unable to do this without support. 

If the land is not rehabilitated, the effects of some explosive and toxic materials, especially in poor soil, may persist for periods ranging from 20 to 40 years. 

Maysara al-Hassan, commander of the engineering regiment in the 80th Division of the Ministry of Defence, said that the Syrian government has received promises of support from international organisations and the United Nations to expand mine clearance operations. Currently, these promises have not yet been fulfilled. 

Amidst local and international promises, residents of contaminated areas continue to live in daily fear and despair due to the lack of support for their cause. Farmer Khaled Sandou recalls with sadness the names of some of those he rescued who were not lucky enough to survive. 

He says: ‘What are they waiting for? Do they want us to remove all these mines with our own bodies? Almost every week, someone is injured by a mine. At this rate, we will either all be killed or we will detonate all the mines.’

• Creative coordination and visual solutions: Radwan Awad. 

• This investigation was produced with support from the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR). 

The post The Ongoing death: How Russian-made mines are killing Syrians and destroying their forgotten lands appeared first on SIRAJ.

The assassination marked a turning point in Lebanon’s history as well as the Syrian-Lebanese relations, ultimately leading to the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon on April 30, 2005, as fingers were pointed at the Syrian regime and its allies for responsibility for the crime.

Today, two decades later and after the fall of the Assad regime, long accused of orchestrating the assassination, digital copies of documents from Syrian intelligence, obtained by the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism – SIRAJ, Zaman Al-Wasl newspaper, and Daraj website, reveal for the first time the strategy devised by Syrian intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk and the security agencies under his command to confront the accusations.

On October 10, 2005, Mamlouk, then head of the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), sent a briefing memo to Bashar al-Assad describing Syrian media outlets as being “in a state of coma regarding the event,” namely, the possibility that the International Investigation Commission into the assassination could reach evidence implicating Syria.

According to Taleb Qadi Amin, who served as Deputy Syrian Minister of Information between 2002 and 2008, “It wasn’t only Ali Mamlouk saying this. Even the head of the regime himself said it. When asked whether he followed Syrian television, he would say he did not. He knew very well what existed within his media institutions.”

Mamlouk’s criticism of Syrian media was followed by security coordination aimed at manipulating and spreading conflicting information to confuse the investigation, as revealed in another document summarizing a meeting between the International Commission investigating Hariri’s assassination and Syrian security officers.

According to the document, the behavior of those officers was characterized by “openness to cooperation. And their conduct appeared spontaneous, responsible, and serious. Their answers did not seem pre-coordinated despite prior coordination and instructions.”

It remains unclear what exactly was meant by “prior coordination and instructions.” What is known, however, is that in 2006, Mamlouk informed Bashar al-Assad about a meeting between the Syrian side and the Investigation Commission, during which Syria proposed a “third possibility” regarding the bombing of Hariri’s convoy, namely, an aerial attack.

This theory was later hinted at by then-Minister of Defense General Mustafa Tlass and later stated more explicitly by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who accused Israel and the United States of being behind the assassination.

“In the Hariri assassination case, the Syrian regime relied on constructing a fabricated narrative,” Lebanese academic Ziad Majed says. Regarding the regime’s strategies, Majed, a professor of political science at the American University of Paris, explains that the Syrian regime consistently relied on several methods in cases of political violence, assassinations, and killings. However, in major operations, there was always a broad accusation based on repeating the same rhetoric about conspiracies, the United States, and Israel, to maintain its self-proclaimed position of “resistance.” Thus, the regime framed any killing or sabotage as an attack on national security or stability, or as an attempt to direct accusations toward Syria.

According to Majed, there was also another discourse adopted by the regime: one that did not directly deny the crime, especially when the regime believed the cost of carrying it out would not be too high. By avoiding outright denial and leaving room for speculation, the regime sought to project power, immunity from accountability, and indifference to consequences. This ambiguity signaled to its own institutions and loyalists that it knew exactly what it was doing and did not fear repercussions.

The Internationalization of Hariri’s Assassination

Following the assassination of Rafik Hariri, both local and international developments accelerated rapidly. On April 7, 2005, the United Nations announced the formation of an “International Independent Investigation Commission” pursuant to the UN Security Council Resolution 1595.

With the establishment of the Commission, headed by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, the political and criminal dimensions of the case shifted onto an international track, coinciding with the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon.

The Commission’s first report accused Syria of destabilizing Lebanon’s security and interfering in its governance, stating that the Syrian government “bears primary responsibility for the political tension that preceded the assassination of former Prime Minister Hariri.” The report also described how Bashar al-Assad allegedly threatened Hariri and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt with “physical harm” if they refused to support the extension of President Emile Lahoud’s term during a ten-minute meeting in Damascus in 2004.

In its 2008 report, the Commission stated that it “confirms, based on the available evidence, that a network of individuals collaborated to carry out the assassination of Rafik Hariri.”

The report added that the Commission “appreciates the logistical and security arrangements undertaken by the Syrian authorities… and, in general, Syria continues to cooperate satisfactorily.”

During that period, Lebanon witnessed the practical implementation of a new strategy. Media outlets close to Hezbollah and the Assad regime launched a campaign promoting the idea that groups affiliated with al-Qaeda were behind the assassination. This narrative was preceded by the story of a videotape allegedly “sent” to journalist Ghassan Ben Jeddou, then director of Al Jazeera’s Beirut office and now head of Al Mayadeen TV.

The video featured Ahmad Abu Adas claiming responsibility for the assassination. Later, the narrative shifted toward accusing Israel and the United States, culminating in a press conference by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in which he presented what he described as evidence of Israeli involvement in the assassination.

Syrian Intelligence-Media Operations

On September 7, 2005, the Syrian GID sent a briefing memo to Bashar al-Assad regarding the participation of S.T., a former member of parliament and head of a research center who later became an opposition figure based in the UAE, in a conference on “Gulf Security and Middle East Security.”

According to the memo, S.T. relayed information from R.D. about a meeting attended by Hermann Pirchner, the founding President of the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC).

The meeting, held in Paris, was attended by representatives of the French Foreign Ministry, the European Union, and the British and American foreign ministries. According to the document, Mehlis stated during the meeting that he had “reached evidence strongly suggesting the involvement of Syrian officials in Hariri’s assassination.”

This declaration by the international investigator, and his explicit indication of Syrian regime involvement, prompted Damascus to mobilize and sound the alarm, operating simultaneously on political, diplomatic, media, and security levels in preparation for confrontation, according to exclusive documents reviewed in digital form by the journalists working on this investigation.

One week after Mehlis’ statement, the GID sent Bashar al-Assad a draft memorandum of understanding between Syria and the United Nations concerning the Hariri investigation and Resolution 1595.

Then, on September 10, 2005, another memo from the GID was sent to Assad regarding the “management of the media operation during Mehlis’ mission in Damascus.” The memo described Syrian media as being “in a state of coma regarding the event” and “confused by the event,” calling for “exceptional measures in the field of cooperation between media and security.”

This coordination was to continue “within the advisory media committee in the General Intelligence Directorate.” The initial plan relied on promoting a Syrian narrative via the Minister of Information at the time, Mehdi Dakhlallah, who would do so through media outlets. The memo stressed that this narrative had to be based on “security information, data, and facts.”

At the time, Dakhlallah told Al Jazeera Channel that accusing Assad of involvement in the assassination was “a provocation of instincts and cheap demagoguery.”

Notably, the same document included a handwritten reference to the “story of Mohammed Zuhair Siddiq,” whom Syrian authorities later cited through the spokesperson of the Syrian judicial committee investigating the case, as proof that the international investigation had “collapsed” and suffered a “knockout blow.”

This referred to the testimonies of Siddiq or Hossam Hossam, the so-called “masked witness,” who later claimed, after fleeing to Syria, that he had provided false testimony under torture and sedation in Lebanon. He later appeared on Syrian television, describing the alleged coercion.

Syrian journalist Samira al-Masalmeh, who at the time served as managing editor of a private Syrian newspaper, told us that following news of the assassination, a clear state of confusion spread throughout Syrian media circles, reflected in delays in the initial coverage.

Within a short time, however, the media narrative settled around describing Hariri as a “martyr,” while directing accusations toward Israel as the primary beneficiary of his assassination.

“The media discourse at the time shifted toward directly confronting any political or media opinion that raised questions about possible Syrian responsibility or referred to tensions in the relationship between Damascus and Hariri. Responding to and refuting such opinions became a clear priority and an obligation. Headlines and editorial directions were communicated to us through the relevant authorities in newspapers, and the coverage took on a predominantly defensive and aggressive tone, portraying these views as political campaigns targeting Syria,” al-Masalmeh says.

An Inadequate Media Machine

It became clear that Syrian state media was not prepared for the scale of the moment. On September 11, 2005, the GID sent a memo to Bashar al-Assad titled: “Regarding Mehlis’ Mission and Its Potential Repercussions – Preliminary Political Ideas for the Required Media Plan.”

The “ideas” outlined in the document appeared to directly target Detlev Mehlis himself, describing him as someone who “tends to display a friendly attitude at first… only to later launch calculated strikes that combine the traits of personal success for a criminal investigator with a media blow.” The memo later emphasized that Mehlis “did not act with friendliness or understanding toward Syria.”

Journalist al-Masalmeh recalls: “On March 13, 2005, I was summoned, along with a lawyer, to one of the security branches. While waiting in the branch chief’s assistant’s office, I noticed a delegation in religious attire leaving the building. I was told they represented Hezbollah. Accompanying them was someone I personally knew, identified as ‘Y.N.,’ who later became a member of parliament.”

Al-Masalmeh later referred to a meeting organized by lawyer Imad al-Zoubi, who later served as Syria’s Minister of Information between 2012 and 2016, with Hossam Hossam, the main witness in the Rafik Hariri assassination case.

“During the meeting, I noticed that Hossam Hossam constantly threatened to escape. He had already retracted the testimony he had given before the International Commission more than three times in front of the lawyer, while the latter kept telling him to calm down. Hossam was in an intense state of anger and agitation, and he told me literally: ‘If I tell the truth, I will destroy the country.’”

Al-Masalmeh says that when al-Zoubi briefly left the room, she asked Hossam to tell her the truth. He replied: “If you knew it, you would die.”

On September 19, 2005, Ali Mamlouk’s office at the GID sent another cable to Bashar al-Assad concerning “confronting media challenges surrounding the work of the International Investigation Commission into Hariri’s assassination,” in preparation for Mehlis’ visit to Damascus and for creating “a parallel media operation capable of keeping pace with developments.”

The cable, reviewed by journalists working on this investigation, proposed a strategy for Syrian media to ensure that “Syrian sources become the primary source of news regarding the investigation.” Among the recommendations was relying on the “semi-official Syrian level,” including “media outlets known for their ties to Syria” as well as “indirect Arab and international media.”

The goal was to “present the Syrian political position,” highlight the “dimensions of the ongoing conspiracies,” and “avoid questioning the Commission or insulting witnesses.” One of the central features of the proposed “media discourse” was the emphasis on “Syria’s fears over the politicization of the investigation.”

On October 2, 2005, the Syrian GID sent another cable to President Bashar al-Assad informing him of a meeting Mamlouk held with “security liaison officers” from Russia, Algeria, Turkey, and Italy. The purpose, according to the document, was to deliver a message to those states that Syria was being subjected to a “malicious media campaign” and had “no connection whatsoever to Hariri’s assassination.”

The cable further stated that Syrian authorities had “cooperated with the International Investigation Commission” and pointed to evidence allegedly implicating “a deserter from the Syrian army living in Lebanon, involved in fraud and scams, and married to a Lebanese woman related to Lebanese MP Marwan Hamadeh,” referring to Mohammed Zuhair Siddiq.

Days later, Mehlis publicly declared that it was “difficult to imagine the assassination taking place without the knowledge of Syrian intelligence.” He added that “after a short hesitation, Syrian authorities cooperated only to a limited degree with the Commission, while some individuals interviewed by the Commission attempted to mislead the investigation by providing false or inaccurate information.”

According to the United Nations, Mehlis also stated that Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa had “provided incorrect information.”

Manufacturing Propaganda Through Intelligence Networks

In an effort to coordinate previous intelligence operations, control the official narrative, and manage the handling of suspects, the Syrian GID submitted a memo for Bashar al-Assad’s review. The document included a handwritten letter from H.M., a Syrian-Palestinian based in Lebanon who worked in cultural and political circles focused on anti-Zionist activism and who had previously met Bashar al-Assad, addressed to “His Excellency the Combatant General Ali Mamlouk.” The letter was later transformed into an official briefing memo presented to Assad on September 15, 2005.

The memo proposed producing a documentary film about Detlev Mehlis titled “The International Investigator,” in cooperation with a German publishing house and an independent British media organization. The 45-minute documentary, according to the proposal, could be completed in less than two weeks if approximately €20,000 were transferred to Berlin, where meetings would take place with some of the film’s participants. Additional accommodation costs, estimated at $5,000-$6,000, were listed separately from the production budget.

The documents include a detailed outline for the documentary’s scenario. Rather than functioning as an investigation or explanatory piece, the film was designed as a tool to reframe the assassination narrative within a broader map of enemies and allies.

According to one of the documents, the scenario presented to Mamlouk aimed to reconstruct the narrative to align with the logic of the Syrian security apparatus. It relied on foreign sources and intelligence-style storytelling to appear as a “neutral” attempt at presenting an alternative account. The film’s core objective was to undermine Mehlis’ investigative methods and question his “legal credibility,” using human rights reports that criticized his previous work and accused him of “leaking information” and “manipulating witness testimonies” in earlier investigations.

The documents also reveal how H.M. secured approval from a publishing house to promote the film. The same publisher had previously released a book on Hariri’s assassination, accusing the US and Israel of orchestrating the killing.

Days after H.M.’s letter, another memo was sent from General Intelligence to Bashar al-Assad regarding the documentary, in which S.T. assumed a separate role. According to the memo, S.T. traveled to Berlin, met with officials from the publishing house, and introduced himself as a member of H.M.’s organization. Once again, discussions focused on stripping Mehlis of credibility by revisiting previous cases he had handled.

We sent questions to both H.M. and S.T. regarding the appearance of their names in the documents and the roles they played during that period, but received no response by the time this investigation was published.

“Jund al-Sham” and the “Third Scenario”

On the day of the assassination, Al Jazeera Network broadcast a video recording of Ahmad Abu Adas, who appeared claiming responsibility for the attack on behalf of “The Group for Support and Jihad in Bilad al-Sham.” From that moment, suspicions began shifting toward Islamist extremist groups.

The recording, aired on February 14, 2005, just hours after Hariri’s assassination, carries a striking backstory.

In its response to the Investigation Commission, Al Jazeera stated that Ghassan Ben Jeddou, then head of the network’s Beirut bureau, received the tape after being contacted by an unidentified source. Later, the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir interviewed Abu Adas’ brother, Khaled, who said: “In appearance, it was my brother Ahmad. But in terms of the content, the expressions, and the tone of voice, he was someone unknown and strange to me, despite us living together in the same house.”

He added, “I am certain that my brother Ahmad was forced by an external power to read the statement through torture, coercion, or some other method. My brother Ahmad was very simple and peaceful, and easy to manipulate.”

On September 7, 2006, another memo from GID to the Syrian presidency documented the Investigation Commission’s request to meet 13 “wanted terrorist elements” whom Syrian intelligence had presented to the commission.

The memo explained that the Commission requested the meeting because it had no prior knowledge of those suspects, noting that “the information provided by Syrian authorities was new and extensive.”

In the same memo, Syrian officers denied knowing Ziad Ramadan, a friend of Ahmad Abu Adas, except through media reports, stating that it was the International Commission that had interrogated him. The memo also referred to the possibility of allowing the Commission to meet “Osama al-Shousha, detained by Political Security.”

Another notable detail was the suggestion that the committee might provide Syrian authorities with a copy of Ahmad Abu Adas’ video to determine “whether the discourse reflected in it genuinely represented Salafi rhetoric or was fabricated.”

What stands out in the comments is that they went beyond portraying Syria as an expert on jihadist groups. In fact, the GID stated:

“It became apparent that the Syrian officers were open to cooperation and that their behavior [was] spontaneous, responsible, and serious. Their answers did not appear to have been coordinated in advance (despite prior coordination and instructions).”

At the time, “Jund al-Sham” and several of its alleged members were mentioned in Mehlis’ report. The accusations increasingly shifted toward a radical Islamist organization. Syrian authorities arrested several individuals linked to the group, including Ziad Ramadan, whom Amnesty International urged Assad in 2009 to release. He was later sentenced to six years in prison in 2011.

The broader objective of these meetings appeared to be linking the assassination to extremist organizations. Syrian intelligence emphasized that the suspects named in the Commission’s report were known only by their aliases, such as “Mohammed Osama al-Shousha” and “Abu Muhjan (Ahmad al-Saadi),” while repeatedly stressing that Syria itself was fighting terrorism and that there were 13 suspects allegedly tied to al-Qaeda. Discussions also touched on Ahmad Abu Adas, whom Syrian intelligence claimed it did not know.

On July 13, 2006, following Mehlis’ resignation and the appointment of Serge Brammertz as his successor, another GID briefing memo to Bashar al-Assad documented a meeting between Brammertz and Syrian officials.

The Syrian delegation included Major General Deeb Zeitoun, Brigadier Zuhair Hamad, Brigadier Ali Makhlouf, and Colonel Munir Shalabi, while S.T. served as translator for the Syrian side.

The memo described the meeting as a “Syrian initiative to enrich cooperation,” particularly because “information concerning terrorist elements had been received from the Political Intelligence Branch.” The ultimate objective, according to the document, was to introduce a “third scenario” for the bombing of Hariri’s convoy, namely, the possibility that the attack had been carried out from the air.

Tracking the “Living Witness”

The Syrian regime did not stop at attempting to recruit witnesses and public figures with media and legal expertise to produce a documentary aimed at undermining the narrative and efforts of the international investigation into Hariri’s assassination. Rather, it operated with a security and intelligence mentality that extended for years after the assassination itself, all with the objective of distancing suspicion from the regime as the orchestrator of the killing.

On December 20, 2014, a man named Abdul Basit Bani Odeh appeared in a televised interview on Lebanon’s Al Jadeed TV channel during the program “Lel Nashr” (“For Publishing”). He was later described as the “Israeli witness” in the Hariri case.

During the live broadcast, Bani Odeh spoke about his activities, his work, and his alleged relationships with Syrian and Lebanese security and intelligence figures. He also claimed to possess sensitive photos and documents related to the case.

The Syrian security apparatus responded immediately by launching efforts to track him down.

On December 23, the “Technical Branch” of Syrian Air Force Intelligence, headed by Brigadier General Mouin Qassem, circulated information, photographs, and four screenshots taken directly from the Al Jadeed broadcast showing the witness’s face, along with a full audio recording of his interview.

These materials were attached to an internal intelligence memorandum distributed to 19 Syrian security branches. The witness’s image and voice were circulated on a CD for identification and tracking purposes.

More than two decades after Hariri’s assassination, a central question remains: why did the Syrian regime resort to these methods of confrontation? And why did it take upon itself the task of countering the global narrative accusing it of involvement in Hariri’s assassination?

What the documents and correspondence reveal is that the Syrian regime attempted to fight back through a form of “soft power,”  producing films and broadcasting them on television screens. It reflected a security-media mindset aimed at shaping perceptions and influencing public opinion, a pattern that would repeat itself throughout the years of the Syrian uprising until the regime’s fall in December 2024.

Put differently: why would the Syrian regime have sought to wage such an extensive campaign of confrontation if it had no role in the assassination?

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon ultimately concluded that Hezbollah operatives were behind the assassination. Yet the evidence reviewed in this investigation suggests that the former Syrian regime may have been entrusted with the task of managing the disinformation campaign surrounding the crime and its aftermath.

• Creative direction and visual design: Radwan Awad

The post “The Media is in a Coma.” How Ali Mamlouk Planned to Repel the International Investigation into Hariri’s Assassination appeared first on SIRAJ.