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.

The attack resulted in the death of American journalist Marie Colvin and French photojournalist Rémi Ochlik, and it injured French journalist Édith Bouvier and British photographer Paul Conroy. Several Syrian journalists and media workers, including Syrian translator Wael al-Omar, activists Bassel Fouad, Abbad al-Soufi, and others, also sustained injuries. 

Marie Colvin, the war correspondent born in January 1956 in New York City, worked for many years with the British newspaper The Sunday Times and reported from some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones. She was widely recognized for her exceptional courage and her ability to penetrate front lines that others could not.

New evidence published for the first time in this investigation strongly supports years-long claims that the Syrian regime deliberately targeted the media center after identifying the journalists who were inside.

The evidence not only shows that Syrian regime officers had prior knowledge of the journalists’ presence inside the center at the time it was attacked, but also refutes claims made by former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in an interview with the American NBC News TV that his forces had no knowledge or intention to kill Colvin.

Before the strike, the regime created detailed intelligence plans to ensure the attack’s success in killing everyone inside the center, including both Syrian and foreign journalists.

The findings further confirm that the artillery shelling of the media center in the Baba Amr neighborhood constitutes a war crime, based on the documented preparatory actions carried out by Assad’s officers in the area. Based on numerous credible witness accounts and expert analysis, the investigation also identifies with a high degree of certainty the type of artillery shell used, its launch location, and its trajectory.

This investigation establishes a clear chain of responsibility for the strike, involving multiple officers within the Assad regime ranks who approved the attack before it was executed with high precision. It traces the chain of command all the way to the top of the administrative and military hierarchy within the regime’s army.

The evidence also includes information and testimonies indicating the existence of surveillance and monitoring mechanisms targeting the media center, as well as monitoring the conditions surrounding the evacuation of the injured journalist Édith Bouvier from the besieged area, after she refused to leave through humanitarian corridors controlled by the Syrian regime.

These materials were compiled as part of a lawsuit led by the Syrian Free Lawyers Association and a group of French lawyers before the War Crimes Court in Paris. The investigation team reviewed the documents and files that contributed to this investigation. 

The conclusions establishes that the attack on the media center in Baba Amr “was not random, but rather premeditated and carried out with the aim of eliminating the presence of journalists in Homs to prevent coverage of the Syrian regime’s deadly attacks, and to instill fear among journalists to deter them from entering Syria to cover the conflict from opposition-held areas,” according to a statement sent to the investigation team from the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), a Paris-based human rights organization closely following the case.

Tracking Before the Strike

In 2001, Colvin lost her left eye while covering the civil war in Sri Lanka after being hit by shrapnel from a shell. The injury did not end her career; instead, the black eye patch she wore became a symbol of her determination to continue reporting.

At the start of the Syrian uprising in March 2011, Colvin set her sights on Syria. Although the Syrian authorities denied her an official entry permit, Colvin, who had never known retreat, was determined to reach the country and expose what was happening on the ground, regardless of the cost. She arranged to cross the border from Lebanon, heading to Homs—one of the first cities to come under heavy bombardment and a central hub of protests against the regime.

Colvin arrived in the besieged neighborhood of Baba Amr and took shelter with other journalists and activists in a building that had been turned into a makeshift media center. There, she spent days closely witnessing the suffering of civilians: hunger, cold, and the constant fear of shelling that never ceased. These scenes, which she documented in her final reports, became the testimony that placed her at the heart of danger—later turning into the final chapter of both her professional and personal life.

On February 21, 2012, one day before the media center was shelled, Colvin and her colleagues visited civilian areas that had been bombarded by the regime, resulting in the deaths of many civilians, including women and children.

In the midst of the shock she experienced upon seeing a dying child, Colvin went live on TV from inside the Baba Amr media center. She described civilian casualties, the terror engulfing the neighborhood’s residents, and the catastrophic conditions in local hospitals. 

Marie bravely broadcast live using satellite technology in an environment overwhelmed by the regime’s spying drones, telecommunications jamming, and networks of informants, but the regime was able to locate the signal. She did not realize that this broadcast would be her last.

On this night, French journalist Édith Bouvier arrived in Baba Amr, unaware that the next morning, the media center would be targeted and she would be inches from death while witnessing the deaths of Colvin and Ochlik.

Yasser Shalti, a specialist investigator in war crimes and crimes against humanity, led the investigation and evidence-gathering in the case concerning the targeting of the media center in the Baba Amr neighborhood. The lawsuit was filed against the Syrian regime before the War Crimes Court in Paris, leading to the issuance of arrest warrants.

On September 1, 2025, the French judiciary issued an indictment ordering the issuance of seven arrest warrants against senior Syrian officials over the 2012 shelling of the Baba Amr media center. The warrants include former president Bashar al-Assad and several high-ranking officers, accusing them of complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the February 22 attack.

Shalti stated: “We proved that the targeting of the center was deliberate through three key elements. First, documents we obtained for corroborative purposes indicate that the Syrian regime was aware of the entry of non-Syrian individuals from Lebanon. Security branches were notified of the entry of non-Syrian figures through official cables, meaning the regime was aware of the journalists’ entry at the moment they crossed the border from Lebanon.”

A witness in the case, using the pseudonym “Ulysses”, who worked in the Military Intelligence branch, confirmed that Major General Ali Mamlouk was informed in December 2011 by Lebanese sources on the arrival of the journalists in Syria. Mamlouk, then head of the General Intelligence Directorate, informed all his counterparts in security branches to locate and arrest the journalists. 

The second element, according to Shalti, was that once journalists began publishing from the area, their geographical locations became identifiable to the regime. 

A defected Syrian officer stated: “The intelligence branch 225 was responsible for monitoring communications, using technical equipment to locate communications made through non-Syrian SIM cards or satellite internet, using devices known as ‘al-Rashedat’,” globally referred to as IMSI catchers.

The third element, Shalti added, involved reconnaissance aircraft and local informants. In this context, he explained that investigators identified several informants through consistent testimonies from defected officers and witnesses in Baba Amr. 

In an interview with the RSF and SIRAJ joint-investigation team, French journalist Édith Bouvier said: “The drones were really awful. We were listening to the sound of it all day, so we knew that they were continuing to track us, to try and find us.”

According to Ulysses, on the night before the attack, February 21, 2012, a female informant was brought to the Homs military academy to meet with more than 10 senior intelligence and army officers. In this meeting, she confirmed the exact location of the media center, and the entire operation was prepared.  

Shalti concluded: “When these elements are combined, it becomes clear that the Syrian regime had full knowledge of the journalists’ location, their presence, and their movements within the neighborhood.”

The Soviet 130-millimeter artillery gun

On the day of the attack, February 22, 2012, a soldier within the Syrian army uploaded a video on YouTube showing a shelling that targeted the Baba Amr neighborhood. The footage displays several artillery guns that experts and defected officers confirmed to be Soviet-made M46 field guns, known among Syrian army officers as the “130 gun,” a reference to the 130-millimeter caliber of the shells it fires.

In the background of the video, the gate and a building for Regiment 64 of the Syrian regime’s army are clearly visible—the same unit that launched the shelling targeting the media center.

By comparing the visual evidence in the video with satellite imagery, and showing both to defected members of Regiment 64, the investigators confirmed that the building visible in the footage is indeed the regiment’s headquarters.

Video published by a Syrian army member showing shelling launched from Regiment 64 on February 22, 2012 -YouTube.

The video also shows the presence of at least six M46 artillery guns, which matches satellite imagery of Regiment 64 from May 2012, that reveal six guns of the same model positioned in firing mode toward the north, in the direction of the Baba Amr neighborhood.

Other videos of the shelling of Baba Amr, reviewed by weapons experts and former military officers, confirmed that the weapon used is a M46 130-millimeter field gun. Based on this, they confirmed that the shelling originated from a single source and, by comparing the sound of launch with the sound of impact, determined that the 130-millimeter shell takes 10.95 seconds to reach the target. Based on the specifications of this gun, the shells were fired from a distance of about 12 kilometres. 

The investigators conducted a geospatial analysis using satellite imagery, outlining a semi-circular search area for artillery positions with similar characteristics within a 12-kilometer radius south of the Baba Amr media center. The only location that matched these criteria, at a distance of 12.6 kilometers, was Regiment 64.

A chain of complicity 

The media center was surrounded by high-rise buildings, including the dormitory and Al-Baath University buildings, as well as residential towers in the Al-Insha’at neighborhood, which were used by regime forces to monitor the area. The media center was also located south of the front line separating regime forces from the Free Syrian Army and other opposition factions, making it subject to prolonged surveillance by regime forces.

At the top of the chain of responsibility for the strike was former regime leader Bashar al-Assad, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Armed Forces.

Next in the chain was Major General Ali Abdullah Ayyoub, serving then as the Commander of the Security and Military Committee in Homs. This committee held exclusive authority to issue orders for military attacks and security operations. All military operational orders were issued by Ayyoub, in coordination with his deputy, Rafiq Shahada, who shared responsibility for military decision-making.

After the decision was made, orders to target the media center were sent to Colonel Shaaban Al-Ouja, Commander of Artillery Operations in Homs and head of the Rocket Battalion, to carry out the attack. Al-Ouja then relayed the order to Colonel Akram Al-Melhem, Chief of Staff of Regiment 64 and head of its Operations Branch, to determine the artillery bearing and firing parameters.

The orders were subsequently sent to the commanders of the three observation posts surrounding the media center to identify precise coordinates: Colonel Bilal Hassan, Colonel Issa Al-Ali, and Colonel Kamal Al-Mohammad. The coordinates were then relayed back to Shaaban Al-Ouja.

Violating International Law 

In an interview with the SIRAJ team regarding the legal status of the “media center” as a protected object, Yara Badr the head of the Media and Freedoms Program at SCM, stated: “Media centers, including the headquarters of television channels, newspapers, and news agencies, are considered civilian objects and may not be targeted unless they are directly and effectively used to support military operations (such as broadcasting military orders or providing direct intelligence).”

Fadi Al-Abdallah, official spokesperson for the International Criminal Court in The Hague, said: “The protection of journalists falls under the protection of civilians according to international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the resolutions of the UN Security Council and General Assembly. Journalists are covered by the protection granted to civilians during armed conflicts,” adding, “While there is no specific provision dedicated exclusively to journalists in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, they remain fully protected as civilians.”

The Day of the Attack 

Colonel Shaaban Al-Ouja assigned the artillery battery command—represented by Colonel Hussein Issa, Commander of Battalion 465—to prepare the strike. He supervised the positioning of artillery guns toward the designated target before opening fire.

The Baba Amr media center was struck by two artillery shells. The first was a hollow (penetrating) shell, intended to breach the building, verify the accuracy of the coordinates and firing angle, and create panic among those inside, forcing them out of their protective positions. After military observers confirmed that the hollow shell had hit the target and exposed those sheltering inside, a second high-explosive shell was fired at the media center.

In an interview with SIRAJ and RSF, journalist Bouvier confirmed that the center was hit twice that morning, between 7 and 8 AM, describing the horror of the final moments of Colvin and Ochlik: 

“I was inside the building when they fired the second shot. I think [Colvin and Ochlik] heard the sound of the last shell, and they were killed on their way back to the building, right at the entrance,” she said. 

In a video published by a Syrian activist from inside the media center at the moment it was struck by the first hollow shell on 22 February 2012, the flash caused by the first hollow artillery shell can be seen reflected on the glass of a building opposite the media center. This clearly indicates that the artillery strike originated from the south.

Video from inside the media center at the moment it was hit by the first artillery shell, 22 February 2012.

The investigators geolocated the video and confirmed it was taken from inside the Baba Amr media center.

Between the Artillery Battery and the Observation Post

After the first strike, the journalists decided to exit the media center in pairs toward the opposite street.

The first group consisted of a Syrian journalist and a Spanish photographer, who safely crossed to the building across the media center.

The second group was supposed to include Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik. However, after the first group crossed, the observation posts noticed that journalists had begun leaving the building and ordered the firing of the second high-explosive shell.

According to testimonies from defected officers, one of the observation posts confirmed that the journalists had been killed and that the shell had hit its target.

Captain Rabee’ Hamza, who was stationed at one of the security checkpoints forming the siege around Baba Amr, told investigators: “At the time of the strike, it was around eight o’clock in the morning. I was sitting with another officer and heard a conversation over the radio between the observation post and the artillery battery.”

The observation post said, “These are the coordinates of the media center. Observe the shot.” And after the first shell, it followed: “The shot is on target.”

There was a pause between the hollow shot and the explosive one. During that interval, Colvin and Ochlik had exited the media center and were about to reach the entrance of the opposite building when the shell struck them, killing them instantly.

The same shell also injured journalist Bouvier and British photographer Paul Conroy, who were near the entrance of the media center, preparing to leave as part of the third group. Syrian translator Wael Al-Omar was also seriously wounded as a result of the strike.

“I was still processing what to do, and I wanted to be useful. I was injured, and I didn’t even know how severe my injury was,” Bouvier said.

According to a testimony of a defected officer, regime forces celebrated after the fatal strike. Ali Abdullah Ayyoub was quoted as saying: “We got rid of those whores.” At the time, the belief was that everyone inside the media center had been killed. However, after appeals emerged from Baba Amr calling for the rescue of Bouvier and Conroy, the regime realized that some individuals had survived.

From Condemnation to “War Crime”

Since 2017, the Syrian Free Lawyers Association has worked to collect evidence related to the crime in Baba Amr, ultimately securing arrest warrants—the first since the targeting of the media center in February 2012.

The association collected and examined a large body of evidence, enabling the competent French judiciary to issue seven arrest warrants against Bashar al-Assad and several high-ranking regime officers, establishing a judicial precedent of particular significance within the framework of universal jurisdiction.

The evidence submitted relied on multiple elements, including testimonies from defected officers and information related to field-level security arrangements. These included measures reportedly taken against security personnel suspected of assisting the injured journalist Édith Bouvier in leaving the besieged area. The evidence also included subsequent detention cases, among them the arrest of Captain Rabee’ Hamza, one of the commanders of the checkpoints forming the security cordon around Baba Amr, who was held for several years in Saydnaya Prison, along with other colleagues of his who died in detention.

These materials were further supported by testimonies from legal experts, witnesses, and survivors, helping to build a comprehensive case file that characterizes the events as a war crime and a crime against humanity, within a framework that meets the requirements of international criminal justice.

The War Crimes Court in Paris issued the arrest warrants under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows national courts to prosecute crimes even when they were committed outside the country’s territory.

This ruling is considered unprecedented, as previous judicial efforts had failed to establish the intent required to classify the attack as a war crime.

On February 1, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a default judgment in a lawsuit filed by relatives of Marie Colvin, awarding $302,511,836 in damages against the Syrian Arab Republic. The court held the Syrian government responsible for Colvin’s death.

However, that ruling was purely civil, classifying the crime as an extrajudicial killing and failing to pursue criminal accountability for senior Syrian regime officials, including Bashar al-Assad.

Samer Al-Dayyi, Director of the Syrian Free Lawyers Association, explained: “The American lawsuit was a civil case that ended with financial compensation. By default, this path does not result in criminal accountability, does not aim to determine individual responsibility or dismantle the chain of command, and does not legally allow for the issuance of arrest warrants.”

Al-Dayyi emphasized that the current proceedings before the French court represent a fundamentally different process. “We are dealing with a criminal investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity, based on evidence that established deliberate intent and premeditation, and linked the targeting to a broader, systematic attack on a known media center housing foreign civilian journalists.”

Since the early days of the Syrian uprising, Al-Dayyi has worked within a legal team documenting human rights violations and coordinating with field journalists to facilitate access for foreign reporters to areas outside regime control.

According to the SCM, “the path is now far more open for pursuing criminal proceedings in the United States as well… The primary move may be the surrender of Bashar al-Assad and the arrest of the other accused for trial in France or Syria.”

Al-Dayyi added: “The case was initiated at the request of the victims’ families and journalist Édith Bouvier in her capacity as a civil party, and the facts were legally characterized as a war crime.”

From a legal standpoint, proving intentional targeting of civilian journalists during an armed conflict meets the criteria of a war crime. When it is further established that such acts form part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population, with knowledge of the broader context, the legal classification extends to a crime against humanity.

When the association began work on this case, the facts and information were fragmented and lacked a unified legal framework. The legal team restructured the file, built a coherent chain of criminal responsibility, and strengthened the element of prior knowledge.

The Syrian Free Lawyers Association’s role went beyond documentation or legal advocacy; it was officially recognized as a civil party in the case by the French judiciary, which specializes in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Crown Witness

After the strike, the Syrian regime dispatched two ambulances through the Syrian Red Crescent to facilitate the transfer of Édith Bouvier and Paul Conroy to Lebanon. However, both journalists decided not to leave with the ambulances after a Red Crescent worker warned them they might be arrested on the way, or even worse. An emergency surgical procedure was performed on Bouvier at the site, as she confirmed to the investigators.

Later, an attempt was made to evacuate them through one of the tunnels leading out of the Baba Amr neighborhood. However, Bouvier’s evacuation failed because she was being transported on a medical stretcher inside the tunnel, part of which had collapsed due to shelling. Paul Conroy managed to exit successfully.

In December 2011, several months before the targeting of the media center, the Syrian regime began encircling and besieging Baba Amr through what were then known as the “security cordon forces.” These forces were a mix of regular military units not specifically trained for urban assault.

The cordon consisted of dozens of military checkpoints surrounding the neighborhood. Among them was a checkpoint near the village of Al-Naqeera, commanded by Captain Rabee’ Hamza of Regiment 64, along with 13 soldiers armed with light weapons, tasked with controlling access to and from the area.

When efforts to evacuate journalist Bouvier through the tunnels failed, the last resort was to evacuate her through the checkpoint commanded by Captain Hamza.

Hamza did not want to be exposed publicly and agreed to help on the condition that the journalist would not know his name. He coordinated the operation with a local notable.

On the morning of February 26, 2012, Bouvier was ready to leave Baba Amr, and the vehicle transporting her passed the checkpoint Hamza was overseeing at 9:00 A.M.

Hamza recalled: “I saw some of the people I had been coordinating with inside the car, and Édith Bouvier was in the back seat. She was made to wear a headscarf, and her cast was removed so she would appear like an ordinary Syrian woman. They passed beneath the railway line, from where she was transferred to the border town of Al-Qusayr, and then on to Lebanon, under a strict media blackout.”

After Bouvier reached France and news spread that she had escaped from Baba Amr, the regime launched internal investigations to determine how she had been evacuated. One informant was sent to Captain Rabee’ Hamza, posing as a Baba Amr resident and requesting assistance. Hamza did not suspect he was an informant. Over time, as communication continued and trust was established, the informant learned that Hamza, along with First Lieutenant Qusai al-Hussein, was responsible for smuggling Bouvier out. Hamza was then arrested, along with al-Hussein and several fellow officers.

They were all transferred to the Military Security Branch in Homs, where he was interrogated about how he had helped Bouvier escape. He was then transferred to Military Intelligence Branch 293 in the Mezzeh district of Damascus for further interrogation, where Hamza admitted that Bouvier had passed through his checkpoint—though he claimed he did not know she was a journalist.

Following his confession, Hamza and the other officers were transferred to the infamous Sednaya Military Prison. He was sentenced to death at the request of the prosecutor of the Second Field Military Court, on charges of participating in terrorist acts. The sentence was later commuted to ten years in prison following significant mediation efforts, while First Lieutenant Qusai al-Hussein died in Sednaya in December 2014. 

Hamza was later transferred in 2016 to a prison known as “Al-Ballouna” in Homs. On September 24, 2019, he was released and later moved to France, where he now resides.

Samer Al-Dayyi, Director of the Syrian Free Lawyers Association, stated: Following all those arrests and his release from prison, Hamza then became the crown witness in the case brought before the War Crimes Court in Paris.”

• This investigation was produced with support from Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
• Creative direction and visual design: Radwan Awad
• A version of this investigation was published in French and English on the Reporters Without Borders website.

The post “The Shot is on target”: New Evidence Exposes Assad Regime’s Deliberate Killing of Journalists Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik in Homs appeared first on SIRAJ.

His work, described as “close to suicide,” was nevertheless in high demand. Exchanging foreign currency through official channels rarely reflected its real value on the parallel market. Most people holding foreign currencies, particularly dollars and euros, who wished to sell or even buy them turned to the parallel market to avoid suspicion, especially after several laws criminalized first the trading of dollars and later even their possession.

Despite the heavy security pressure and the regime’s attempts to criminalize dealings in foreign currency, the driver did not know that the passenger who had entered his car was an informant working with Military Intelligence Branch 251 (the Al-Khatib branch).

During the exchange, the informant took a photo of the agent inside the car and sent it to his superior in the branch via WhatsApp. A screenshot of that message later appeared in an official document signed by the head of Branch 251 and addressed to Department 40 on 29 November 2023, ordering the immediate arrest of the transfer agent, his handover to a police department, and the confiscation of the phones in his possession “with utmost urgency for the purpose of investigation.”

This currency exchange agent was not the only one arrested. The former Syrian regime deployed all available tools to track down and detain anyone dealing in foreign currencies, whether exchanging them or, later on, merely possessing them after issuing a series of laws aimed at centralizing control over hard currency in Assad’s hands.

Economic researcher Khaled al-Turkawi says that all the measures taken by the Assad regime were designed to extort anyone holding dollars or other foreign currencies, forcing them into two choices: either exchange their money through the regime at the rate it dictated, or face legal prosecution. He notes that these laws had little to do with economic policy and were instead intended to extract funds to sustain military operations and pursue victory.

As part of the “Damascus Dossier” project, the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism – SIRAJ reviewed digital copies of numerous documents showing how the Assad regime used its intelligence agencies to track and arrest anyone dealing in U.S. dollars or other foreign currencies following Decree No. 3 of 2020, issued by the deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, which criminalized transactions in any currency other than the Syrian pound.

The “Damascus Dossier” is a collaborative investigative project led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in partnership with the German public broadcaster NDR. It brings together journalists from around the world to uncover disturbing new details about one of the most brutal state-run killing systems of the 21st century: the regime of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

ICIJ, NDR, and 126 journalists from 24 media organizations across 20 countries spent more than eight months organizing and analyzing these documents, consulting experts, and interviewing Syrian families still searching for loved ones who disappeared under Assad’s rule.

The Damascus Dossier investigations reveal the inner workings of Assad’s security apparatus and its links to foreign governments and international organizations. The leak consists of more than 134,000 files, mostly written in Arabic, amounting to approximately 243 gigabytes of data.

The documents span more than three decades, from 1994 to December 2024, and originate from Syria’s Air Force Intelligence and General Intelligence Directorates.

Both agencies have been subject to extensive U.S. and European sanctions due to their brutal practices, including torture and sexual violence.

The documents include internal memoranda, reports, and correspondence revealing the day-to-day operations of Assad’s surveillance and arrest network, as well as its coordination with foreign allies such as Russia and Iran, and communications with United Nations agencies operating inside Syria.

The highly sensitive database also contains the names of numerous former Syrian intelligence officers.

Recruiting Informants to Seize the “Dollar”

In a document dated 16 December 2023, the head of the Military Intelligence Branch 251 ordered Department 40 (Al-Khatib Branch) to arrest three money transfer agents operating in different areas of Damascus on charges of dealing in foreign currencies.

The document includes detailed information about the locations where the agents worked and businesses they used as cover to provide money transfers, as well as photographs secretly taken by intelligence officers during currency exchange operations. It also contains personal details such as phone numbers and other identifying information.

As in the previous document, the branch chief attached screenshots that appear to have been sent directly by the officers responsible for surveillance and reporting during the operation.

These operations were not only aimed at enforcing decrees and laws issued by the regime’s authorities. According to economic researcher Khaled al-Turkawi, they also served a much broader economic objective: monopolizing foreign currencies in the country and redirecting them to sources close to the regime and individuals within Assad’s inner circle.

After Assad banned trading in U.S. dollars and other foreign currencies, Syrians began using coded language to refer to the dollar in personal conversations and over the phone. They used nicknames such as “the forbidden one,” “parsley,” “the green,” or “number one.”

However, this strategy did not escape the Syrian intelligence services under Assad. One intelligence document summarizing surveillance of specific phone numbers indicates that Syrian intelligence identified a man in Sweida province as dealing in U.S. dollars after he asked about the price of “number one,” a coded reference to the dollar during what appeared to be a wiretapped phone conversation.

Criminalizing the Trade and Possession of Foreign Currency

Possessing foreign currency, especially U.S. dollars, had long been considered taboo in Syria. Even carrying $100 in one’s pocket could expose a Syrian to questioning, as holding such currency was considered illegal.

As a result, working in currency exchange outside the control of the Syrian regime was widely viewed as a “suicidal profession” because of the extreme risks involved, particularly in recent years, when the regime’s need to extract additional funds intensified.

Trading in the U.S. dollar and foreign currencies was first officially banned in Syrian markets in 1986, through Law No. 24 of 1986, issued under Hafez al-Assad. The law criminalized buying or selling foreign currencies outside licensed banks and exchange companies, as well as possessing large amounts of dollars without authorization. Violators faced prison sentences and financial penalties. This law laid the foundation for the criminalization of foreign currency trading in the local market.

Law No. 24 remained in effect until 2013, when Bashar al-Assad, two years after the outbreak of the Syrian uprising, issued Law No. 29 of 2013, titled “Combating Illegal Dealings in Foreign Currencies.” The law criminalized trading foreign currencies outside official channels, including licensed banks and exchange companies.

It also criminalized buying or selling dollars or other foreign currencies on the parallel market, as well as transferring money or speculating on exchange rates. Notably, the law imposed harsher penalties, including prison sentences ranging from three to ten years, depending on the severity of the offense, in addition to substantial fines.

In 2020, the Syrian pound experienced a sharp collapse. For the first time in its history, the exchange rate reached 1,000 Syrian pounds per U.S. dollar in January 2020, and by the end of that year, the dollar had risen to approximately 3,000 Syrian pounds.

This collapse prompted Assad, on 4 October 2020, to claim that the fundamental reason for the pound’s decline was the freezing of billions of dollars in deposits belonging to Syrians in Lebanese banks following Lebanon’s banking crisis in 2019.

During a visit to the “Producers 2020” exhibition, Assad stated that between $20 billion and $42 billion of these deposits may have been lost in the Lebanese banking sector, describing the figure as “terrifying” for Syria’s economy. He added: “They took the money and placed it in Lebanon, and we paid the price.”

Yet this statement was not Assad’s only response. Earlier that same year, he had already tightened restrictions on Syrians holding foreign currencies through Decree No. 3 of 2020. For the first time, the decree explicitly used the phrase “prohibition of possessing foreign currencies.”

Article 1 of the decree states that “it is prohibited to deal in any currency other than the Syrian pound as a means of payment or for any type of commercial transaction.” The decree significantly increased penalties and introduced legal provisions allowing authorities to confiscate foreign currencies involved in such transactions.

Dominating Hard Currency

It appears that the Syrian regime’s aim behind these laws was not to regulate the flow of currency in the market, nor even to protect the Syrian pound, but rather to secure Assad’s share of every dollar entering Syria, according to economic researcher al-Turkawi.

“The purpose of all these laws was to centralize the sale of dollars through the Central Bank. The regime wanted all foreign currency transactions to take place through the Central Bank for three main objectives.”

The first objective, according to al-Turkawi, was the collapse of the Syrian pound, which had effectively become unacceptable for international trade, as foreign suppliers increasingly demanded payment exclusively in U.S. dollars. This made it difficult for the regime to finance the army or settle payments to Russia or Iran without dollars, as well as to pay for essential imports such as food supplies.

• Creative coordination and visual solutions: Radwan Awad

The post “‘The Green’ in Assad’s Hand”.. How the Syrian Regime Recruited Informants to Trap Those Dealing in U.S. Dollars appeared first on SIRAJ.

Accounts differ regarding the fate of senior military commanders and intelligence chiefs in Syria. Some are rumored to have fled to Russia, while other sources suggest that several are hiding in Iraq and Lebanon.

What all sources agree on, however, is the panic that swept through the regime’s hard core on the night it fell; a fear that drove one of Assad’s most senior figures, Major General Kifah Melhem, former head of Military Intelligence and Director of the National Security Bureau until the regime’s collapse (succeeding Ali Mamlouk), to abandon his office and flee, leaving behind numerous documents and papers. Among them was a particularly sensitive document: his personal phonebook.

This phonebook, one of the key documents reviewed by the investigative team at the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism – SIRAJ, as part of the international investigative project “Damascus Dossier,” contains approximately 400 names.

The phonebook does not specify the nature of Melhem’s relationship with those whose numbers appear in his personal contacts. In this report, however, we attempt—solely through examining the phonebook and its contents—to understand the extent of Melhem’s power and centrality within the former Syrian regime, as reflected in the web of relationships recorded in his contact list.

“Damascus Dossier” is a collaborative investigative journalism project led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in partnership with Germany’s public broadcaster NDR, bringing together journalists from around the world to uncover new and horrifying details about one of the most brutal state-run killing systems of the 21st century: the regime of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

ICIJ, NDR, and SIRAJ, together with 126 journalists from 26 partner media outlets across 20 countries, spent more than eight months organizing and analyzing the documents, consulting experts, and conducting interviews with Syrian families who are still searching for loved ones who disappeared under Assad’s rule.

The “Damascus Dossier” project exposes the internal structure of Assad’s security apparatus and its connections with foreign governments and international organizations. The leak consists of more than 134,000 files, mostly written in Arabic, equivalent to approximately 243 gigabytes of data.

These documents span more than three decades, from 1994 to December 2024, and originate from Syria’s Air Force Intelligence and the General Intelligence Directorate.

Both intelligence agencies have been subjected to extensive U.S. and European sanctions due to their brutal practices, including torture and sexual violence.

The materials include internal memoranda, reports, and correspondence that reveal the daily operational mechanisms of Assad’s surveillance and detention system, as well as its coordination with foreign allies such as Russia and Iran, and its communications with UN-affiliated agencies operating inside Syria.

The highly sensitive database also contains the names of numerous former Syrian intelligence officers and operatives.

…

According to an investigation published by The New York Times on 15 October 2025, Kifah Melhem is currently residing in Russia alongside several former senior military and intelligence officers. It goes without saying that Melhem’s relationships extend both vertically and horizontally across the sprawling arms of the Syrian regime. Yet the personal phonebook he left behind offered the SIRAJ team—who examined its yellowed pages—a rare opportunity to glimpse the hidden communications of one of the Syrian regime’s most senior war criminals.

Who Is Major General Kifah Melhem?

Major General Kifah Melhem hails from the village of Jneinet Raslan in the countryside of Tartous Governorate, where he was born in 1961. He began his military career in the Republican Guard before being transferred to the Military Intelligence in 1994. He steadily rose through the ranks until, on the eve of the Syrian uprising, he became head of the notorious Investigation Branch 248 in Kafr Sousa, Damascus, which falls under the command of Military Intelligence.

In 2012, as protests intensified during the Syrian revolution, Bashar al-Assad appointed Melhem head of the Military Intelligence branch in Aleppo, and later in Latakia, where he gained notoriety for his role in suppressing protests and torturing detainees, according to human rights reports, including those issued by Human Rights Watch. Other reports indicate that he worked alongside Hilal al-Assad—who was killed in 2014—to recruit and arm shabiha militias to suppress demonstrations in both governorates.

This absolute loyalty to the regime, combined with a long record of human rights violations, led to Melhem’s appointment as head of the Information Branch (Branch 294). He was later appointed by Bashar al-Assad as Director of Military Intelligence, a position he held from 2019 until early 2024. During this period, Melhem’s responsibilities expanded to overseeing torture, killings, and extrajudicial executions. He exercised significant oversight over the widespread crimes committed at Saydnaya Prison, prompting the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom to impose sanctions on him in 2020 for his role in war crimes and human rights abuses in Syria.

In early 2024, as part of what the Jusoor Center for Studies described as a “restructuring of the security apparatus,” Bashar al-Assad appointed Kifah Melhem Director of the National Security Bureau, following the dismissal of Major General Ali Mamlouk.

Assad also issued a secret directive linking all security branches directly to the National Security Bureau—a move interpreted by analysts as an attempt to curtail the power of security branch chiefs after Assad’s control over them had weakened in favor of Russian and Iranian influence. This was achieved by appointing younger, more loyal figures, foremost among them Kifah Melhem.

Syrian researcher and writer Hussam Jazmati noted that Melhem’s appointment was “the cumulative result of repeatedly proving his loyalty and devotion to the regime and to assigned tasks.” Jazmati linked the decision to a period of regime “confidence and relief” in early 2024, coinciding with renewed Arab and international engagement with Bashar al-Assad. This environment, Jazmati argued, led Assad to believe he no longer needed a strong and influential National Security chief, but rather a disciplined figure resembling a ‘secretary’ more than a power broker.

A Pyramid of Phones and Ranks

Naturally, Melhem relied heavily on military and security personnel for coordination and communication. Yet his connections to economic elites, business figures, civil authorities, and opposition figures remain more opaque—particularly given the reputation of officials like Melhem, who were known for extortion and intimidation to keep individuals aligned with the Assad regime’s interests.

It is unclear when exactly Melhem began recording phone numbers in his personal phonebook, or when he stopped before fleeing. Between the entries and the ranks preceding many numbers, the book includes figures who have since died, others who were promoted and later fled with the regime’s collapse—like Melhem himself—or who remain out of public view.

Examining Melhem’s personal phonebook is, in effect, an attempt to map the hierarchical structure of Syria’s intelligence apparatus—its agency heads, branch chiefs, regional commands, and functional specializations.

Melhem followed a highly consistent system in recording contacts: he would list the rank first, followed by the name, and then the security branch or military formation to which the individual belonged, whether it was part of the Syrian regime forces or of other “friendly forces,” as the regime used to describe its Russian and Iranian allies.

The system used in Melhem’s phonebook is precise, classified, and strictly rank-based, granting its owner, then Director of the National Security Bureau, rapid access to the personal and office numbers of Syria’s most senior security officials.

Jazmati attributes this meticulous organization to Melhem’s background in engineering and his earlier close working relationship with Bassel al-Assad, his former classmate at Lycée Laïque and the Faculty of Engineering. Melhem reportedly served as Bassel’s liaison to the Prime Ministry and senior state officials, making fast access to people, phone numbers, and addresses an operational necessity.

Senior Figures in the Phonebook

Melhem’s phonebook is filled with top-ranking figures from Assad’s intelligence services, foremost among them Military Intelligence, which Melhem himself headed before his appointment to the National Security Bureau.

Among the names is Brigadier General Kamal Hassan, who was later promoted to Major General and succeeded Melhem as head of Military Intelligence after Melhem’s promotion, before fleeing to Russia during Assad’s escape.

Today, Major General Hassan is considered one of the key figures behind armed defiance against Syria’s transitional government. Reports, including a Reuters investigation published on 6 December, indicate that Hassan—as well as Assad-linked businessman Rami Makhlouf—has been spending millions of dollars to fund thousands of fighters along the Syrian coast in an attempt to ignite a military rebellion.

The phonebook also includes the names of eight Major Generals from the army and intelligence services, including:

• Mohammad Rahmoun, former head of Air Force Intelligence in the southern region
• Wajih Abdullah, former director of the Military Office at the Presidential Palace
• Adib Salameh, deputy director of Air Force Intelligence
• Badi’ Maalla, commander of the Unified Coastal Command in Baniyas, which was responsible for overseeing aerial operations along the coast

Maalla is known for originating the use of “naval mines” to bombard civilians in Syria and was also responsible for Hmeimim Airbase, home to Russia’s largest military base in the country.

Other figures include:

• Hassan Al-Kurdi, former head of the Military Vehicles Administration
• Mufeed Khaddour, former head of Military Intelligence Branch 291
• Adnan Ismail, commander of the Third Division of the Syrian Army
• Jamal Younes, later promoted to Major General and head of the Security and Military Committee in the eastern region

In one departure from his usual detailed entries, Melhem recorded a number labeled only as “Major General, Director of the Political Administration,” without a name. This likely refers either to Abdul Karim Suleiman, who held the post from 2004 to 2018, or to his successor Hassan Hassan.

Colonels, Brigadiers, and Branch Chiefs

Below the rank of Major General, Melhem’s phonebook lists numerous Brigadiers and Colonels across various military and security formations. Among them:

• Brigadier Tawfiq Haidar, Director of the National Security Office, which replaced the National Security Bureau under Ali Mamlouk in 2012, following the bombing of the National Security Office in Damascus
• Brigadier Ghassan Ismail, Deputy Director of Air Force Intelligence
• Brigadier Shafiq Sarem, an officer in the Syrian Army
• Brigadier Taha Haj Taha, former head of the Political Security branch in Latakia
• Brigadier Imad Mohammad, affiliated with the Air Force and Air Force Intelligence, who died in 2019

Notably, the phonebook includes many branch chiefs of Military Intelligence and Military Police across Syria, all of whom served under Melhem during his tenure as Director of Military Intelligence until early 2024. Among them:

• Brigadier Samir Nizam, head of the Military Police branch in Damascus
• Brigadier Tamer Al-Dakhil, head of the Military Intelligence branch in Aleppo
• Brigadier Wafiq Nasser, head of Branch 256 (Military Intelligence)
• Colonel Osama (surname not listed), head of Branch 217 of Military Intelligence in Suwayda

Once again deviating from his usual clarity, Melhem recorded several numbers without names, including:

• Head of Branch 248
• Head of Branch 235, known as Palestine Branch (likely Mohammad Khalouf or Yassin Dahhi)
• Head of Branch 237, known as the Wireless Communications Branch

All of these branches fall under the authority of Military Intelligence.

The Less Fortunate Ranks

While Major General Kifah Melhem and many senior figures of the former regime, including Bashar al-Assad himself, are reportedly enjoying a comfortable life in Moscow today, and while many of the names listed in Melhem’s phonebook have gone into hiding out of fear of accountability, some of the individuals recorded in his contacts were far less fortunate.

For these figures, their names now amount to little more than ranks on paper, having failed to escape as Melhem and his peers did.

On page five of Melhem’s phonebook appears the name of Brigadier Ali Al-Saleh, who was unable to flee like Melhem and others and ultimately fell into the hands of the security forces of Syria’s new transitional government, according to a January 2025 report by Al Arabiya TV Channel.

In April, Syria’s transitional government security forces also announced the arrest of Brigadier Hamed Barhoum, whose name likewise appears in Melhem’s phonebook.

Syrian security forces published photos of Barhoum following his arrest. He was detained along with other members of the fallen regime and was found in possession of a Kalashnikov rifle.

Meanwhile, Brigadier Habib Safiya, who served as head of the Military Police in Aleppo, was killed in a car accident on the Damascus highway in 2019, amid speculation that the incident was a staged assassination linked to internal power struggles within the regime’s security apparatus.

Friends of Many Nationalities

Since the beginning of foreign intervention in its favor to counter the Syrian revolution’s growing momentum, the Assad regime frequently used the term “friends” to refer to its military allies, particularly during the Russian intervention, which shifted the balance of the war in the regime’s favor before its eventual collapse.

These “friends” were at times Russian, at other times Iranian, and later included countries such as China, as well as entities like Abkhazia. Among the regime’s most fervent loyalists, they were even referred to as “brothers.”

Russian and Iranian “friends” feature prominently in Kifah Melhem’s phonebook. Scattered throughout its pages are the names of Russian and Iranian translators, as well as military officers such as “Major Yuri,” who appears elsewhere as “Colonel Yuri,” and a Russian lieutenant colonel named Edgar. Melhem also recorded the number of a Russian Major General named “Bilal,” who appears to have been operating in Qamishli.

The presence of Iranian “friends” or “brothers” is even more striking. The phonebook includes the number of Hajj Amer Al-Haidari, described by Melhem as the “Commander of the Zayn al-Abidin Brigade,” a militia formed in Deir Ezzor with support from Iran and Hezbollah. It also lists Mohammad Al-Saeed, commander of the Jerusalem Brigade (Liwa al-Quds), a Palestinian-Syrian militia founded in Aleppo in 2013, which multiple sources say received financial and logistical support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Beyond militia commanders of varying allegiances, the phonebook also contains the name and number of Major General Jamil Al-Sayyed, widely described as “the (former) Syrian regime’s man in Lebanon,” where he served as Director of General Security. He was previously arrested in connection with the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, before being released years later.

Melhem also mentions his Syrian friends and fellow citizens. For example, Raji Falhout’s name is included. Falhout founded the “Dawn Militia” in Suwaida, which was supported by the Military Intelligence branch that Melhem led for many years. Falhout’s fate remains unknown after battles with other military formations in the province in July 2022, which resulted in the elimination of his militia and the loss of contact with him.

The Octopus General

The hundreds of names and phone numbers handwritten by Major General Melhem reveal the breadth of his influence and power—not only within Syria’s military and intelligence circles, but extending across civilian institutions, the medical and media sectors, financial elites, and even figures described as part of the “opposition.”

At the top of Melhem’s contact list appear the names of Syria’s most powerful economic figures under the Assad regime. These include Rami Makhlouf, Bashar al-Assad’s cousin and owner of the country’s largest financial empire—later curtailed after he was sidelined in favor of Asma al-Assad; Abu Salim Daaboul, former head of the Presidential Office under both Hafez and Bashar al-Assad and one of Syria’s wealthiest businessmen; and Hussam Qaterji, one of the regime’s most prominent economic fixers, who is subject to international sanctions for his illicit business activities.

Non-military government institutions are also represented in Melhem’s phonebook. It includes numbers for several ministries and ministers, most notably Mansour Azzam, Minister of Presidential Affairs, who press reports say was aboard the private aircraft that transported Bashar al-Assad to Moscow. The phonebook also contains a number labeled simply “Prime Minister,” without a name, corresponding to an internal contact line.

For a figure of Melhem’s rank, the identity of the prime minister appears less important than the office itself. The same pattern applies to the entry for the Grand Mufti of the Republic, recorded without a name. However, the last person to hold that post before it was abolished in 2021 was Sheikh Badr al-Din Hassoun, who was arrested following the fall of the Assad regime and later appeared in a video released by the Syrian Ministry of Justice before a prosecutor.

Melhem’s reach extended even to figures long described as part of the “internal opposition,” or what the regime preferred to call “opposition under the roof of the homeland.”

The phonebook includes a contact for opposition figure Alaa Arafat, who was a member of the Syrian Negotiations Commission and the Moscow Platform. Melhem appears to have considered him a representative of opposition figure Qadri Jamil, whose name is written in parentheses next to Arafat’s.

On the same page, Melhem recorded the number of opposition figure Mohammad Said Rassas, seemingly as a representative of Hassan Abdul Azim. Both men are members of the Communist Party and the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, raising questions about Melhem’s dealings with Syria’s internal opposition.

In response to questions from SIRAJ, Rassas stated that he was unaware of why his number appeared in Melhem’s phonebook, stressing that there had been no prior communication whatsoever. He also said he has been subject to a travel ban since 2008, issued by the National Security Office—the same body later headed by Melhem after it was restructured into the National Security Bureau.

Rassas also spent 15 years in prison between 1980 and 1995 after being tried before the State Security Court for his membership in the Communist Party.

Amid the dense web of military, intelligence, and political contacts, the phonebook also contains numbers for ordinary professionals—people essential even to the daily life of a general accused of war crimes. These include contacts labeled “health worker” and “barber,” as well as a number for “Abu Shaker – Immigration and Passports,” the civil registry office where Syrians often waited for hours to obtain travel documents. For an official of Melhem’s stature, having such contacts meant fast-tracking procedures for himself and those close to him.

Here, we present readers with a digital version mirroring the original phonebook left behind by Kifah Melhem, the former Director of the National Security Bureau under the ousted Assad regime. All phone numbers have been redacted to protect privacy and to respect ongoing and potential accountability processes related to violations committed during the former regime.

Creative direction and visual design: Radwan Awad
Editing and supervision: Manar Rachwani

The post “Damascus Dossier”: What Did Major General Kifah Melhem Leave Behind in His “Phonebook” After Fleeing? appeared first on SIRAJ.

The corpses bore clear signs of torture and starvation. Nevertheless, three doctors at the hospital — a resident physician “S. B.”, the head of the emergency department “A. H.”, and the chief medical officer “M. A.”  immediately issued a medical report stating that all eight persons had died of “cardiac arrest and respiratory failure.”

For years, the hospital had enjoyed a “good reputation” among soldiers and their families and was home to some of Syria’s most well-known doctors. Yet behind its walls lay a reality far darker than the image promoted by the Assad regime.

On the hospital’s seventh floor, an entire ward was designated for detainees transferred from security branches. There, systematic torture and mass killing took place, followed by institutionalized falsification of medical reports stating false causes of death, a process in which senior medical staff at the hospital actively participated.

It was no coincidence that eight detainees died of “cardiac arrest.” This phrase functioned as a medical cover formula used by the regime for years, beginning with the outbreak of the Syrian uprising in 2011, to conceal deaths under torture in its prisons and security branches. The regime exploited its control over military hospitals under the Syrian Army’s Medical Services Directorate, relying on doctors who participated in torture and falsified medical reports documenting the deaths of thousands of political detainees.

For these doctors, everything appeared routine: falsifying causes of death, signing official documents to legitimize them according to an exclusive body intake document reviewed by the investigative team, and then transferring the bodies to mass graves. Over time, this falsification became standard practice and an entrenched method carried out by doctors and nurses who still live among us today, whether inside Syria or in Germany, a country that welcomed millions of Syrians fleeing massacres and mass killing. Some of these doctors later fled there, yet we were able to track them, as this eight-month investigation reveals.

This joint investigation by (SIRAJ, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Germany’s public broadcaster NDR, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, as part of the Damascus Dossier project, reveals through exclusive military hospital documents how dozens of doctors, some of whom continue to practice medicine in Germany, participated in the torture of detainees and the falsification of their causes of death in Assad’s prisons and medical facilities.

The documents include more than 70 death certificates issued by Harasta Military Hospital, all signed by doctors from the same institution.

In cooperation with its partners, SIRAJ formed a multidisciplinary team of investigative journalists, open-source researchers, and analysts. By combining documents, survivor testimonies, and witness accounts from former hospital staff, and using open-source investigation techniques, the team obtained evidence indicating that at least 18 Syrian doctors who previously worked at the notorious military hospital are now residing in Germany, some holding senior positions in German hospitals.

Among them is a doctor alleged to have performed surgery without anesthesia on a detainee, called Nael, interviewed by the investigative team. l.

The investigation is part of the Damascus Dossier, a collaborative investigative project led by the ICIJ in partnership with NDR, involving 126 journalists from 26 media organizations across 20 countries, who spent over eight months organizing documents, analyzing evidence, consulting experts, conducting interviews, and tracing the doctors now hidden behind white coats that conceal their past in Assad’s military hospitals.

Official estimates indicate that approximately 7,000 Syrian doctors are currently registered in Germany.

From Harasta Military Hospital to Germany

From the moment the documents were obtained, the investigative team began tracing the identities of the doctors to determine their whereabouts and roles following the fall of the Assad regime, and their involvement in the machinery of torture and killing that crushed the lives of thousands of Syrians over the years of revolution.

The team interviewed Dr. “A,” currently residing in Germany, and was accused by a former detainee of torturing him and performing surgery without anesthesia at Harasta Military Hospital. The doctor acknowledged that he had access to the seventh floor and admitted that systematic torture took place there. However, he strongly denied committing any crime or violating medical ethics, claiming he never breached professional standards during his tenure, a narrative cast into doubt by the harrowing details provided by the survivor.

It remains unclear whether these doctors acted voluntarily or were coerced due to their positions within hospitals where detainees were systematically executed.

Documents reviewed by the investigative team show that 36 doctors across four military hospitals signed death certificates listing “cardiac arrest” and “respiratory failure” as causes of death for 92 detainees, including 38 unidentified individuals. Except for one case, the documents do not indicate that bodies were handed over to families or clarify their fate.

These records strongly suggest that the doctors actively participated in concealing evidence of the Assad regime’s killing of thousands of Syrians under torture.

The team verified documents signed by Dr. “A” during his tenure at Harasta Military Hospital and found that he signed reports stating that 14 detainees died of “cardiac arrest” and “respiratory failure,” including unidentified bodies transferred from the notorious Al-Khatib Branch (Branch 251) of the State Security apparatus.

Investigators also traced the doctor’s social media activity, uncovering close ties with another resident physician, Dr. “S”, at Harasta, a doctor who signed the death certificates of eight unidentified detainees and was repeatedly named by survivors who accused him of torture.

One of his Facebook posts shows him bidding farewell to colleagues at the hospital, confirming his employment there. In another post dated July 3, 2013, he shared a photo of a phone he claimed to have taken from a “wounded fighter,” writing:
“There is always time to ask a wounded fighter questions unrelated to war, death, terrorism, and revolution to pull him out of Tora Bora. I see what I see. I ask, and he answers.”

According to documents, Dr. “S” signed medical reports stating that eight individuals died of “cardiac arrest” and “respiratory failure.”

Human rights expert Moatasem Al-Kilani stated: “Issuing death certificates that misrepresent the true cause of death places doctors under direct criminal liability for complicity in killings under torture and for concealing evidence, pursuant to Article 4 of the Convention Against Torture.”

By reviewing employment records, investigators confirmed that all named doctors worked at Harasta Military Hospital and that their signatures matched those on detainee death certificates. No evidence was found contradicting survivor and witness testimonies.

To further corroborate accounts and verify signatures, the team conducted multiple interviews with former Harasta doctors now living in Germany. All confirmed survivors’ accounts of systematic torture on the hospital’s seventh floor, citing screams they heard or emaciated bodies they saw.

Initially, all doctors denied participating in torture and claimed restricted access to the detainee ward. Others asserted they “only practiced medicine” and that decisions were controlled by military personnel.

Commenting on the evidence, Swedish prosecutor Reena Devgun said: “This type of evidence is crucial for building cases, whether to establish the systematic nature of crimes, a key requirement for crimes against humanity, or to establish the responsibility of medical staff who should have known what was happening, given the massive scale of torture and deaths.”

The Seventh Floor: Torture Without Purpose

The seventh floor of Harasta Military Hospital was supposedly designated for treating detainees transferred from security branches due to illness or injury. However, testimonies from survivors and interviews with over 12 witnesses, including doctors and nurses, confirmed it functioned as a permanent torture chamber.

Firas Al-Shater, one of the few survivors, describes Harasta as a “medical slaughterhouse.” Transferred there in 2012, he was assigned a number, blindfolded, and thrown onto a bed with other detainees.

He recalls: “In security branches, they torture you to extract confessions. In Harasta, they torture you 24 hours a day for no reason.”

Al-Shater and others describe constant beatings by the army and security personnel. Medical staff also participated. He remembers a nurse extinguishing a cigarette on his foot and estimates that more than 200 cigarettes were put out on his body without receiving any treatment.

He believes the morgue often overflowed, forcing doctors to place bodies in hallways. “I called it the hospital of death.”

Nail Al-Maghrebi, who now lives in Stuttgart, Germany, was also among the victims of torture at Harasta Military Hospital. In 2012, Syrian army soldiers shot him at close range, wounding him in the leg. He was then tortured, filmed, and the video was published on social media.

Following his injury, Nail was transferred to Harasta Military Hospital, where he says he was tortured by a doctor identified as “A,” who inserted metal screws into the bones of his leg without anesthesia. “I screamed in pain until I lost consciousness,” he recalls. The doctor then poured alcohol under Nail’s nose to revive him before continuing the painful procedure. “One of the guards told me that pain is a requirement for treating detainees.”

Harasta Military Hospital has remained closed since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. Yet its corridors undoubtedly still hold thousands of documents pointing to the names of those involved in torture and killing crimes committed against the regime’s victims over the years of the Syrian revolution.

The Journey of Death

On March 19, 2013, a detainee held by Branch 251 of the State Security Directorate, known also as the “Al-Khatib Branch,” was transferred to Harasta Military Hospital.

According to a document issued by the head of the branch, the detainee described as an “armed terrorist” died on March 25, 2013, allegedly due to “meningitis,” and his body was placed in the hospital morgue.

Based on orders from the Branch chief, the hospital administration was authorized to hand over the body to the family through a notification issued by the military police.

This family was the only one allowed to learn the fate of their son and receive his body, according to dozens of documents reviewed by the investigation team. Meanwhile, countless other families remain unaware of what happened to their loved ones or the atrocities that led to their deaths before the causes were falsified in military hospitals.

The investigation team reviewed dozens of documents issued by four military hospitals affiliated with the Military Medical Services Administration and the Ministry of Defense under the former Assad regime:

• Harasta Military Hospital (“Hospital 600”)
• Tishreen Military Hospital in rural Damascus
• Mezzeh Military Hospital (Hospital 601) in Damascus
• Red Crescent Hospital on Baghdad Street in Damascus

The documents reveal the deaths of 92 detainees, including 38 unidentified bodies, most of them detainees held by the Al-Khatib Branch.

Swedish prosecutor Reena Devgon stated that the materials being revealed today, including photographs, documents, and medical reports, are of exceptional importance because they not only demonstrate the scale of violations but also prove the systematic nature of torture within Syrian intelligence units and military hospitals.

“This type of evidence is what legally allows us to build cases involving war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Devgon added.

A clear pattern emerges in medical reports issued by military hospitals and signed by resident doctors, on-call physicians, and heads of emergency departments. Detainees brought in from security branches are recorded as arriving dead from the General Intelligence Directorate. Doctors then document and sign medical reports repeatedly citing causes of death such as “cardiac arrest” and “respiratory failure,” despite photographic evidence showing clear signs of torture and extreme emaciation resulting from starvation in detention centers.

The former regime’s systematic policy of falsifying evidence was not limited to issuing medical reports. In numerous cases reviewed by the investigation team, documents from Mezzeh Military Hospital (601) were signed by doctors as “witnesses” to detainees’ deaths on specific dates, again attributing them to heart and respiratory failure and claiming the detainees arrived dead.

The documents and administrative orders do not specify the fate of these bodies afterward. However, testimonies and evidence gathered from witnesses and open-source investigations point to a single destination: mass graves.

Mapping the Machinery of Death

The investigation team interviewed a doctor who served for six months at Harasta Military Hospital in 2012, the same year referenced in dozens of reviewed documents. During his service, he witnessed horrifying details of how detainees’ bodies were brought to the hospital, photographed, loaded onto trucks, and transported to mass graves.

This testimony enabled the team to reconstruct a complete map of body transportation operations at Harasta Military Hospital by matching the details with satellite imagery from 2012 and 2013.

Satellite image of Harasta Military Hospital showing body storage, photography sites, and refrigeration trucks used to transport bodies to mass graves – Source: Maxar

The doctor confirmed that in 2012, he personally observed white refrigerated containers (Site 3) being filled with black body bags, leaving the hospital clearly visible from the doctors’ residential building (Site 1).

When he asked a soldier why the containers were placed on the helicopter landing pad, the soldier replied that it was to keep the smell of decomposing bodies away from the hospital.

Bodies were placed into bags at two different locations: behind the morgue’s rear entrance (Site 6) or near a location where bodies were photographed (Site 2). Due to limited space, many photos were taken directly on the helicopter pad (Site 5), facing the doctors’ residence.

According to the doctor, trucks did not arrive empty; they already contained bodies and remained on the helicopter pad for days after being loaded with corpses from Harasta Military Hospital.

He stated that the hospital processed a fixed number of bodies, approximately 1,180 corpses per week. One soldier was responsible for registering deaths and driving refrigerated containers to collect bodies from the hospital.

That soldier later “committed suicide,” though the doctor suspects he was killed because he knew too much and had spoken to others about the body transfers.

The doctor also recalled frequently seeing a “red liquid” leaking from the refrigeration containers, believed to be bodily fluids. Satellite images corroborate his testimony, showing red stains at former container locations after they were moved to another part of the helicopter pad.

Torture on the Hospital Bed

Harasta Military Hospital was only one station in a medical system transformed by the regime into a direct extension of secret human slaughterhouses.

One former detainee, arrested on charges of planning to defect, said he was transferred from Sednaya Prison to Tishreen Military Hospital in 2012 or 2013 for “treatment” of severe scabies.

He was not alone. He was transported alongside three living detainees, six corpses, and four individuals “between life and death.”

Upon arrival, hospital staff handed him ten body bags and ordered him to place the “patients” inside them.

At first, he thought the number of bags exceeded the number of bodies. He soon realized why: hospital staff strangled the four detainees who were still breathing and then ordered him to bag them as well. He was forced to drag the bags down the stairs and throw them into a large container prepared for this purpose.

Afterward, he was taken to an upper floor and examined by a doctor who provided no treatment other than two ibuprofen pills, despite his severe condition. He recalls constant humiliation and abuse by medical and military staff. When he went to the bathroom, he was shocked to see dozens of bodies piled on top of each other.

International Accountability

The trial of Syrian doctor Alaa Mousa, who was sentenced to life in prison in Germany, continues to weigh heavily on those involved in human rights violations under the Assad regime, especially those who fled to Europe.

The historic Frankfurt trial was groundbreaking: it was not a prosecution of a military officer or intelligence official, but of a doctor. It paved the way for broader accountability of all participants in the killing machine, including medical professionals who helped conceal evidence or extract confessions, under universal jurisdiction laws.

Syrian international criminal law expert Moatasem Al-Kailani stated: “International law criminalizes participation in torture, whether through direct involvement, complicity, or even silence. Conduct such as performing medical procedures without anesthesia or participating in interrogations violates professional medical ethics and constitutes clear breaches of the UN Convention Against Torture.”

Commenting on the investigation’s findings, Dr. Susan Jonah, Vice President of the German Medical Association, said German authorities must urgently follow up on the evidence and examine all materials presented.

“Syrian doctors are an indispensable part of Germany’s healthcare system,” she added. “But it is essential to identify the few who participated in torture in Syria. No doctor involved in torture should be allowed to practice medicine in Germany in any capacity.”

Due to the unique nature of international criminal law, Germany’s Federal Prosecutor can prosecute perpetrators for crimes committed abroad even if the victims are not German nationals.

Creative coordination and visual solutions: Radwan Awad
Research and data collection: Mawadda Klass

The post The Executioners of the Seventh Floor: Assad’s Doctors Fled from Harasta Military Hospital to Germany appeared first on SIRAJ.

In August 2015, the freighters were hit with U.S. sanctions that targeted resources used by the regime to wage violence against civilians in Syria’s civil war.

Then, in 2023, the three ships were sold to an obscure offshore company.

Incorporated in January 2019, the Seychelles-based AlHouda Holding has no functioning website, and until now, no information about the individuals directly involved in the firm has been disclosed to the public.

But the Syrian General Authority for Maritime Transport sold two of the ships — the Finikia and the Souria — to the company in April 2023  for the nominal price of just $1 apiece, according to sales contracts obtained by SIRAJ.

AlHouda acquired the third ship, the Laodicea, around the same time but OCCRP was unable to verify the sales price.

Sold for a Dollar

Sales contracts obtained by SIRAJ show the ships were sold by the Syrian government for just $1 apiece.

Archived versions of the UAE Levant Fleet’s website show that as recently as January of this year, the site presented itself as the public-facing portal of the British Levant Fleet Ltd, where Kayali was director between August 2020 and April 2023 and the company’s sole shareholder in 2020. He resigned a week after he was sanctioned by the British government, which alleged that he is a “business magnate with links to the captagon industry” who has been “tied to multiple captagon seizures, including in Europe.”

While Kayali is no longer involved in the U.K. company, records show he is a director of a Panamanian company also called Levant Fleet Ltd S.A. whose executives have the same names as those of Levant Fleet in London, suggesting the companies are related.

The U.K.-based Levant Fleet has served as the safety manager for the Laodicea and the Souria since 2023, according to the shipping database Equasis, and as a crew manager for the Souria and the Finikia in 2024, according to partial employment contracts obtained by SIRAJ.

And a crew list for the Souria dated January 5, 2024, features the name Orient Fleet at the top of the document. Kayali is a 99-percent shareholder of a Syrian company established in 2022 named Orient Fleet Maritime LLC. 

The other shareholder of Kayali’s Orient Fleet Maritime bears the same name, Moaead Hani Walio, as the secretary of the U.K.-based Levant Fleet. Kayali and Walio have both served as officers in the U.K. and Panamanian Levant Fleets, while a third man, Ahmad AlKhanji, is also a director in both companies.

Walio did not respond to requests for comment. AlKhanji told OCCRP he parted ways with Levant Fleet, without specifying the jurisdiction, in 2023 due to “a dispute with the company personnel that continues to this day.” He said the dispute prevented him from answering further questions about the company, and did not respond to follow-up questions about his links to Kayali and Levant Fleet in the U.K., the UAE, and Panama in time for publication.

Orient Fleet Maritime and the UAE- and U.K.-based Levant Fleet companies did not respond to requests for comment. But after sending the queries, OCCRP received a message from an unknown Syrian number, whose profile image featured the name — Neptunus — of another Syrian company belonging to Kayali that was hit with Western sanctions. The author said they were responding to questions about Levant Fleet and promised to provide “all necessary documents and materials” but did not do so in time for publication.

In September 2025, Finikia’s ownership changed again: It was transferred to Bayaze Shipping Ltd, a company incorporated  in the Marshall Islands on 13 June, according to the International Maritime Organization and company records.

False Flags

When the Finikia was spotted this January by a granary at the Avlita cargo terminal in Sevastopol, the Ukrainian Black Sea port that Russia seized in February 2014, only two weeks had passed since it had been hit with EU sanctions.

The ship was now sailing under its third name since 2009 – Monte Bianco – and a new flag, Gambia, also its third since then. The AIS transponder used to broadcast its location had been switched off, but the vessel remained visible by satellite, according to an image provided to OCCRP by satellite intelligence company Vantor. 

This type of regular rotation of names and flags of registration, plus the disabling of AIS transponders, has been a feature of all three of the Syrian vessels since they were sold by Assad’s regime in 2023. All three have also misrepresented their countries of registration with so-called “false flags.”

For instance, in December 2023, the freighters registered with the Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, in southern Africa. But just a month later, the landlocked nation rescinded the registrations, citing a “direct violation” of its policies, Eswatini maritime authorities told OCCRP.

All three of the Syrian freighters continued flying the Eswatini flag in 2024, primarily traveling between Russia and Syria, even though the African nation told the International Maritime Organization in a letter in August of last year that it had “not yet given permission to any company or agency to register ship vessels sailing in high seas in its flag.”

Michelle Bockmann, a senior maritime intelligence analyst with Windward, a maritime consultancy, said “flag-hopping” is typical behavior for sanctions-hit vessels that face limited options for countries willing to accept their registrations.

Lacking valid insurance and other safety certificates, such ships pose “significant threats” to maritime safety, security, and the environment, she wrote in a submission this year to the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission. “These ships are essentially lawless and stateless.”

Asked about false-flagging, the International Maritime Organization said that it is a problematic practice that prevents authorities from exercising effective control over vessels at sea, but that “[t]here is currently no binding international framework to regulate the process of ship registration.”

Despite their efforts at obfuscation, satellite images and dedicated ship tracking publications helped reporters track some of the freighters’ recent movements.

For instance, the Souria, which is now called San Damian and still flies a false Eswatini flag, departed the Kavkaz port in southern Russia in November 2024 and anchored a little over a week later at the grain terminal in Egypt’s Alexandria port. Satellite imagery analyzed by OCCRP indicates the ship was moored in Syria’s Latakia port on June 30.

After its January stop in Sevastopol, the Finikia was seen sailing in the crystalline blue waters off Cyprus in June with an East Timor flag that the International Maritime Organization website describes as “false.” The East Timor ship registry told OCCRP in July that the jurisdiction does not maintain an international ship registry and it has no knowledge of the vessel.

Işık from the Bosphorus Observer consultancy spotted the ship — with yet another new name, Bayaze D — crossing the Bosphorus a few weeks later. According to the ship-tracking website VesselFinder it was heading for Russia’s Kavkaz port. Later that month, on July 17, it was again seen near Istanbul. 

According to Vladyslav Vlasiuk, sanctions commissioner for Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, the Finikia made a call at the occupied port of Komysh-Burun as recently as August 2025. (Ship-tracking data reviewed by OCCRP shows the vessel in the area at the time).^. 

The Laodicea, meanwhile, was seen in the vicinity of Simferopol in Russian-occupied Crimea last June, and was spotted several months later sailing near Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey before making a stop in Lebanon. In November 2024, it switched off its AIS transponder until April 2025.

During this “dark” period, SIRAJ reporters spotted the vessel anchored in Syria’s Latakia port in mid-January, just over five weeks after the fall of Assad’s regime.

 

The ship’s new name was hidden behind a tarp that someone had hung on the back of the vessel. But the new moniker — Monte Rosa — remained visible on a lifeboat on deck. A gust of wind lifted the tarp just long enough for reporters to see “Rosa” painted on the hull.

Ahmed Haj Bakri (SIRAJ), Rana Sabbagh, and reporters from Daraj contributed reporting.

The post Ships Accused of Stealing Ukrainian Grain Linked to Assad Regime Front appeared first on SIRAJ.

After his arrest, he was taken directly to the Palestine Branch. Four years passed before Umm Khaled found a small thread of hope. In 2017, she obtained a civil registry extract in Damascus confirming that he was still alive, while someone else told her that he was being held in the State Security Branch in Damascus. From that day on, her waiting became an entire life suspended between hope and fear.

At the dawn of December 8 of last year, following the fall of the Assad regime, she rushed to the massive gates of Sednaya Prison north of the capital, holding a photo of her son, hoping she could finally embrace him after his long absence.

But when she arrived that cold morning, amid crowds of people searching for their loved ones, she walked up the road leading to the cells with heavy steps, her eyes filled with hope. The doors opened before her — but her son was not among those emerging from the dark, frigid cells.

About a month later, she visited Sednaya Prison again to attend a commemoration ceremony for the prison’s victims. There, the investigative team met her once more, still holding her son’s photograph, whispering words laden with sorrow as she showed his picture to anyone who might see it — hoping someone might remember him, or might have seen him somewhere inside that prison.

With tears in her eyes, she said: “Unfortunately, my son did not come out alive… Those who survived that prison can be counted on one hand.”

​​According to Veronica Bellintani, Head of the International Law Support Unit at the Syrian Legal Development Programme (SDLP), execution orders in Sednaya Prison were issued and carried out by secret field committees that provided no minimum guarantees of due process.

She explains: “The executions carried out inside Sednaya Prison clearly fall within the scope of crimes against humanity and conflict-related crimes, given their systematic and widespread nature, and their connection to repressive policies pursued by the Syrian authorities against civilians.”

According to information reviewed by the investigative team, at least 15,347 execution sentences were carried out in Sednaya between 2011 and 2021, based on rulings issued by the Military Field Court.

The documents and information reviewed by the investigative team reveal the formation of execution committees whose purpose was to end the lives of prisoners by hanging, with special teams assigned to carry out these executions inside the prison.

On September 16, 2019, 18 detainees lost their lives; they were from Damascus, Daraa, and Aleppo. On September 3, 2020, 29 people were executed, including Tunisians, Iraqis, and Saudis. The gallows were also erected on July 30, November 12, and December 10, 2020, as well as January 19, 2021, to execute groups ranging from four to twenty-eight people at a time.

After the fall of the Syrian regime and the opening of the prison gates, an intense debate emerged among Syrians—especially the families of the victims—about who was responsible for these executions. There has been, and still remains, a strong desire to uncover the chain of command behind the execution orders, and to identify the individuals involved, whose names have long been shrouded in secrecy inside one of the most secretive prisons in the world.

This investigation seeks to answer that question.

Once a death sentence is issued by the Military Field Court, a closed chain of secret procedures begins. According to documents reviewed by the investigation team, these procedures are overseen by what can be described as a hierarchical apparatus composed of two main levels, each with a distinct committee.

At the first level is the “Central Committee”, also referred to as the “Supervisory Committee”, which carries out tasks at the national level on behalf of the state and oversees the general planning and implementation of execution decisions.

At the second level is the “Execution Committee”, which is responsible for carrying out the sentences on the ground inside the prison. Among survivors, this committee is known as the “Chain Committee”, in reference to the chain used to bind the victims’ legs as they are led to the execution chamber to meet their fate.

Orders establishing these committees are issued by the commander of the First Military Prison— the official designation for Saydnaya Prison— whose approval appears only in the form of a signature, without a name.

After reviewing the formation orders of the named committees and examining them, the SIRAJ unit assembled a team to track members of the two execution committees listed in the documents, using analysis of official records, cross-referencing survivor testimonies, and open-source intelligence techniques.

The investigation team and the open-source unit were able to trace 27 individuals whose names appeared in the documents. Some of them remain inside Syria, while others are believed to have left the country.

In addition to the names of the execution committee members, the information collected includes: their dates of birth, social media accounts—particularly Facebook—photographs of them in both military and civilian attire, and images showing them with well-known figures associated with Saydnaya Prison. Some were previously photographed alongside Aws Salloum, known by the nickname “The Angel of Death of Saydnaya.”

One member of the 2020 execution committee (the “Chain Committee”), identified as “Ahmad A.”, is currently residing outside Syria and moving freely within Turkish territory.

On his Facebook account, he shared a post showing that he traveled from Istanbul to the southern city of Mersin on November 2, 2022.

He also appears in photos he claims were taken at the port of Odesa, Ukraine, on October 18, 2022. Before that, on September 20, 2022, he asked his friends and followers to wish him success on a trip to Egypt. Earlier posts show him in military uniform, wearing the Military Police insignia on his arm, inside the prison grounds.

Many other photos show members of the execution committees in their everyday lives— sitting in cafés, at private gatherings, or on the beach —while others are engaged in different professions. One example is a dentist who now works at a charitable association in the village of Beit Yashout in Latakia province, offering free medical services.

The investigation team worked to cross-match the names and images of members of the two execution committees across a wide range of open sources, despite their dispersion and differing natures, in order to accurately verify the identities of the individuals.

To strengthen the verification process, the team consulted Syrian researcher Hussam Jazmati, who spent years documenting the social media accounts of officers and personnel at Saydnaya Military Prison, including several members of the execution committees.

Jazmati maintains a well-documented archive that intersects with the work of Syrian organizations specializing in the cases of detainees and their families. A comparison between his findings and those of the investigation team showed a 100% exact match in names and photographs.

In addition, we contacted a military doctor whose name appeared in one of the execution committees under investigation. He was able to identify the faces and names of many of the other committee members—his colleagues—on the same committee.

This testimony, being the first of its kind, served as a final and decisive confirmation for the investigation team in verifying and identifying the members of the execution committee.

“In Absolute Secrecy”: The Structure of the Execution Committees

The investigation into the execution committees began when the team obtained copies of official documents indicating the formation of a supervisory committee responsible for carrying out execution rulings. The committee was composed of at least three members:
The Deputy President of the Military Court, a forensic doctor, and an officer from the Military Police.

Executions at Saydnaya Prison are carried out on a weekly basis. Between 20 and 50 detainees are taken to the gallows without prior notice; they are not informed of the execution date. Instead, they are transferred at night and executed either that same night or early the next morning, before dawn.

The operation is overseen by senior security and military officials, including the head of the prison’s security office, the prison director, the military prosecutor of the Field Court, the commander of the Syrian Army’s Southern Region, an officer from the Military Intelligence Directorate, and the head of Branch 248 (the Investigations Branch), in addition to a forensic doctor from Tishreen Military Hospital. In some cases, a religious cleric is brought in to provide a veneer of religious legitimacy to the executions.

This committee handles the official (state) supervision of the executions, documenting the process and confirming the deaths, all in the absence of any independent oversight or civilian legal supervision.

The actual execution is carried out by the Execution Committee at 4:00 a.m., inside the First Military Prison building.

The execution report is then submitted to the Command of the Southern Region of the Syrian Army, with an explicit note stating that it is carried out “based on the order of the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Minister of Defense.” This indicates that the orders are not local, but are directly tied to the leadership of the regime—and therefore to Bashar al-Assad himself.

Marwan Al-Ash, from the Syrian Detainees and Detainees’ Council (SDC), explains that executions are carried out in a routine, rigid, and highly secretive manner. The names of those to be executed are summoned by the judge of the Military Field Court, following a chain of approvals that begins with the Director of the Military Judiciary and ends with the Minister of Defense acting on behalf of the President. This process applies to Syrian, Arab, and foreign detainees alike.

Convicts are separated from the rest of the prisoners 48 hours prior to execution and transferred to an “isolation room” in the Red Building, where they are deprived of food and subjected to intense torture. Later, the group is transported at night to the White Building in a closed truck, under violent procedures that include beatings, blindfolding, and shackling with chains.

According to Al-Ash: “Executions are carried out by hanging, in batches of seven. The bodies are suspended and then dropped, and left in a side room, sometimes for days, before being moved to the prison’s outer courtyard to await a truck or refrigerated vehicle that transports them to mass graves.”

From Blindfolding to the Noose

All documents issued by Saydnaya Prison regarding execution orders contain the same directive: that executions must be carried out under strict secrecy.
Each document specifically names an officer or assistant tasked with carrying out the order, with explicit instructions emphasizing absolute confidentiality.

Secret documents from Saydnaya Prison from 2019 and 2020 list dozens of officers and conscripts, each assigned precise duties within the execution system.

Each committee consists of between 14 and 16 guards and commanding personnel. Their duties include: blindfolding prisoners before removal from their cells, fastening restraints, confirming identities, preparing the execution chamber and the noose, and medically documenting the death.

Often, the documents identify an officer or assistant assigned to “carry out the order in complete secrecy at the specified time and place.” They are signed by the Director of Saydnaya Prison and countersigned by a junior military doctor serving on the committee.

Although the identity of the prison director is often obscured, numerous sources—including the Syrian Network for Human Rights—indicate that the directors of Saydnaya Prison during 2019–2020, the period covered by the documents obtained by the investigation team, were Colonel Wasim Suleiman Hassan, followed by Brigadier General Osama Mohammed Al-Ali.

Colonel Wasim Hassan, from rural Latakia, served as prison director from 2017 until 2020, when he was replaced by Brigadier General Osama Al-Ali, from rural Tartus, who remained in the position until the fall of the Assad regime.

In one order dated January 16, 2020, the name “Assistant Yazan M.” (listed in the execution documents) appears as the individual tasked with blindfolding detainees before execution. In another document, the signature of “Amer T.”, a dentist, appears in his capacity as the medical officer accompanying the execution committee.

Regarding leadership responsibility, Belintani explains that “execution orders signed by senior officials, bearing their names and signatures, may constitute strong evidence of their knowledge of the executions, their contribution to the criminal process, and the existence of a systematic policy behind these acts.” This, she says, could therefore allow for their criminal liability under international criminal law.

From the Death Chamber to Television Screens

Each execution committee is assigned, by order of the prison director, the task of carrying out death sentences—though individual roles may vary.

For example, assistants “Mudar A.” and “Yazan M.”, according to the official formation orders of the execution committees in 2019 and 2020, were tasked with blindfolding detainees prior to mass executions.

However, Mudar A. also had an additional role: he was responsible for receiving the bodies of executed detainees when they were returned from military hospitals.

The investigation team reviewed three documents listing execution committees for 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively, and found several repeated names, indicating a stable structural pattern in how personnel were assigned.

Among the recurring names are conscript “Mohammad M.” and sergeant Ramadan Al-Issa, both of whom appeared on multiple committees. Al-Issa recently appeared in a video released by the Syrian Ministry of Interior, in which he confessed to crimes committed during his service in Saydnaya Prison.

The documents also reveal promotion pathways for some committee members, suggesting a direct link between participation in executions and career advancement. For instance, “Yazan S.” served as a corporal on the 2019 and 2020 execution committees, before being promoted to sergeant and appearing again on the 2021 committee.

The investigation team contacted 12 members of the execution committees via messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp to verify their identities and confirm their roles.

Conscript “Amjad A.” denied his identity entirely, claimed to be someone else, then blocked the reporter on Facebook and changed the name of his account.

The second individual who responded was Lieutenant Dentist “Amer T.”, whose name appears on the 2020 execution committee.

Another member, also a dentist whose name appears on the 2019 committee, also responded and provided critical acknowledgements, on the condition that his name not be disclosed.

Both doctors stated that they were performing compulsory military service at Saydnaya at the time. They also said they contacted the new Syrian authorities immediately after arriving in Damascus.

The first doctor, Amer T., denied that his role involved examining bodies after execution. Instead, he claimed his task was only to examine the health condition and readiness of military personnel involved in the execution process, not the detainees themselves.

The doctor whose name appeared on the 2020 execution committee confirmed that he was serving his mandatory military service as a dentist at Saydnaya Prison. Although he insisted that he was “not allowed to know any information regarding the implementation of executions,” he nevertheless provided detailed accounts of the military personnel on the execution team whom he examined and recognized from photographs. He recalled all of their identities, including First Assistant “Diaa A.”, Corporal “Yazan S.”, conscript “Ahmad A.”, conscript “Mohammad M.”, conscript “Elias H.”, and conscript “Zakaria H.”. He also identified additional individuals involved in the executions, such as conscript “Khedr Q.” and “Hayan D.”

(All of these names were listed in the official documents that formed the execution committee.

He explained that, to his knowledge, executions were carried out in the presence of personnel from Military Intelligence, the regional military commander, judges from the Military Field Court, and a forensic doctor from the military hospital.

When asked how he felt about examining military personnel prior to executions, he said: “I did not choose to be in that place, and if I had been given a choice, I would not have accepted it. Of course, it was disturbing, but I cannot speak of regret because a doctor is supposed to serve the community away from chaos — especially since I did not know the crime committed or the circumstances of the case.”

He claimed that death sentences were only carried out in cases of murder, while what he described as “ordinary violations” resulted in fixed prison terms or, at times, pardons.

However, dozens of documents signed in the name of the Commander-in-Chief (Bashar al-Assad) show that most of those executed were civilians arrested on security-related grounds, including students, women, and former conscripts, contradicting the testimony of Amer T.

A document reviewed by the investigation team from the Syrian Revolution Archive reveals an order issued by former Defense Minister Ali Abdullah Ayoub, acting on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, to execute 18 individuals on charges of “incitement to terrorism” or “committing terrorist acts,” with the executions to be carried out in Saydnaya Prison. The document details the full structure and procedures of the execution process — and is one of many examined by the investigative team.

The dentist also denied that any political detainees had been executed in Saydnaya Prison, claiming that he was “99% certain” that those who were executed had committed murder or “horrific massacres.”

He continued defending Saydnaya’s practices, stating: “It is impossible for anyone to be admitted to the prison without a judicial order.”

When asked about the families who lost their children in Saydnaya—families who dug through the prison grounds searching for their loved ones after the fall of the regime—he attributed this to “misleading media propaganda,” insisting that “it is impossible for anyone to be imprisoned without having committed a crime.”

He added: “Political detainees may have disappeared in security branches,” noting that political detainees are tried in civilian courts, where—according to him—no violations leading to execution occur.

This claim ignores well-documented facts and reports issued by human rights organizations and United Nations bodies confirming that thousands of political detainees in Syria were subjected to summary trials before Military Field Courts or the Counter-Terrorism Court, without due process, and that their families were never informed of their deaths. No national or international entity was allowed access to Saydnaya or other prisons of the former regime until its collapse.

This is also emphasized by Syrian lawyer Hala Ibrahim, a member of the Syrian Free Lawyers Association, who has been closely following the Saydnaya executions while working with a rights organization in Syria. She stresses that the rulings issued by the Military Field Court violated not only international law, but also the Syrian Constitution in force at the time, which guaranteed the right to a fair trial in Article 28—conditions entirely absent from these show trials, which relied on confessions extracted under torture.

For his part, dentist Amer T. told reporters that three days after Syria was liberated, he was contacted by the “Military Operations Directorate” for information regarding the prison’s layout. He claimed that he cooperated, providing them with full details, and explained that he was a conscripted doctor serving mandatory service at Saydnaya. He added, “Brigadier Abu Khaled contacted me from a private number and asked for help to determine whether there were secret tunnels inside the prison. They assured me of my safety, and I explained the structure to them. They also offered me financial compensation for the information, but I refused.”

For its part, the Syrian Ministry of Interior denied the dentists’ statements about their alleged communication with the “Military Operations Room” after the fall of the regime, calling their account “false,” intended to defame the government and evade responsibility for violations.

Ministry spokesperson Noureddine Al-Babba stated: “The number of those implicated in the violations at Saydnaya Prison reaches into the hundreds, and the Ministry is working to bring all of them to justice. We are exerting all efforts to apprehend those involved.”

He added that some have not yet been brought to trial because they are either in hiding inside Syria or have fled abroad, noting that many others are currently detained pending further investigation.

In the same context, lawyer Hala Ibrahim believes that the transitional government’s approach to accountability and transitional justice remains framed through a political or security lens. She stresses that this file requires a comprehensive legal and rights-based approach, making clear that accountability is not an act of revenge, but a legal process in the interest of Syrian society.

The second doctor at Saydnaya Prison, whose name appeared on the execution committee formed in 2019, hesitated to speak with us for weeks before eventually agreeing—on the condition that his name not be published, out of fear of extrajudicial killings. He explained that he was “a doctor for judicial detainees, performing mandatory military service.”

He clarified that his role in the execution committee began after the sentence had already been carried out.

According to him, the Military Medical Services Administration transported the bodies from the execution chamber to the small clinic where he worked inside Saydnaya Prison, so that he could “check vital signs” and confirm death.

He began his service at Military Hospital 601 and was later transferred to Saydnaya.

He stated, “I confirmed the deaths of people who had been executed by hanging twice. The first time was a group of 17–18 detainees brought to me after the execution. I simply confirmed their deaths, and then the Medical Services Administration handled the burial.”

The second case involved a civilian prisoner convicted of murder and rape under a civilian court ruling. He noted that civilian death sentences were also carried out in Saydnaya Prison.

He explained that during executions, a committee from outside the prison would be brought in to carry out the hanging, while the Medical Services Administration was responsible for the execution and burial procedures, “after presenting the executed individuals to me to confirm death.”

He emphasized that people from outside the prison were present during the executions, underscoring the role of the supervisory committee.

He added, “I spent a year in Saydnaya. The execution system had been in place for ten years.”

The doctor described himself as “the lowest-ranked person in a large military hierarchy,” stating that he only received orders to confirm death and that his role came after the execution had already taken place.

Execution Battalions Led by Doctors

On May 1, 2021, what became known as “execution battalions” were formed inside Saydnaya Prison. Each battalion consisted of eight members, including an assistant named “Iyad A.” and a doctor assigned to supervise executions named “Lujain M.” The mention of the doctor is particularly significant: documents reviewed in cooperation with Zaman al-Wasl do not refer to forensic doctors, but rather to specialist physicians—such as ophthalmologists or dentists—who were brought into execution teams. This raises serious questions about the nature of the role they were expected to play.

A document dating back to 2022 concerning “financial rewards” for members of these battalions reinforces the credibility of their existence and function within the prison. Records indicate that in 2021 alone, more than eight execution battalions were formed in Saydnaya, involving approximately 90 individuals—officers, soldiers, and doctors—some of whom were brought in from the Military Police outside the prison to accommodate the high volume of executions.

However, according to Veronica Belintani of the Syrian Legal Development Program: “Medical personnel who participate in documenting, facilitating, or supervising executions bear criminal responsibility under international criminal law.”

She adds:“Their involvement—whether active or passive—may lead to individual liability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, depending on the circumstances of their participation.”

The Execution Platform

On the morning of December 8, a young man named Ghazi Al-Muhammad was scheduled to be executed alongside 54 other detainees inside Saydnaya Prison. But just hours before the sentence was carried out, the prison garrison fled following the collapse of the regime and Bashar al-Assad’s escape to Moscow. Ghazi survived the execution, while the gallows had already claimed the lives of thousands before him.

And although Ghazi was given a second chance at life, thousands before him were not as fortunate. Among them were the brother of Hayat Al-Turki and five of her relatives. Despite spending four days inside Saydnaya after the prison was opened—searching desperately for any trace of them—she found nothing. She believes they were executed.

What she found instead was silence, emptiness, and the remnants of those who died without a witness and without a grave.

The escape and disappearance of members of the execution committees—those responsible for the killings of hundreds of prisoners—have shattered Hayat’s remaining hope of learning the fate of her loved ones, or of seeing their jailers held accountable during Syria’s transitional justice process.

Inside the Execution Chamber at Saydnaya

The investigation team was able to inspect what is known as the “execution chamber.” The room is located on the lower level of what is referred to as the “White Building” within the Saydnaya Military Prison complex, specifically behind a burned door overlooking the southeastern courtyard of the facility. Its entrance leads to a short staircase of three or four steps, opening into a narrow corridor lined with small cells that once held prisoners awaiting execution.

At the end of the corridor lies the main chamber, which over the years was transformed into a site of mass hangings. Burn marks are still visible on the walls and on the metal bunk beds. Two wooden platforms used for executions remain in place, each preceded by a short set of three steps — exactly as depicted in the architectural diagrams documented by international human rights organizations.

Field evidence indicates that prisoners were led onto these platforms to be suspended from the ceiling, where executioners would pull down on their bodies to accelerate death by breaking the neck. Charred markings and remnants of metal execution ropes attest to the intensive use of the room, which now stands as a silent witness to one of the most systematic and brutal episodes of violence in the prisons of the former Syrian regime.

When Will the Execution Squads Be Prosecuted?

In 2017, a report by Amnesty International documenting mass executions and extermination at Saydnaya Prison concluded that the bodies of detainees who were executed or who died under torture and in inhumane detention conditions were buried in mass graves. One of these sites was visited by the investigation team after the fall of the regime in December 2024.

The executions and enforced disappearances were not isolated acts, but rather a systematic policy overseen by the highest levels of the Assad regime’s security and military leadership.

Fadel Abdul Ghany, director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, states: “These crimes require international legal accountability under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as they constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.”

Regarding the possibility of prosecution, Veronica Belintani emphasizes that: “Universal jurisdiction allows European states to prosecute perpetrators even if the crimes did not occur on their territory, provided sufficient evidence exists and the suspects are within their jurisdiction.”

All official documents related to execution orders were signed by Field Marshal Bashar al-Assad as Commander-in-Chief, and delegated to General Ali Abdullah Ayoub, Minister of Defense. According to international legal experts, this constitutes prima facie evidence of the leadership’s knowledge of, and direct involvement in, the executions.

Refrigeration Room and Mass Graves That Swallow the Evidence

In the dim corridor leading to the refrigeration room on the prison’s lower level, the personal belongings and clothing of detainees are scattered alongside used military blankets. Orange execution uniforms in various sizes—small (S), medium (M), and large (XL)—are strewn across the floor, in the corners, and on the metal steps leading into the chamber.

When the investigation team visited the site in February, the cold winter air added an extra layer of chill to the atmosphere of the refrigeration room, which had been hastily constructed inside the prison to cope with the rising pace of executions and the accumulation of bodies.

A “request memorandum” issued in April 2014 by the Military Police Commander, Major General Akram Salloum Al-Abdullah, shows a request to establish a room for storing the bodies of deceased detainees inside the prison, with a capacity of no less than fifty bodies, due to difficulties in transferring them to hospitals.

The memorandum was submitted directly to the Chief of Staff at the time, General Ali Abdullah Ayoub, who signed it with approval, indicating once again that senior leadership was aware of these practices — and authorized them.

Aya Majzoub, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, states: “Extrajudicial executions and killings carried out through summary procedures constitute grave violations of international human rights law, and may amount to crimes against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, pursuant to a state or organizational policy to carry out such an ‘attack’ or to further that policy.”

According to Amnesty International, the application of the death penalty in Syria violates international human rights standards, specifically Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which restricts the death penalty to “the most serious crimes” and requires that it only be imposed following a fair trial.

By examining official documents from Saydnaya Military Prison, the Syrian Detainees and Detainees’ Councilconcluded that the number of death sentences carried out inside the prison against detainees from the revolution reached 15,347 executions, issued solely by the Military Field Court and the Counter-Terrorism Court—not including deaths resulting from torture, medical neglect, or disease, which are estimated to be several times higher.

Rituals of Mass Death

Mohammad Fares and Adnan are among eight former prisoners interviewed by SIRAJ who were released from Saydnaya. Fares provided the investigation team with a list of 65 individuals executed in July 2021.

Fares was sentenced to death without ever appearing in court.
He says: “I survived execution only after my family paid $100,000 to have the sentence reduced to life imprisonment.”
He adds:
“Everything in Saydnaya Prison was for sale — even lives.”

Marwan Al-Ash, a member of the Syrian Detainees and Detainees’ Council, explains: “Everything is carried out under strict secrecy. Bodies are not returned to families, and no burial ceremonies are allowed. Death is recorded on paper, and the bodies are buried in the ground without a trace.”

According to Al-Ash’s estimates, 300,000 people were forcibly disappeared for security-related reasons in Syria between 2011 and 2024. Around 90,000 detainees are believed to have entered Saydnaya Prison, while no more than 4,200 are estimated to have survived.

Media advisor at the National Commission for the Missing, Zeina Shahla, explains that the Commission does not yet have consolidated estimates regarding the number of missing persons in the prison, as it is still in the early stages of establishing its foundational framework. She notes that the Commission is responsible for uncovering the fate of the missing across all detention sites—including Saydnaya—using documents, collective interviews, and various documentation methods.

In May of last year, the new Syrian government established a state-level National Commission for the Missing, an independent Syrian body tasked with determining the fate of tens of thousands of disappeared and forcibly disappeared individuals in the country, and ensuring justice for their families.

The Hidden Role of Doctors in Concealing Evidence

The violations against victims of execution at Saydnaya did not end when they fell from the gallows. The abuse continued after death, through a complex system designed to hide the truth and erase identities. After executions, the bodies were transferred to military hospitals, where they were reduced to numbers in official registers that concealed the real crimes.

Official documents reviewed by the investigation team reveal the involvement of doctors and officers at Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus in receiving dozens of bodies transferred from security branches and prisons. They routinely recorded false causes of death, such as “cardiac arrest” or “heart failure,” while the true cause was execution by hanging.

One of the key figures appearing in the documents is Brigadier General Dr. Ismail Jadallah Kiwan. Documents covering a period of less than four months in 2016 show that he received more than 82 bodies of detainees and recorded the cause of death in almost all cases as “sudden cardiac arrest.”

The documents also show that, in the same period, Kiwan received 746 detainees in critical condition due to torture, most of whom remain unaccounted for. Given that these documents represent only a small window within his 14-year tenure, sources estimate that the total number of detainees and bodies he handled could exceed 10,000.

Kiwan’s role was not limited to Tishreen Hospital. The documents also link him directly to the numbering of bodies at Military Hospital 601, one of the central facilities for receiving and processing the victims of torture in Damascus.

With the fall of the regime on December 8, 2024, Kiwan fled the hospital, leaving behind a record saturated with evidence of systematic medical complicity in one of the most extensive, organized efforts to conceal crimes in modern Syrian history.

The investigation team examined the logbook of Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus, which contains lists of detainees transferred from security branches. Next to the name of each detainee who arrived deceased, only the word “body” (جثة) was written—without any reference to the cause or circumstances of death—reflecting a deliberate attempt to erase evidence and conceal the truth.

The records also included the names of several doctors and nurses suspected of involvement in these procedures, including the hospital director Moufid Darwish, forensic doctor Akram Al-Shaar, and other medical and administrative personnel who either documented the cases or supervised the receipt of bodies.

Contributors:
Omar Al-Bam contributed to this investigation
Creative coordination and visual design: Radwan Awad

The editorial team at SIRAJ has withheld the full names of members of the execution squads at Saydnaya Prison, and faces have been blurred, in order to protect the public interest and prevent any extrajudicial retaliation, in line with the principles of transitional justice in Syria.

The post The ‘Chain Committees’: SIRAJ Uncovers the Secret Execution Squads in Sednaya Prison and Interviews Their Members appeared first on SIRAJ.

Credit: SIRAJ Chemicals used to make Captagon found inside an abandoned drug production facility in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria.

Fighters from the new Syrian government forces uncover Captagon pills hidden inside an electrical power adapter in a facility used to produce Captagon under the previous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria.

Credit: Screenshot of a Facebook post by Syria’s Ministry of the Interior Syria’s Ministry of the Interior announced a Captagon seizure in Al Nabak, Syria, on June 27, 2025.

Credit: Ali Al Ibrahim/SIRAJ, Fighters from the new Syrian government forces inside a Captagon production facility in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria.

Credit: Lebanese Army, Lebanese authorities dismantled a clandestine Captagon lab in Hermel, near the Syrian border, after seizing a truck in May 2025 loaded with drug-making equipment.

The post Captagon Drug Networks Adapt and Survive in Middle East After Assad’s Fall appeared first on SIRAJ.

Over a decade, Syria’s security services took hundreds of children from their parents and hid them in a network of orphanages in order to coerce their families into cooperating with the regime. Some of the orphanages were run by major European charity SOS Children’s Villages, whose leadership knew for years and remained silent.

Hundreds of cases confirmed; thousands still missing

Over nine months, Syrian and international reporters from six media outlets built a database of children hidden by the Syrian regime as part of the Syria’s Stolen Children investigation.

Following the fall of the al-Assad regime in December 2024, we reviewed thousands of leaked and gathered documents with the names of over 300 children who were confined to orphanages by Syrian intelligence, some of them for years. Analysis of these records shows many were still toddlers when they were taken from families, and several were newborns. The files reveal systematic coordination between intelligence agencies, government ministries, and Syrian and international orphanages.

We found evidence of missing and possible falsified records that indicate the actual number of children who disappeared into orphanages is likely much higher. Some children were falsely recorded as abandoned orphans; others were referred to by new names. Families are still searching for at least 3,700 children who went missing under al-Assad.

Orphanages used as prisons; children as pawns

Over 100 interviews with families, whistleblowers and officials uncovered disturbing new details that undermine the orphanages’ justification that they were simply protecting children whose parents were jailed. Most parents were refused information about where their children were being taken. When grandparents and uncles did track them down, orphanages often refused to give their children back and sometimes denied they were even there.

Layla and Layan – two “disappeared” children ​taken in by SOS Syria, who have since been found by their mother. Thousands are still missing. | Image: BBC Eye / Jess Kelly

While living at the orphanages, the children remained under the strict control of the security services. Leaked intelligence files show that top security officials ordered orphanages to keep the children’s presence confidential, deny relatives’ custody and ask permission before making any decisions about the children, such as whether they could attend school. Staff were told not to talk to them about their families and to keep them out of publicity materials and public activities.

Intelligence records show why: the children were explicitly being held at orphanages in order to pressure their parents to collaborate with the regime. Many children were only reunited with their families as part of a prisoner exchange with armed opposition groups. Some, the children of suspected foreign fighters, were deported to Russia and Iraq.

A major international charity was complicit and kept silent

The largest number of children in our database were sent to orphanages run by an Austria-headquartered charity, SOS Children’s Villages International, which operates in more than 130 countries and raises around €1.6 billion annually, including from the UN, European governments and personal donations.

SOS’ top leaders kept this quiet until the regime fell, seven years after whistleblowers first informed international staff. During this time, the international charity did not apologise, compensate or offer support to families. A senior staff member told us “senior executives didn’t want to know the details and hid away from concrete action and responsibility.” Most of the children were returned to government custody and until today, SOS says it does not know what happened to them.

Many families with missing children say Austria-headquartered charity SOS Children’s Villages was complicit in their disappearance and has offered minimal support since the fall of the regime | Image: BBC Eye / Jess Kelly

The charity, whose Syria branch was led by the daughter of a close Assad aide, says it stopped accepting children of detainees in 2018. But official records indicate that intelligence agencies continued to refer several children to SOS as late as 2022. SOS denies receiving the requests or the children.

SOS Syria is funded by European donations as well the United Kingdom and United States. Bashar al-Assad was sanctioned by the EU in 2011, his wife Asmaa al-Assad in 2012. But several whistleblowers told us that most of the senior positions at SOS Syria were appointed directly by the Assad palace and that Asma al-Assad played a leading role in the organisation. SOS Children’s Villages International said it is investigating what happened in Syria and said it was not in line with their usual policies.

Families lack support or a path to accountability

We spoke to over 100 families, orphanage employees and government officials. Some parents still lack basic details about where their children were held. Their children remain traumatised by the forced separation during formative early years. Many more families are still searching for any clues that their children might still be alive, their identities and whereabouts potentially lost in the chaotic orphanage archives.

Syria’s new transitional government has struggled to respond to the families’ needs and demands for answers and accountability. An official inquiry established in January was folded into a new committee in May, which led to a series of high profile arrests in July, but it has few resources and is yet to release any findings.

Reem al-Kari has still not found her son Karim, who was aged two-and-a-half when he went missing in 2013 | Image: BBC Eye / Jess Kelly

Leading human rights lawyer Kimberly Motely says, “the key findings of the project indicate that the children could be the victims of crimes against humanity, particularly in the forms of imprisonment or deprivation of liberty, persecution, and enforced disappearance.”

Syria’s Stolen Children is a joint investigation coordinated by Lighthouse Reports in partnership with Syrian investigative journalists from Women Who Won the War and SIRAJ and international journalists from BBC Eye, The Observer, Der Spiegel and Trouw, and also published by Sowt and Al-Jumhuriya.

METHODS

When al-Assad’s security state suddenly collapsed, journalists, activists and families had access to sources, locations and documents that were previously unimaginable under the decades-long dictatorship. Some families began to speak out about a secret they’d held for years – that their children had been forced into orphanages.

To understand the scale and inner workings of this system of state-run disappearances, over nine months we conducted more than 100 interviews with families, current and former orphanage staff in Syria, government officials, whistleblowers, activists, lawyers and other witnesses. We spoke to over 50 SOS insiders around the globe and scrutinised their internal investigations, financial documents and public statements.

We obtained thousands of official documents from the Syrian Ministry of Social Affairs, Airforce Intelligence and orphanages in Syria, including confidential correspondence, detainee lists, referral files, log books and detailed case records, making sure not to remove or otherwise interfere with these documents in order to preserve evidence for potential future justice mechanisms.

In order to authenticate the documents, we carefully reviewed them for inconsistencies and compared their contents to publicly available information, including social media posts, media and human rights reports and detailed documentation collected by Syrian civil society over the years. In some cases, we accessed legal records to verify charges against parents. When the same children appeared in files from multiple sources, we cross-checked key information such as file numbers, names and dates of birth across different sources.

Using these documents, we built a database of verified children of national security detainees who were transferred to orphanages, which ultimately included over 320 unique names. To distinguish between them and the thousands of minors arrested by Syrian security services for political activity or routine crimes, we applied the following minimum criteria:

• Child was under the age of 18 at the time of arrest
• Arresting agency was one of four intelligence services, not civilian polic
• Child was not personally accused of any crime, but an immediate family member was accused of a political or national security-related crime
• Child was separated from their guardian(s) and transferred to a civilian childcare organization without any attempt to locate relatives or other suitable caregivers

We gathered contact information for parents and relatives through open sources and our networks of contacts. Informed by trauma experts on how to interview families experiencing “ambiguous loss”, we spoke to the families of 54 children placed in orphanages by the security services, as well as dozens of others still searching for missing children. We compiled information about each of the 320 cases through interviews and documents, which we used to analyse key trends in how and why the regime hid children in orphanages.

STORYLINES

Over 100,000 people went missing under the Assad regime, including thousands of children. Syria has one of the largest populations of missing people in the world. After the regime fell in December 2024, thousands poured out of prisons and some mass graves were discovered. But most families found no trace of their loved ones.

Syria’s Stolen Children, a documentary by BBC Eye, follows the journeys of three mothers who are still trying to find their missing children, reunite with those held in orphanages or seek justice for what happened to their family. They confront a labyrinth bureaucracy, missing and falsified records, and broken promises.

The system that swallowed their children was overseen by the top levels of al-Assad’s security apparatus and government, Al-Jumhiriya reports. In a podcast series, released on Sowt as well as Syrian radio stations, grandmothers describe begging the orphanages to see their children, while jailed parents were taunted with their disappearance during interrogations.

Mohammed Ghbeis was a few days old when he was taken by security agents from an incubator in a Damascus hospital. His mother, still recovering from a C-section, was also detained, along with seven other family members. The next time she saw Mohammed, during a prison visit, he was a year old, already taking his first steps. They did not recognise each other.

Mohammad and his cousins spent three years living in orphanages before they were released in a prisoner exchange. They are still living with the impact of those lost years. The Observer reports how families like Mohammad’s were harmed by the very institutions meant to protect them, and documents years of allegations of abuse across SOS’ global operations. In Syria, the investigation found evidence staff subjected young children to virginity tests and abuse allegations were not properly investigated.

The charity, founded in 1949 by Austrian Hermann Gmeiner, is popular in Europe and collects millions of euros in personal donations. Der Spiegel reports how a German association of SOS funded the majority of SOS Syria’s budget until this year, when it decided to phase out funding because “the well-being of the children… can no longer be reliably guaranteed.” In the Netherlands, Trouw reports that the Dutch association has also suspended funds. SIRAJ reports that SOS had partnered with Asma al-Assad’s Syria Trust for Development for many years, despite international sanctions on the al-Assads.

The post Syria’s Stolen Children appeared first on SIRAJ.

Our investigation exposes the extent of an international network fuelling a multi-billion-dollar drug industry stretching from the port of Nhava Sheva in India, via Beirut, to a mysterious, long fortified mansion in the Damascus Suburb. The whole network was masterminded by the Assad’s regime Syrian army’s Fourth Division, under the command of Maher al-Assad, using official pharmaceutical cover.

Businessman and former MP Amer Tayseer Kheiti took over an old potato chip factory in the city of Douma, in the Damascus suburbs, and turned it into a well-guarded drug production facility under the supervision of the Fourth Division.

The chemicals found in the Captagon factories had come from India, China, Germany, and Britain.

In 2021, Indian authorities recorded the export to Syria of 400 drums of diphenhydramine, a pharmaceutical compound used as an antihistamine. The listed recipient for the shipment was a company called Future Pharmaceuticals. The point of arrival was given as Beirut port, from where it was transported by road to the Damascus suburb. There, the shipment arrived at the warehouse of the official Syrian importer: the chemical company Eyad Laham and Partner, based in the Damascus suburb.

All the official documents were there: approvals from the ministries of health, economy and customs, and a shipping route that appeared legal and gave no grounds for suspicion.

But behind this bureaucratic façade, a completely different operation had been put together by people involved in the Captagon industry.

On December 8 2024, these same drums of diphenhydramine came to light at a secret Captagon making facility housed in a mansion on the outskirts of Damascus that was under the control of the Syrian army’s Fourth Division, commanded by Maher al-Assad, brother of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This plant was not licensed, and the fact that the drums were there was no coincidence.

Photos from inside one of the Captagon production factories, which the investigation team visited

That day brought to light a hidden network that had been quietly operating for more than a decade, protected by the walls of a mansion shrouded in secrecy for 13 years.

The mansion sits between the towns of Yafour and Dimmas in a strategic area west of Damascus, on the international highway between Beirut, Damascus and the Damascus suburb area, and had for years been the preserve of the Fourth Division.

With the end of the Assad family’s rule in Syria, local people were finally able to see behind the gilded iron gates and marble walls of this mansion and discover its secrets.

We are now inside Syria’s largest Captagon factory

This investigation charts the global supply chains that fuelled the Captagon industry in Syria, which had one of the fastest-growing synthetic drug economies in the world. Captagon, a powerful amphetamine, not only drove a regional addiction crisis, but also became a financial lifeline for sanctioned elements of the Assad regime, for the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, and for their networks across the Levant.

A study by the Center for Operational Analysis and Research (COAR) shows that Syria became a global hub for the production of Captagon and reached an unprecedented level of sophistication in drug manufacture during the Assad regime, thanks to its large-scale production and export of Captagon. The value of the Captagon trade outstripped the country’s legal exports many times over, making it an economic lifeline for the former Syrian regime and its allies.

The Captagon Room

Walking past piles of bags and hundreds of drums filled with various raw materials, ARIJ’s investigation team – working alongside journalists from the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism Association (Siraj) – was able to examine the contents of one of the palace’s spacious ground floor rooms. They found black bags and large blue and black containers which were stamped with numbers, barcodes and coding strings, which made it possible to track them from their country of origin to the final importer.

An image from the database documenting the raw materials found inside the Captagon factories belonging to the Fourth Division in Damascus.

We established that ten essential chemicals had been imported from factories in China, India, Malaysia, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom. One particular shipment contained diphenhydramine. This is a substance used in making counterfeit Captagon tablets, many of which have been seized in Europe.

A shipment of drugs, labelled as “perfumes and cosmetics” in the shipping document, was sent from a pharmaceutical factory in the Indian state of Gujarat to a Lebanese company in the western Bekaa. This document, bearing the signature of the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) – one of the world’s largest shipping companies, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland – appears normal. It shows the name of the shipper, the recipient, and the contents of the container, listed as “cosmetics”.

The Lebanese company involved was the local branch of the Syrian-owned Mak Overseas Shipping & Clearance. It is based in the town of Al-Rafid, near the Lebanon-Syria border, and owned by a Lebanese national and two Syrian partners.

What the details of the shipping documents fail to mention is that the main ingredient of the consignment (diphenhydramine) is one of the components used in the manufacture of Captagon tablets. When it arrived in Lebanon, the shipment did not go to a shop or perfume factory, but was instead sent on to Syria. There, secret workshops controlled by the Fourth Division in areas like Douma have been actively producing hundreds of thousands of tablets for export to the Gulf and Europe.

From database searches and contacts with the Lebanese authorities, we found that this shipment had transited through Lebanon to Syria under an import licence from the Syrian Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade – and with the approval of the Environment Directorate in Damascus Suburb,  and the former minister of economy – for use in the manufacture of medicines.

According to documents obtained by our team of investigators, the material was shipped by Mak Overseas from the Alcon Biosciences plant in India via the port of Nhava Sheva to the Logistic Free Zone Beirut port. It was then transported by land to Tripoli and from there to Jdeidet Yabous in the Damascus Suburb.

After the consignment entered Syria, it was stored in a warehouse belonging to chemical company Eyad Laham and Partner in Jdeidet Artouz in the Damascus Suburb area, before being sold on to Future Pharmaceuticals in Aleppo, according to the import licence No. 21020101.

A recurring pattern of financial irregularities and smuggling

Shipping documents list 400 barrels of diphenhydramine with a total weight of ten tonnes and a value of US$20,000 along with official approvals for their use in the manufacture of medicines.

Shipping and receipt of the shipment

Bill of lading

Lebanese transit statement

Syrian clearance documents

Receipt from Future Pharmaceuticals

It is important to note that the owner of Future Pharmaceuticals, Omar Farouk Barakat, has a criminal record for smuggling, according to an official decision issued by the Syrian Ministry of Finance.

Official records show a long history of financial and legal violations linked to Barakat and his company. On December 16 2014, his movable and immovable assets were provisionally impounded under case No. 21/2014 of the Third Anti-Narcotics Unit, for smuggling imported goods worth 78,453,500 Syrian pounds. He faced a maximum fine of 627,628,000 Syrian pounds. This seizure of assets was temporarily lifted on May 17 2015, after the legal grounds for it lapsed.

However, on 4 February 2016, a new financial seizure was imposed on the Future Pharmaceuticals plant in Kafr Dael-Mansoura and its legal representative Omar Barakat, under case No. 4/2015. This covered smuggling of imported goods not exempt from seizure with a value of 20,510,637 Syrian pounds, a charge carrying a maximum fine of 102,553,185 Syrian pounds.

On September 7 2020, a third seizure of assets was ordered on Barakat and on any assets held by his wife, under case No. 42/2020 run by the same authority (Third Anti-Narcotics Unit). This time the charge was illicit import and export of goods exempt from seizure (translator’s note: should be not exempt?), worth 502,856,725 Syrian pounds, which carried a maximum fine of 3,787,493,300 Syrian pounds.

Finally, Omar Farouk Barakat’s name reappears in the Syrian Official Gazette on July 25 2024, in connection with another financial seizure. This all reflects a clear pattern of repeated violations and links to cases of smuggling and tax evasion over at least ten years.

Despite this track record, Barakat’s Future Pharmaceuticals plant obtained the necessary approval to import large quantities of diphenhydramine under official import licence no. 210201014715. We found some of this substance at a Captagon manufacturing facility, allegedly controlled by the Fourth Division.

Syrian Official Gazette entry on seizure of assets from the owner of the Future Pharmaceuticals plant.

Our investigation team consulted three pharmaceutical industry experts – two pharmacists and a drug factory production manager – and shared with them details of the shipment the roughly 400 drums (around ten tonnes) of diphenhydramine, imported by the Future Pharmaceutical factory in Syria.

All three experts agreed that the quantity of diphenhydramine imported had “no pharmaceutical justification” and was inappropriate for the needs of any licensed drug factory, even if the substance was used across a variety of treatments, such as creams, syrups and tablets.

Aya Al-Oran, a pharmacist with a master’s degree in pharmaceutical technology from Anadolu University in Turkey, explains that this amount of imported diphenhydramine (about ten tonnes of raw material) was so large that it would be difficult to justify for any pharmaceutical use.

According to Al-Oran, the amount of diphenhydramine was enough to produce in theory around ten million boxes of medicine at the maximum dose (50 milligrams), or up to 25 million boxes at the less common 12.5 milligram dose. She adds: “To handle such huge quantities would need a plant with a production capacity of around 7,000 boxes, which is way more than most local drug factories could manage, without a large distribution or export network.”

“The limited shelf life of the active ingredient, especially when it’s in a highly perishable form like syrup, means it may need to be used within just two years. This reinforces the hypothesis that these large quantities were intended for some purpose other than normal medicinal use,” says Al-Oran.

Arafat Tayawi, production manager at a drug factory in Hama province, agrees that it is impossible that any licensed factory would need such quantities for purely medicinal use.

Ayman Khosraf is a pharmacist specialising in laboratory diagnostics and a researcher in biotechnology at Gaziantep University in Turkey. He says that 400 drums (ten tonnes) of imported diphenhydramine is far in excess of what any normal medicinal drug laboratory would need.

He goes on to explain, however, that that the economic and security environment within which the pharmaceutical industry in Syria operated during the war years made it difficult for local companies to completely ensure the tracking of shipments or to control their end use.

“The prevailing security environment forced many drug firms to yield to powerful networks, either through direct pressure or the use of front companies that were given licenses to import materials which were then diverted into making narcotics. In such an environment, the license holder is not always the real decision maker,” says Khosraf.

A former worker at a Captagon manufacturing plant in Damascus revealed exclusively to our investigation team that the essential chemicals would arrive in Lebanon with legal commercial documents that classified them as cosmetics, food supplements or medicines. Then they would be taken across the border to secret production facilities run by people close to the Assad family.

“No one asked any questions,” he says. “The paperwork was all in order, and the shipments went through as if they were for making ordinary medicines. It wasn’t just a one-off. This was an organised system designed to keep the vital supply chains running for making Captagon, despite the international sanctions that the Assad regime and its institutions linked to chemical production were under at the time.”

In the spring of 2024, a World Bank report estimated that the Captagon market in Syria was worth between $1.9 billion and $5.6 billion a year, not far short of Syria’s total GDP for 2023. The report stated that “entities linked to Syria” had profited from the various stages of the Captagon trade, from production to distribution. It estimated annual revenues at between $0.6 billion and $1.9 billion.

In its response to questions from our investigation team, the interior ministry of the current Syrian government said that “those who ran the narcotics networks in Syria were the leading figures in Assad’s regime and worked under his direct supervision.” The ministry said that some of those involved had fled after the fall of the regime, while the rest were being tracked down inside the country.

Inside the mansion, a production line had been set up amid the scattered drums labelled as containing diphenhydramine. Dozens more such drums, all of them from the same Indian factory, were to be found in the warehouse,.

The production section in the mansion used to make Captagon tablets – exclusive

It was somewhat surprising to find diphenhydramine in a plant making Captagon, since this substance has a sedative effect, causing drowsiness and possibly dizziness, dryness of the mouth and eyes, blurred vision and raised heart rate.

According to Dr Nicola Lee, a researcher at the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University in the US (translator’s note: Curtin University’s NDRI is located in Perth, Australia, not the US) diphenhydramine has an opposite effect to that of the stimulant Captagon. She adds that the manufacture of fake Captagon is not well regulated, making it even more dangerous.

The use of diphenhydramine in the manufacture of fake Captagon from Syria came as no surprise, however, to other researchers and law enforcement authorities. The US Centre for Forensic Science Research and Education (CFSRE) points out that this and other materials go into making counterfeit Captagon, according to research conducted in collaboration with the Forensic Laboratories Department of the Public Security Directorate in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

According to the CFSRE, mixing together sedatives and stimulants does not cancel out their effects, but instead brings about a state of complex agitation in the user. It engenders a feeling of excitement and euphoria but also slow or confused thinking, impaired decision-making and increased impulsive behaviour.

Diphenhydramine was used in the manufacture of a consignment of counterfeit Captagon tablets from Syria seized in Romania in 2020. The German authorities also reported that diphenhydramine was found in some consignments of Captagon, according to a report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in 2023.

Laurent Laniel, a researcher on crime and drugs at the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), says that forensic analysis of seized Captagon tablets carried out by several EU countries revealed the presence of diphenhydramine in many of the samples. The main active ingredient detected, however, was amphetamine.

Being an illegal substance, amphetamine is expensive to make or purchase from illegal sources, Laniel adds. That is why cheaper and more readily available substances – like caffeine, theophylline and diphenhydramine – are often used in the manufacture of Captagon tablets.

From India to Beirut

About a year after the Captagon seizure in Romania, a consignment of diphenhydramine arrived at Beirut port from India.

According to the labels on the drums, the Indian company Alcon Biosciences Private Limited, which manufactured the diphenhydramine in early 2021, shipped 400 drums of it through Beirut port to a company called Mak Overseas Shipping & Clearance.

One of the barrels of diphenhydramine found in the unlicensed factory

Caroline Rose, director of the Crime-Conflict Nexus and Military Withdrawals Portfolio at the New Lines Institute, says that China and India are main centres for the production of dual-use raw materials. These are chemicals that can be used to manufacture synthetic drugs, but which are not listed by the International Narcotics Control Board. This means they are not subject to any security or legal controls.

Rose adds that the lack of any legal restriction on the trade in dual-use raw materials, coupled with easy trading routes with China and India, may be offering Syrian Captagon producers a golden opportunity to continue their activities.

The Ministry of Interior states that “shipments of raw materials and equipment used in the manufacturing process would enter Syria illegally or be classified as pharmaceutical manufacturing machinery.” It explains that “organisations supplying the country with logistical materials are criminal organisations and networks, and we are coordinating with several other countries to dismantle them.”

Responding to questions from the investigation team, the Lebanese General Directorate of Customs said “it appears that a consignment of diphenhydramine entered through the free zone in the port of Beirut and was transited on to Syria, in accordance with legal procedures and official documents. It has been established that the Syrian importing company was duly licensed and had obtained an import permit for this consignment from the Syrian Ministry of Economy and Trade, with the approval of both the Directorate of Environment in the Damascus Suburb and the Minister of Economy for use in the manufacture of medicines.”

But, though the shipment was exported for legitimate purposes, many of the drums of diphenhydramine ended up in an illegal Captagon plant in the Damascus suburb, the same area where approvals for the imported shipment had been issued.

The company responsible for the shipping and logistics denied any knowledge of what had happened to the consignment. In a written response dated June 25 2025, Mak Overseas Shipping & Clearance wrote that its role was limited to providing “logistical services.” It said the shipment of diphenhydramine was sent to Syria “legally”, with official authorisation, including a licence issued by the Syrian Ministry of Health.

The company went on to say it delivered the drums “to a well-known pharmaceutical plant” in Damascus and that it was not responsible for what happened subsequently, emphasising that material was “not subject to control” and was not listed as a banned substance.

The company said it did not know how the shipment had ended up in a secret factory rumoured to be run by a company directly linked to the Fourth Division, commanded by the ex president’s brother, Maher al-Assad.

According to documents obtained by the investigation team, the consignment of diphenhydramine left the port of Beirut on October 25 2021, and passed through Tripoli to the Eyad Laham warehouse in the Damascus suburb, before being sent on to the Future Pharmaceutical factory in Aleppo.

Future Pharmaceuticals failed to answer our questions over whether it had taken delivery of the shipment of diphenhydramine or how dozens of drums from it had ended up in a mansion in the Damascus Suburb used for manufacturing Captagon.

We were unable to find any registered address for the Eyad Laham and Partner company in the Damascus Suburb. When we called the number given in the Lebanese customs clearance documents as that of the company receiving the shipment, it turned out that the number was that of the shipping company, Mak Overseas. The investigation team also contacted five pharmacies in the Jdeidet Artouz area, the most likely location for the company. But all of them said they had no knowledge of it and had never had dealings with it.

Transport via Lebanon

Caroline Rose, from the New Lines Institute, who has conducted extensive research into the Captagon trade in Syria, thinks that using Lebanese ports, like Beirut, to import raw materials for making Captagon is a way of averting suspicion, given the distrust surrounding those circles loyal to the former regime in Syria. She argues that transporting raw materials through Lebanon instead of exporting them directly to Syria may be an attempt to conceal the illegal production and trading of Captagon inside Syria and to maintain the fiction that Syria is merely a transit hub and not a manufacturing country.

A former production manager at a Syrian pharmaceutical company revealed that the raw materials used in the manufacture of Captagon, such as phenylacetone and phenylacetic acid, arrive in Lebanon in shipments from countries like Iran, China and India and are then driven into Syria. These materials are listed as ingredients for making pharmaceuticals or cleaning products, which makes it easier to take them across borders without arousing suspicion.

We found more information about how the ingredients used to make Captagon pass between Syria and Lebanon from the file the Lebanese Internal Security Forces have on Hassan Daqqou, the so-called “Captagon King” and others charged with trafficking and smuggling Captagon.

This case file, which runs to over 500 pages, shows that one of the accused had been smuggling chemicals used to make Captagon – like caffeine, lactose and paracetamol – between Syria and Lebanon since 2013.

Infographic here

Caption: Route of diphenhydramine shipment from India to Damascus suburb

The investigation file showed that the suspect also acted as an intermediary between Daqqou (who was living in Beirut) and customers in Syria who required oil for use in making Captagon.

The investigating authorities (the information division of the Internal Security Forces) also found a conversation on Hassan Daqqou’s phone in which he had asked one of the suspected drug traffickers and manufacturers to obtain some ephedrine, used in the manufacture of Captagon. In 2014, a deal was concluded to purchase eight sacks (large bags for carrying bulk materials like chemicals) of caustic soda and ammonium bicarbonate, both substances “suspected of being used in the manufacture of Captagon.” Daqqou, however, denied knowing anything about these phone messages.

Daqqou was reported as saying he has been part of the Syrian Fourth Division security team since 2014, and used to enter Syria from Lebanon in Hezbollah convoys.

Daqqou was put on the US sanctions list in 2023 for his involvement in “drug smuggling operations by the Syrian army’s Fourth Division, commanded by Maher al-Assad, under Hezbollah cover.”

The Fourth Division and the Captagon industry

After the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011 ,and the Syrian regime’s violent response, the European Union imposed a range of sanctions on Syria covering 23 sectors.

Despite the ban on sale of products used in the oil, electricity and other sectors, which the former regime could have used in the violent clampdown on civilians, some of the raw materials used in the manufacture of Captagon remained exempt from sanctions. This was due in part to the fact that some of these materials are used also in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

A statement by the UK government in 2023, estimated that 80 per cent of the world’s Captagon was made in Syria. And independent experts have put the value of the Captagon trade in Syria at $57 billion.

In August 2011, the US issued Executive Order 13582, imposing sanctions on the former Syrian regime. By 2019, the US administration had enacted the Caesar Act, which imposes secondary sanctions on anyone proved to have knowingly provided significant support to the Syrian government.

The US administration set out to punish anyone involved in the Captagon industry, pointing out that proceeds from the “illicit Captagon trade have become a major source of income for the Assad regime, the Syrian armed forces, and paramilitary forces in Syria.”

The US Treasury Department repeatedly linked the Fourth Division to illicit trade, particularly that involving Captagon, saying: “Maher al-Assad and the Fourth Division are known to run numerous illicit revenue streams, ranging from cigarette and mobile phone smuggling, to facilitating the production and smuggling of Captagon.”

Syria’s interior ministry has revealed that its investigations have led to “the seizure of over ten major factories and smaller workshops since the fall of the regime” and that they were “mostly located in areas controlled by the Fourth Division.”

The factory in the Damascus Suburb and the Fourth Division

After the fall of the Assad regime, video clips circulated on social media showing people from villages along the Damascus and Lebanon highway entering the mansion where we found the shipment of diphenhydramine. There they found rooms crammed with drums, large sacks and thick plastic bags filled with bulk raw materials as well as scales and mixers, while out in the courtyard were forklifts and packing machines.

Those posting the videos linked the factory to Maher al-Assad’s Fourth Division.

Mohammed Arsali, who lives in the Dimmas area in the Damascus Suburb, says the mansion was controlled by Fourth Division’s security office, headed by Bassim Fawzi Deeb, and that security barriers lined the main road leading to it.

Arsali goes on to say that, after discovering what had gone on inside the mansion, they summoned a local dignitary, who decided to burn the drugs, while the contents of the factory remained under heavy guard.

Another local resident, Shadi Sohoud, said that the whole area up to three kilometres around the mansion was full of luxury houses, owned by Syrians and other nationalities. He said that, from 2012, the security forces of the former regime had controlled the area, while the road to it had been under tight security from the Fourth Division.

Arsali reports that trucks would drive to and from the luxury house along the road to this area without local people knowing what they were carrying.

Testimony from local residents also indicates that huge trucks had used this road for years without anyone knowing what was inside them. Several accounts confirm that Bassim Fawzi Deeb, who was a major in Dimmas before being promoted to colonel, subsequently took charge of the security office adjacent to the mansion. Witness said that no truck could enter or move except on his direct orders.

In response to our questions, the Syrian Ministry of Interior said that “most of the major Captagon manufacturing plants seized after the fall of the regime came under the Fourth Division and were concentrated in border areas and along the Syrian coast.”

A soap factory… brainwashing

Our investigation team documented the presence of raw materials used in the manufacture of counterfeit Captagon in another factory, on a hill overlooking a main road west of Damascus, a place also under the control of the Fourth Division.

Inside vast, unlit warehouses on abandoned land in the city of Douma, our team spotted thousands of narcotics concealed inside pieces of furniture, artificial fruit, coloured gravel and even electrical voltage stabilisers. These impounded materials had been stacked on wooden pallets, ready to be loaded onto a truck outside.

The huge building, surrounded by high walls, had originally been a factory for producing potato crisps, but was later turned into a plant for making narcotics, well-fortified and under tight security.

After the fall of the Syrian regime, the factory was opened up to local residents for the first time in years. One of them, Abu Ahmad, a man in his sixties who recently returned to his land next to the factory, said: “We all knew this factory belonged to the Fourth Division and was under Maher al-Assad’s control. No one would dare go near it. We used to watch these lorries and huge refrigerated trucks carrying stuff at night. If they headed south, we knew they were on their way to Jordan or the Gulf, and if they went north, they were going towards the sea.”

The factory stands between two hills and can be seen at night from the centre of Douma. It was run by Amer Tayseer Kheiti, a well-known businessman and former member of the Syrian parliament, who was sanctioned by the US in 2020, over his ties to the Assad regime. The UK also imposed sanctions on him, because he owned multiple companies in Syria “which facilitate the production and smuggling of drugs, including Captagon.”

Known to be one of the financial fronts of the Fourth Division, Kheiti fled the country after the regime fell. He had set up the factory in 2017, employing both military personnel and pharmacists affiliated with the Fourth Division to run its production lines.

The factory site

Mohammed Fares al-Toot, the original owner of the factory, told the investigation team: “My brothers and I owned this place, as well as a number of plants specialising in food and canned goods. This was the biggest factory in Syria and maybe the whole Middle east for potato crisps.”

The plant was taken over in 2018, he said. “Amid all the chaos in Syria, Amer Tayseer Kheiti took over the factory. He was an agent for Maher al-Assad and Ghassan Bilal, of the Fourth Division.”

He said that it had been badly damaged: “There were more than 160 production lines at the plant … everything was looted, stolen.”

Our investigation team managed to gain entry to the site after the fall of the regime and found large quantities of chemicals, including chloroform, formaldehyde, hydrochloric acid, petroleum ether and ethyl acetate. They were stored in brown boxes bearing the logo of a major UK chemical company.

Inside the Captagon manufacturing plant in Douma – which had been under the control of the Fourth Division, commanded by Maher al-Assad – the team found boxes of xylene, a pure chemical usually used as a laboratory solvent and classified as harmful to health under European safety standards.

Xylene is sometimes used as a solvent in the manufacture of amphetamine, the main active ingredient in Captagon, particularly when it is made using irregular production lines relying on cheap, readily available chemicals.

The 2.5 litre containers found inside the laboratory carried the name of Surechem Products Ltd, a British company based in Suffolk, England. The labels on them  showed the production batch number 16448/3a and an expiry date of November 2015.

Documents show that the shipment was imported into Syria to a company called Manqiz Habbal and Brothers, based on Al-Alamein Street in Hama, through a distributor called Arwani Trading.

In one of the rooms, we found hundreds of business cards in the name Amer Tayseer Kheiti, clearly showing that he had directly overseen the operations at the plant and its conversion into what residents called a “brainwashing factory.”

Abu Ahmad was not the only witness to what had been going on there. Another man from Douma, whose right leg showed signs of torture, broke in saying he had been detained by the Fourth Division: “Their men would come and go from the factory in black cars, some without licence plates. They stopped me going into the quarry next door and told me not to come back to that area. They did the same to many farmers.”

Lighting up a cigarette, he points to the hills behind, where the factory building is clearly visible: “They told us it was a soap making plant…but when it started up, we realised it was really a brainwashing factory.”

This investigation was carried out with the support of ARIJ.

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