By Zainab Ahmad, B.A Religion, Politics and Society student at King’s College London
Tadamon is a neighbourhood south of Damascus where individuals were kidnapped, marched to an execution pit, and shot. The bodies were then doused with gasoline and set on fire, whilst Assad soldiers could be heard giggling in the video clip. The mass murder occurred less than a few kilometres from Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s presidential palace. According to the Guardian, the assassinations were carried out by Syria’s military intelligence unit Branch 227. Recently, families of the victims have come forward, others have gone through the footage to identify their loved ones. Many recognised instantly that one of the men killed in the Tadamon massacre was a relative who had vanished years before.
The footage was taken by a recent recruit to the Assad militia, who subsequently leaked it to two researchers: Annsar Shahhoud and Professor Ugur Umit Ungor working at the University of Amsterdam’s Holocaust and Genocide Center. As a member of Assad’s Alawite sect which controls the majority of Syria, the source who is safe outside of Syria, had to overcome the worry of being apprehended and killed, as well as the anxiety of being expelled from his family.
Annsar, an Assad critic, utilised Facebook to construct a persona to contact regime officials. In March 2021, she was able to meet Amjad Youssuf, a Syrian Alawite, claimed to be the gunman responsible for the deaths in the video. The two researchers’ evidence, which included recordings, notes, and thousands of hours of interviews, was delivered to prosecutors in the Netherlands, Germany, and France.
The first prosecution of another intelligence official, Anwar Raslan, for his role in overseeing the murder of at least 27 hostages and the torture of at least 4,000 others took place in Germany the same month. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. As a member of Assad’s Alawite sect which controls the majority of Syria, the source who is safe outside of Syria, had to overcome the worry of being apprehended and killed, as well as the anxiety of being expelled from his family.
The US State Department has strongly condemned the massacres, and has since released a statement on the outcomes of a conference on Syria held on Thursday. The participants reaffirmed their unwavering commitment to easing the suffering of Syrians and hailed the upcoming Brussels 6 Conference on Syria’s and the region’s future, which will be sponsored by the EU.
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