Syria: The Triumph of Terrorism

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

The Past Operations of the Syrian “Salvation Government” – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham

Syria has joined the blighted club of Middle East countries despoiled through the cynical policies of the West and its regional partner, Israel. Through the sponsorship of Islamist militants, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan have fallen into the hands of extremist militias and have become militia-run states. Now that the horns of the Shi’a crescent have been lopped off Iran has been pushed back to the borders of Iraq with Syria. Two thousand Syrian soldiers have sought refuge in Shi’a Iraq [1] with President Assad an exile in Moscow. From there he announced that terrorists had control of the country – the same dark clad, beared extremists that early on in the pro-democracy demonstrations, cried “Allah Akbar” waving their machine guns, as I penned from the start. [2]

The mass assassinations of Israel’s adversaries in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran simultaneously paved the way for Al Qaeda’s recycled insurgents in Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham – HTS – (Organisation for the Liberation of the Levant) to to roll into Damascus and hoist the flag of the opposition. Its leader, Ahmad Hussein al-Sharaa AKA Abu Mohammed al-Jolani [al-Golani], was born in Riyadh in 1982, the son of an oil engineer who was employed there the time but moved back to Syria where the boy grew up in Damascus.

In adulthood he went on to become a top graduate of Al Qaeda and ISIS, leading his own transnational group under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front – , Al Qaeda’s wing in Syria. After changing its name to HTS from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (Front for the Conquest of the Levant), al-Jolani received millions in support from the United States (just as had the Kurds and Iran-trained Shi’a militias to wrest control of Iraq from the grip of strongman Saddam Hussein [3]).

The Hindu reporter, Stanly Johny noted that al-Jolani had joined Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2003 in anticipation of the US invasion. He was captured and imprisoned in Camp Bucca where al-Baghdadi had also been treated to a long stay. On being freed in 2008 Al-Baghdadi appointed him head of operations in Mosul before he went on to deployment in Syria. [4] There he set up Jabhat al-Nusra which became infamous for suicide bombings and punishments by beheading.

After capturing Idlib with US help, [5] al-Jolani twice rebranded al-Nusra first as Fateh al-Sham, and then recast in 2017 as Hay’at Tahir al-Sham, claiming to have broken ties with Al-Qaeda over its main goal being the overthrow of the Assad government and not international jihad. He rejected ISIS’s call to unite under al-Baghdadi’s leadership insisting his own group to be the real representative of Al Qaeda in Syria. In a video message published in 2014, al-Jolani declared, “The sons of al-Nusra pledge allegiance to Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri…” (Al Qaeda’s late leader).

Al Jolani then became the Emir of Idlib gathering thousands of Sunni Iraqis, Afghanis, Turkic Uighurs [6] and other internationals recruited to jihad under his command. He upheld an alliance with Turkey’s proxies in the Free Syrian Army, falsely renamed the Syrian National Army and used the Turkish lira as currency. Neither of these entities had Syrian majorities at the top of their commands or dominating their membership. [7]

Looking back at HTS abuses: a key document

The Human Rights Council of the UN General Assembly had stated at its 45th session between 22 February-19 March 2021, Agenda item 4:

Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic

In 2012: “armed groups, and later groups designated by the United Nations as terrorist, 3 gained influence over increasing numbers of Syrian population centres, initiating the ebb and flow of territorial control that would continue between belligerent parties in ensuing years (see A/HRC/46/54). 6. Most prominent among these groups have been the groups and factions formerly affiliated with the Free Syrian Army prior to their consolidation under other umbrellas and other groups, such as Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham; Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (previously Jabhat al-Nusra) and Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL); the Syrian National Army, supported by Turkey; and Kurdish-led forces, including the Kurdish People’s Protection Units that, as of 2015, operated with the Syrian Democratic Forces, 4 supported by the United States of America. 5 7. Over time, armed groups and terrorist organizations adopted detention-related practices in the areas under their control that were strikingly similar to those of government and pro-government forces.6 Enforced disappearance and incommunicado detention, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, sexual violence and death in detention were documented in detention facilities operated by all parties across the country (see annex II). These ranged from makeshift places of detention in basements, schools, military bases or at checkpoints to purpose-built prisons (operated by different warring parties as territorial control shifted) or heavily guarded displacement camps. The lack of basic habeas corpus across the Syrian Arab Republic facilitated the multitude of violations many individuals suffered in detention by all duty bearers…

30. Initially, armed groups affiliated with the Free Syrian Army and other anti-government armed groups engaged in hostage-taking and kidnapping of captured government soldiers, their family members, or foreign nationals, for ransom or exchange for government-held detainees. In other instances, persons belonging to ethnic or religious minorities were taken hostage to settle sectarian scores, often due to perceived government support. As the conflict evolved, groups affiliated with the Free Syrian Army received international support from tactical operations centres in Turkey and Jordan, which increased their capacities to hold territory and to develop their own police forces and justice systems…

Note: An extensive section then documents in detail abuses committed by the FSA before reaching a section on HTS as below, including:

45. Accounts indicated that Turkish forces and officers were regularly present in Syrian National Army detention facilities, including in the military police headquarters and the prison in Hawar Kilis, locations where ill-treatment of detainees was rampant. Four former detainees reported that Turkish officials were present during interrogation sessions when torture was used.

VI. United Nations-designated terrorist organizations

56. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and ISIL, both designated by the Security Council as terrorist groups, unlawfully detained individuals and engaged in an array of detention-related violations and abuses.

A. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham

“For two years, two months and 21 days I didn’t see sunlight. I felt like I was inside a grave.”

60. As Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham gradually expanded its areas of influence, it took over government prisons and established new detention facilities that progressively evolved into an extensive prison system, known as ouqab (punishment) prisons. Facilities notorious for the ill-treatment and torture of detainees include the Shahin section of the Idlib central prison, Harem central prison and the main Ouqab prison (also known as the “cave prison”) (see annex II).

61. In the early days of the conflict, armed groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra, regularly took civilians, often women and children, as hostages, usually for prisoner exchanges or to extract a ransom.42 In many cases, individuals belonging to minority groups were victims of these violations, indicating also a sectarian motivation for abduction or kidnapping. 43 Hostages were used in prisoner exchanges with government forces, while others died in custody or remain missing. 44

62. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham has also been arbitrarily detaining civilians in a systematic effort to stifle political dissent. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham denounces democracy and secularism, and arrests and detains those civilians who speak out against it; 45 73 cases of detention of activists, journalists and media workers who criticized the group have been documented. As it ceded territory to government forces, the group accelerated detention campaigns in an effort to subjugate populations in the remaining areas under its control in Idlib Governorate.46 It targeted dissenting civilians, and routinely tortured and subjected them to ill-treatment in detention facilities, including in Ouqab and Harem prisons.

63. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham also detained women and girls, for instance for travelling without a male member of their family 47 or for being “inappropriately dressed”. 48 Female activists and media workers have been doubly victimized for exercising freedom of expression or daring to speak out against the group’s rule. 49

64. Though conditions varied in detention facilities run by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, victims described detention in overcrowded and unhygienic cells that, compounded by the lack of medical care, allowed for the spread of communicable diseases among detainees. Torture and ill-treatment were widespread.50 Torture was most common in Idlib central prison and its Shahin section, in Harem central prison and Ouqab prison, with methods including severe beatings, placing detainees in a “coffin” or in a dulab (tyre) or suspending them by their limbs.

Victims were frequently tortured during interrogation sessions, and held incommunicado to ultimately extract confessions. Some detainees were told to write a testimony dictated to them by the interrogators, or forced to sign or thumbprint a document, with no knowledge of its content. Some detainees died as a result of injuries sustained from torture and the subsequent denial of medical care. In this regard, the Commission acquired 113 direct accounts of torture and or inhuman treatment, and interviewed 153 individuals who had witnessed, or received credible reports, of such violations.

65. Several male former detainees described being sexually harassed, forced to strip naked, electrocuted on their genitals and raped in Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham facilities. Female detainees reported being threatened with rape; one woman was raped in 2014 at a Jabhat alNusra’s checkpoint in Hama. As noted earlier, documenting violations of sexual and genderbased violence are accompanied by various challenges. The Commission collected 10 testimonies, including from six individuals who directly experienced sexual violence in the group’s facilities.

66. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham also frequently resorted to incommunicado detention, refusing to acknowledge the detention of individuals when their families or relatives sought information on their whereabouts. The ability of families to secure any information on loved ones was further compromised when group members transferred detainees from one facility to another. Since 2011, the Commission has interviewed 64 individuals who had been subjected to enforced disappearance or incommunicado detention, while another 77 had witnessed such violations or received credible reports.

67. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham furthermore carried out executions without due process. The Commission gathered 83 individual accounts, including from former detainees, about the death of individuals deprived of their liberty. Early in the conflict, Jabhat al-Nusra carried out summary executions of enemy combatants. Detainees were also subjected to summary executions on the battlefield, and civilians were executed pursuant to sentences pronounced by sharia courts, in blatant violation of due process rights. 51 Civilians were summarily executed for, inter alia, apostasy, espionage, affiliation with ISIL or other armed groups, drug trafficking and homosexuality.52 [8]

(The report then detailed abuses carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as set out between paragraphs 68-77).

In the Crimes against Humanity section, the Assembly’s findings against HTS read:

89. The Commission previously found that the arbitrary detention of political dissenters by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham constituted a systematic attack against a civilian population, and that there were reasonable grounds to believe that it had perpetrated the crime against humanity of persecution on political grounds.68 In addition, the Commission has documented, since at least 2014, torture in detention facilities under the control of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham where such practices were consistently conducted as a means of extracting information from detainees, such as former fighters, but also from a large number of civilians detained on the basis of their political affiliation, their exercise of freedom of expression, or their explicit criticism of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. In the light of the consistent documented use of torture against detainees over the course of six years, and the failure of the group’s leadership to take effective steps to prevent such practices, there are reasonable grounds to believe that Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham may be engaging in such conduct in pursuance of an organizational policy. Such conduct may therefore be part of a systematic attack against the detainee population in its custody, amounting to the crime against humanity of torture.

C. International humanitarian law and war crimes

90. The Government has committed war crimes on a massive scale, of murder, torture and ill-treatment, rape and sexual violence, outrages upon personal dignity, and the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all judicial guarantees which are generally recognized as indispensable. 69 91. Anti-government armed groups, including the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian National Army and the Syrian Democratic Forces, as well as United Nations-designated terrorist groups ISIL and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, unlawfully deprived individuals of their liberty and engaged in detention practices contrary to international humanitarian law, which became applicable after February 2012, and related fundamental human rights. This included sentencing alleged suspects without affording them essential judicial guarantees.

92. Furthermore, anti-government armed groups, 70 including the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian National Army, as well as the Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (including when operating under its former aliases or iterations) and ISIL perpetrated the war crime of torture and ill-treatment in places of detention under their control. 71 Anti-government armed groups, including the Free Syrian Army, as well as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and ISIL, also committed the war crimes of murder, hostage-taking and the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all judicial guarantees which are generally recognized as indispensable.72 ISIL and the Syrian National Army committed the war crimes of rape and sexual violence in the context of detention; 73 ISIL also committed sexual slavery as a war crime.74

93. Although not to the same degree as government forces, ISIL, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian National Army and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units/Syrian Democratic Forces refused to reveal the fate or whereabouts of persons taken into their custody, thereby also engaging in acts tantamount to enforced disappearance, in violation of international humanitarian law and fundamental human rights principles. 75

94. The Commission also notes that, in areas under effective Turkish control, Turkey carries a responsibility to, as far as possible, ensure public order and safety and to afford special protection to women and children.76 Turkey remains bound by applicable human rights obligations vis-à-vis all individuals present in such territories. By failing to intervene to prevent torture when present or otherwise aware that torture would be employed, Turkish forces may have violated their obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention. 77 Furthermore, the transfers of Syrian nationals, detained by the Syrian National Army, to Turkish territory (see para. 46 above) may amount to the war crime of unlawful deportation of protected persons. 78

95. In addition to those detained unlawfully in other circumstances, the Syrian Democratic Forces are also holding thousands of men and boys suspected of former membership of or association with ISIL, often incommunicado, without access to adequate judicial guarantees. 79…

Ahmed Hussein Al Sharaa’s Islamist (“Salvation Government”)Victory, December 2024

On December 7, 2024, after 14 years of dirty war, with millions displaced and half a million dead, transnational jihadists whose group was based on the ideological vision of Al Qaeda were hailed by Western propagandists as Syria’s ‘liberators’ as they seized control of the Syrian capital.

The following day, the UK Foreign Office-funded Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that since the major offensive launched by the jihadists on November 27, culminating in the insurgents’ control of Damascus, “910 people had been killed. The toll includes 138 civilians, 380 Syrian troops and allied fighters, and 392 rebels.” [9]

Claims by the BBC and CNN that thousands of Syrian refugees were returning from Lebanon were spurned by dissident former British Ambassador, Craig Murray. Delivering a piece-to-camera dressed in a formal suit and showing the calm at the Syrian border crossing from Lebanon at Masnaa, Mr Murray also captured on camera daily life in the Syrian refugee camps continuing as before: “I find what is really happening at the Lebanon Syria border is entirely different to the media narrative of a mass return of jubilant Syrian refugees. There are officially 775,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon (UNHCR). The numbers returning are negligible.” [10] Mr Murray has also previously joined the Grayzone anchors as a guest in exposing media and political corruption concerning Russia. [11]

IDF advantage

Israel’s “ceasefire” with Lebanon after indiscriminate bombing of urban areas across the country from September 23, 2024 throughout October and until the ceasefire agreement of November 26, had not dented the IDF’s weaponry. While sporadic bombardments continued against Lebanon, on December 9, Israel struck weapons depots and military sites in Deir Ezzor province. Turkish jihadist fighters meanwhile attacked Kurdish-dominated SDF positions after retaking Manbij and the Kurdish-held enclave of Tal-Rifaat. Using the historic rhetoric of fighting terrorism the operation is dubbed ‘Operation Dawn of Freedom’ against the ‘PKK/YPG terrorists.”12 For their part the Kurdish administration of North and East Syria (AANES) ‘unveiled a Syrian Initiative Dialogue that ‘emphasises that collaboration between AANES and the political administration in Damascus is crucial for the benefit of all Syrians.’ [13]

Israel also bombed Khiam on the south-Lebanese border with its memorial museum to the abuses of the occupation. On December 12, Israel also heavily bombed Syrian armaments and military bases on the coast of Syria at Tarsus adding to the number of sites attacked.

Whilst the UN maintained the myth of Assad having compiled stocks of chemical weapons (as with the fiction of Iraq’s WMD),  the bombing of these sites without any precautions over the potential release of deadly gasses implied wider knowledge of it being a fallacy. Within a week of Bashar al-Assad escaping to Russia with his family, Israel announced the expansion of its occupation of the Golan Heights. On December 9, Israel imposed a curfew on five Syrian towns in the demilitarised buffer zone (AFP).

The war in Gaza raged on. Six percent of the population had been killed or maimed since October 7, 2023 as Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Hussam Zomlot, passionately denounced asking ‘is this not enough?”14 Although the International Criminal Court had issued a verdict condemning Benyamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant guilty of the war crime of imposing starvation, with arrest warrants issued for signatory states to uphold, both were warmly welcomed in the United States.

Hundreds of Alawite Syrian soldiers had fled to seek refuge in Iraq just as had Shi’a Lebanese during the assault on Lebanon. All are likely to remain there now that Syria is in Sunni jihadist hands.

The raising of the three-star flag by bearded militants

As al-Sharaa spoke from the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus (just as al-Baghdadi had done before him in proclaiming the Islamic State in Iraq from the Great Mosque of Mosul) and not the Syrian Parliament or Presidential Palace, his heavily bearded followers were raising the new flag. This flag, ironically, is a variant of the original Ba’ath (Resurrection) flag of Iraq whose three stars had symbolised the national Arab unity of Syria, Egypt and Iraq. The United Arab Republic dissolved before Iraq ever joined but the flag had remained. [15] The green stars of the old flag of Iraq have become red on the opposition flag of Syria and the red band of Iraq has reversed to green. The three stars were transformed into local significance as the strongholds of the uprising in Damascus, Aleppo and Deir Ezzor. The Iraqi flag’s three stars had also symbolised unity, freedom and socialism – all since trampled underfoot by the militia state with its Allah Akbar koranic centre.

With the freeing of all prisoners from the military prison at Sednaya, hardline Islamists active with ISIS in Ghouta and criminals were also freed without any form of control. As with other historic revolutions, the French and Russian revolutions and the mass revolt in Libya, mob rule seizes eagerly upon change by violent overthrow, come what may. So what is to become of the political prisoners held in the ‘punishment’ compounds of HTS?

Gas pipeline

Qatar’s ruling family had financed HTS and now stands to make billions from Ahmed al-Sharaa’s ‘government’ enabling them to complete Qatar’s gas-pipeline to Europe and bypassing American hegemony on supply. As one well informed commentator remarked “If cheap Qatari gas comes to Europe, who will need the Yanks’ expensive LNG?” On December 15, the Turkish state news agency announced the resumption of the project to transport gas from Qatar through Syria and Turkey to Europe. Look at Erdogan, a dictator by anyone’s standards like the Saudis. Why did he not cut the gas and oil to Israel while championing Hamas when Israel was first bombing Gaza and thousands of civilians were being trapped beneath the bombs?” [16]

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2024 Sheri Laizer, iKurd.net. All rights reserved

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