ֱ

Syria militants say found dozens of tortured bodies in hospital near Damascus

Syria militants say found dozens of tortured bodies in hospital near Damascus
Sanitary servicemen arrange the bodies of dead persons at the morgue of a hospital in Damascus on December 10, 2024. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 10 December 2024

Syria militants say found dozens of tortured bodies in hospital near Damascus

Syria militants say found dozens of tortured bodies in hospital near Damascus
  • At the core of the system of rule that Assad inherited from his father Hafez was a brutal complex of prisons and detention centers used to eliminate dissent

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Militants told AFP they found around 40 bodies bearing signs of torture inside a hospital morgue near Damascus on Monday, stuffed into body bags with numbers and sometimes names written on them.
“I opened the door of the morgue with my own hands, it was a horrific sight: about 40 bodies were piled up showing signs of gruesome torture,” Mohammed Al-Hajj, a fighter with militant factions from the country’s south told AFP by telephone from Damascus.
AFP saw dozens of photographs and video footage that Hajj said he took himself and showed corpses with evident signs of torture: eyes and teeth gouged out, blood splattered and bruising.
The footage taken in Harasta hospital also showed a piece of cloth containing bones, while a decomposing body’s rib cage peaked through the skin.
The bodies were placed in white plastic bags or wrapped in white cloth, some stained with blood.
Corpses had pieces of cloth or adhesive tape bearing scribbled numbers and sometimes names.
Some seemed to have been killed recently.
While some of the dead were wearing clothes, others were naked.
Militants seized power on Sunday ousting former President Bashar Assad, whose family ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than five decades.
At the core of the system of rule that Assad inherited from his father Hafez was a brutal complex of prisons and detention centers used to eliminate dissent by jailing those suspected of stepping out of the ruling Baath party’s line.
Thousands of people hoping to reunite with loved ones who disappeared in Assad’s jails had gathered Monday evening at the notorious Saydnaya prison outside Damascus, AFP correspondents said.
Hajj said the fighters received a tip from a hospital worker about the bodies that were being dumped there.
“We informed the military command of what we found and coordinated with the Syrian Red Crescent, which transported the bodies to a Damascus hospital, so that families can come and identify them,” he added.
Diab Serriya, who cofounded the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP) watchdog, told AFP the bodies were likely detainees from Saydnaya prison.
“Harasta Hospital served as the main center for collecting the bodies of detainees,” he said.
“Bodies would be sent there from Saydnaya prison or Tishrin Hospital, and from Harasta, they would be transferred to mass graves,” he added.
“It is very important to document what we are seeing in the video.”
According to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, at least 60,000 people have been killed under torture or because of terrible conditions in Assad’s detention centers.
Since the start of the conflict, President Bashar Assad’s government has been accused of human rights abuses and of cases of torture, rape and summary executions.
Hajj said he hoped that efforts will focus on “exposing the crimes committed by Assad in prisons and detention centers” during the transitional period.
“We hope Assad will be held to account as a war criminal,” he said.


UN urges peaceful settlement of disputes as UN chief points to ‘the horror show in Gaza’

UN urges peaceful settlement of disputes as UN chief points to ‘the horror show in Gaza’
Updated 23 July 2025

UN urges peaceful settlement of disputes as UN chief points to ‘the horror show in Gaza’

UN urges peaceful settlement of disputes as UN chief points to ‘the horror show in Gaza’
  • In urging greater efforts to pursue global peace, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the council: “Around the world, we see an utter disregard for — if not outright violations of — international law” as well as the UN Charter

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council urged the 193 United Nations member nations on Tuesday to use all possible means to settle disputes peacefully. The UN chief said that is needed now more than ever as he pointed to “the horror show in Gaza” and conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti and Myanmar.
The vote was unanimous on a Pakistan-drafted resolution in the 15-member council.
In urging greater efforts to pursue global peace, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the council: “Around the world, we see an utter disregard for — if not outright violations of — international law” as well as the UN Charter.
It is happening at a time of widening geopolitical divides and numerous conflicts, starting with Gaza, where “starvation is knocking on every door” as Israel denies the United Nations the space and safety to deliver aid and save Palestinian lives, Guterres said.
Israel denies deliberately targeting civilians and aid staff as part of its war with Hamas and blames UN agencies for failing to deliver food it has allowed in.
In conflicts worldwide, “hunger and displacement are at record levels” and security is pushed further out of reach by terrorism, violent extremism and transnational crime, the secretary-general said.
“Diplomacy may not have always succeeded in preventing conflicts, violence and instability,” Guterres said. “But it still holds the power to stop them.”
The resolution urges all countries to use the methods in the UN Charter to peacefully settle disputes, including negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, referral to regional arrangements or other peaceful means.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who chaired the meeting, cited “the ongoing tragedies” in Gaza and between Pakistan and India over Kashmir, one of the oldest disputes on the UN agenda, that need to be resolved peacefully.
“At the heart of almost all the conflicts across the globe is a crisis of multilateralism; a failure, not of principles but of will; a paralysis, not of institutions but of political courage,” he said.
The Pakistani diplomat called for revitalizing trust in the UN system and ensuring “equal treatment of all conflicts based on international law, not geopolitical expediency.”
Acting US Ambassador Dorothy Shea said the Trump administration supports the United Nations’ founding principles of saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war and working with parties to resolve disputes peacefully.
Under President Donald Trump’s leadership, she said, the US has delivered “deescalation” between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and Congo and Rwanda.
The US calls on countries involved in conflicts to follow these examples, Shea said, singling out the war in Ukraine and China’s “unlawful claims” in the South China Sea.
The war in Ukraine must end, she said, and Russia must stop attacking civilians and fulfill its obligations under the UN Charter, which requires all member nations to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of every other country.
“We call on other UN member states to stop providing Russia with the means to continue its aggression,” Shea said.

 


Palestinian teen succumbs to wounds from Israeli gunfire near Jenin

Palestinian teen succumbs to wounds from Israeli gunfire near Jenin
Updated 22 July 2025

Palestinian teen succumbs to wounds from Israeli gunfire near Jenin

Palestinian teen succumbs to wounds from Israeli gunfire near Jenin
  • Ibrahim Majed Ali Nasr was shot by Israeli live ammunition when forces entered the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin city
  • His killing raises the Palestinian death toll in Jenin governorate to 43 since the Israeli military assault began on Jan. 21

LONDON: A 16-year-old Palestinian died from injuries sustained earlier on Tuesday evening after being shot by Israeli forces during a raid in the northern occupied West Bank.

Ibrahim Majed Ali Nasr was shot by Israeli live ammunition when forces entered the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin city.

The teenager was shot in the chest, suffering a life-threatening injury, while another young man was injured in the leg, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Nasr was later declared dead at the hospital in Jenin.

Israeli forces raided a house, with no detentions reported, in Qabatiya on Tuesday evening.

Nasr’s killing raises the Palestinian death toll in Jenin governorate to 43 since the Israeli military assault began on Jan. 21. Dozens more have been injured or detained, the Palestine News Agency reported.


Iran: 27 inmates are still at large following Israeli airstrike

One of the buildings (C-L) in Iran's Evin prison complex in Tehran before it was heavily damaged by a fire. (AFP file photo)
One of the buildings (C-L) in Iran's Evin prison complex in Tehran before it was heavily damaged by a fire. (AFP file photo)
Updated 22 July 2025

Iran: 27 inmates are still at large following Israeli airstrike

One of the buildings (C-L) in Iran's Evin prison complex in Tehran before it was heavily damaged by a fire. (AFP file photo)
  • The New York-based Center for Human Rights had criticized Israel for striking the prison, saying it violated the principle of distinction between civilian and military targets

TEHRAN, PARIS: Iran said on Tuesday 27 inmates were still at large after an Israeli airstrike last month targeted Evin prison in the north of the capital, Tehran, local media reported.
The airstrikes were part of Israel’s 12-day bombardment of Iran that killed about 1,100 people, while 28 were left dead in Israel in Iranian retaliatory strikes.
Judiciary’s news website, Mizanonline, quoted spokesman Asghar Jahangir as saying 75 prisoners had escaped following the strike, of which 48 were either recaptured or voluntarily returned. He said authorities will detain the others if they don’t hand themselves over.
Jahangir said the escapees were prisoners doing time for minor offenses.

FASTFACT

Between 1,500 and 2,000 prisoners were being held at the time in the prison.

Iranian officials said the Israeli strike killed 71 people, but local media reported earlier in July that 80 were left dead at the time, including prison staff, soldiers, inmates and visiting family members. Authorities also said five inmates died.
It’s unclear why Israel targeted the prison. 
The New York-based Center for Human Rights had criticized Israel for striking the prison, saying it violated the principle of distinction between civilian and military targets.
Amnesty International, an international nongovernmental organization that campaigns to protect human rights, called the Israeli attack “deliberate” and “a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”
The air strikes should therefore be “criminally investigated as war crimes,” it said.
“The Israeli military carried out multiple air strikes on Evin prison, killing and injuring scores of civilians and causing extensive damage and destruction in at least six locations across the prison complex,” Amnesty said, basing its assessment on what it said were verified video footage, satellite images and witness statements.
There was nothing to suggest that Evin prison could justifiably be seen as a “legal military objective,” it said.

 


Heat wave hits water, electricity supplies across much of Iran

Heat wave hits water, electricity supplies across much of Iran
Updated 22 July 2025

Heat wave hits water, electricity supplies across much of Iran

Heat wave hits water, electricity supplies across much of Iran
  • The heat wave has been accompanied by drought, with the capital experiencing its lowest rainfall in 60 years

TEHRAN: A severe heat wave sweeping Iran has disrupted water and electricity supplies in much of the country, with reservoir levels falling to their lowest in a century, state media said on Tuesday.
Extreme temperatures, which began on Friday, are expected to ease gradually by Thursday.
Government offices in at least 15 of Iran’s 31 provinces, including the capital Tehran, have been ordered to close on Wednesday in a bid to conserve water and electricity.
The measure comes as temperatures in parts of southern and southwestern Iran topped 50 degrees Celsius.
Government spokeswoman Fatemeh MoHajjerani said authorities would extend office closures “if it deems necessary,” while warning of the “critical situation” in Tehran regarding water supplies.
The heat wave has been accompanied by drought, with the capital experiencing its lowest rainfall in 60 years. Water levels in the reservoirs which supply Tehran have fallen to “their lowest level in a century,” said the Tehran Provincial Water Supply Company, advising people to use a tank and pump to cope with mains disruption. Tehran provincial governor, Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian said the dams are only filled to 14 percent, adding that the capital is going through its fifth year of drought.
Many residents reported water supply cuts lasting several hours.
“It’s not just the heat — there’s also no electricity and no water,” said Moini, a 52-year-old housewife from Tehran. “Our whole lives have basically fallen apart.”
Many Iranian newspapers carried photographs of the low reservoir levels on their front pages on Tuesday.

 


US targets Houthis with fresh sanctions

Houthi security personnel stand guard in Sanaa, Yemen July 20, 2025. (REUTERS)
Houthi security personnel stand guard in Sanaa, Yemen July 20, 2025. (REUTERS)
Updated 22 July 2025

US targets Houthis with fresh sanctions

Houthi security personnel stand guard in Sanaa, Yemen July 20, 2025. (REUTERS)
  • Among those targeted was Muhammad Al-Sunaydar, who the Treasury said manages a network of petroleum companies and was one of the most prominent petroleum importers in Yemen

WASHINGTON: The US on Tuesday imposed sanctions on what it said was a Houthi-linked petroleum smuggling and sanctions evasion network across Yemen in fresh action targeting the militant group.
The US Treasury Department in a statement said the two individuals and five entities sanctioned were among the most significant importers of petroleum products and money launderers that benefit the Houthis.
“The Houthis collaborate with opportunistic businessmen to reap enormous profits from the importation of petroleum products and to enable the group’s access to the international financial system,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Michael Faulkender.
“These networks of shady businesses underpin the Houthis’ terrorist machine, and Treasury will use all tools at its disposal to disrupt these schemes.”
Among those targeted was Muhammad Al-Sunaydar, who the Treasury said manages a network of petroleum companies and was one of the most prominent petroleum importers in Yemen.
Three companies in his network were also designated, with the Treasury saying they coordinated the delivery of $12 million worth of petroleum products with a US-designated company to the Houthis. 
Since Israel’s war in Gaza began in October 2023, the Houthis have been attacking vessels in the Red Sea in acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
In January, the US re-designated the Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization, aiming to impose harsher economic penalties in response to its attacks on ships.