How a Massacre of Nearly 300 in Syria Was Revealed

How a Massacre of Nearly 300 in Syria Was Revealed

Leaked videos show in chilling and unprecedented detail Syrian military personnel committing a massacre in 2013 of 288 civilians, including seven women and 12 children. 

In the videos, which were leaked to the authors in 2019 and amount to 27 takes of the massacre in its different stages, military personnel show their faces to the camera and appear at ease and in full control before they execute their civilian captives in cold blood. 

A subsequent two-year investigation based on open-source intelligence and numerous interviews, including with some of the executioners who continue to serve as officers in Syria’s elite military intelligence unit, has revealed that the massacre unfolded on April 16, 2013, in the Damascus district of Tadamon.

 The footage sheds light on the inner workings of a regime that relied upon systemic mass executions of civilians in addition to indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas during the country’s 11-year war.

New Lines acquired details of this investigation and verified the authenticity of the footage and evidence presented by the authors.

So far, much of the attention in public debates has gone to the clashes during the war or to the regime’s merciless bombardments and airstrikes on opposition-held territories. 

But the neighborhoods under regime control, just on the other side of the front lines, have been comparatively neglected. 

The Tadamon massacre videos, our interviews with perpetrators and survivor testimony demonstrate that there was a full-blown, murderous cleansing operation unfolding. 

As we deepened our research, we realized that this massacre was a snapshot in a much wider policy of destruction and extermination that the regime enacted in the southern suburbs. 

The extent of this genocidal microcosm in this area went far beyond this one videotaped massacre and includes at least four forms of violence: systematic mass killings, imprisonment, sexual violence and economic exploitation.

Of particular focus in the investigation are the two main executioners shown in the footage.

 They are Amjad Youssef, 36, who at the time of the massacre held the military rank of warrant officer, and the now-slain Najib al-Halabi, born in 1984, who held no official rank as he was serving in the armed militia known as the National Defense Forces (NDF). 

In three separate videos that each last about seven minutes, these two men show themselves in broad daylight while executing 41 civilians.

 Then they dump the bodies in a pre-dug pit prepared with car tires for incineration.

In the footage, Youssef is seen dressed in green military fatigues and an olive-colored fisherman’s hat. 

He is focused, stoic and precise, and he works efficiently toward completing the task within a matter of 25 minutes. 

His brother-in-arms Najib is wearing gray military fatigues and is at ease, smiling, smoking and even talking straight into the lens.

 The shootings appear to be routine and repetitive: One perpetrator takes out a blindfolded and zip-tied civilian from a white van and marches him to the large, pre-dug pit. Another executes him with an AK-47 assault rifle.

 A few victims are shot with pistols. The killers carry out the executions in standard procedural fashion, speaking little except for barking orders at the victims (“get up,” “get out,” “walk,” “run”).

One agent is filming, while the other two are shooting. They are not particularly emotional but are clearly enjoying the job.

 At some point, Najib turns the camera around, smiles into it and sends a dutiful message to his “boss”: “Greetings to you, boss (معلم), for your beautiful eyes and your olive uniform when you wear it.” According to our research, the reference to “beautiful eyes” was either to Jamal Ismail or Abu Muntajab, both of them commanders of the executioners.

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