News Comment
The United States has claimed evidence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has built a crematorium at a large military prison outside the capital Damascus, a State Department official said on Monday.
Stuart Jones, acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, said U.S. officials believe the crematorium could be used to dispose of bodies at a prison where they believe Assad’s government authorized the mass hangings of thousands of inmates.
“We now believe that the Syrian regime has installed a crematorium in the Sednaya prison complex which could dispose of detainees’ remains with little evidence.”
However it was Amnesty International that reported in February that an average of 20 to 50 people were hanged each week at the Sednaya military prison north of Damascus. Between 5,000 and 13,000 people were executed at Sednaya in four years.
Since the uprisings, mass hangings, executions, rape, pillaging and every other crime have been carried out by the Assad regime against the Syrian people. The western world has known that Assad is a barbarian and will do anything to keep his power and they have kept him.in power.
The US State Department maybe releasing statements that are highlighting Assad’s brutality but it was the US that dropped 24,287 bombs on Syria and Iraq during 2016. These figures are according to a Defense One analysis published on the 5th January, 2017, by the staff of the US-based Council on Foreign Relations. This means that on average, 67 bombs were dropped every day on Syria and Iraq.
To keep Syria unstable, sustain Bashar al Assad in power untill a transitional government is formed and secure vital interests is the US plan. For six years, the US and all other western States have contributed towards the destruction of Syria. Their concern for the people of Syria now, unsurprisingly is hollow.
True stability for Syria and the rest of the Middle East will only be under a Khilafah state, that will protect citizens from being used as pawns for strategic agendas by colonial powers.
وَيَوْمَئِذٍ يَفْرَحُ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ * بِنَصْرِ اللَّهِ يَنْصُرُ مَنْ يَشَاءُ وَهُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الرَّحِيمُ
“And that day the believers will rejoice. In the victory of Allah. He gives victory to whom He wills, and He is the Exalted in Might, the Merciful.” {Ar-Rum: 4-5}
News Article: Syria’s Saydnaya prison crematorium hid killings, says US
The Syrian government has constructed a crematorium at a military prison to dispose of the remains of thousands of murdered prisoners, the US has alleged.
The state department has released satellite images of the facility which it said was used to hide evidence.
Rights groups say thousands of inmates have been tortured and hanged at the military prison outside Damascus.
Syria has not responded to the latest claims but it has in the past strongly denied any abuse at the jail.
In February, Amnesty International said that mass hangings had taken place every week at the jail between 2011 and 2015.
The government at that time dismissed Amnesty’s claims as “baseless” and “devoid of truth”, insisting that all executions in Syria followed due process.
‘Mass murders’
More allegations of abuse at Saydnaya resurfaced on Monday.
“Credible sources have believed that many of the bodies have been disposed in mass graves,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones told reporters.
“We now believe that the Syrian regime has installed a crematorium in the Saydnaya prison complex which could dispose of detainees’ remains with little evidence,” he said.
Evidence of the crematorium hiding or disguising mass murders at the prison will be presented to the international community, Mr Jones said.
He said that newly de-classified documentation “underscore the depths to which the Syrian regime has gone, with the continuing support of its allies, Russia and Iran”.
“The facts we’re presenting today are based on reporting from international and local non-governmental organisations, press reporting and also intelligence community assessments.”
Mr Jones said the Syrian government had modified a building within the Saydnaya complex “to support” the suspected crematorium.
“Although the regime’s many atrocities are well documented, we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Saydnaya prison,” he said.
Executed ‘in total secrecy’
According to Amnesty’s report in February, which was based on the testimony of witnesses, it was estimated that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were executed at Saydnaya over five years. Scores more suffered systematic torture, it said.
Every week and often twice a week, groups of between 20 and 50 people, mostly opposition supporters, were executed in total secrecy at the Saydnaya facility near Damascus, the rights organisation said.
The report said that executions had been authorised at the highest levels of government and that tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned during Syria’s six-year-old civil war.
Amnesty said such practices amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
