A Syrian Death Factory Gives Up Its Secrets – WSJ

SAYDNAYA, Syria Inside Bashar al-Assad s most-notorious death factory, the hangings had become routine.

Once a month, around midnight, the guards at Saydnaya prison would call the names of the condemned, usually dozens at a time. They wrapped nooses around their necks, then dragged tables from beneath their feet with a scraping that echoed through the building. Those in nearby cells heard a gagging sound as the men choked to death.

Then, in mid-March of 2023, the pace picked up dramatically, according to six witnesses.

They gathered 600 people and killed them in three days, about 200 each night, said Abdel Moneim Al-Qaid, a 37-year-old former rebel soldier who was arrested after handing himself in for what he thought was an amnesty deal with the government.

The 2023 mass killing, previously unreported, came just as the Syrian president was poised to break out of his international isolation. After more than a decade of using bombing, torture, and chemical attacks to crush an internal insurrection, Assad was deep in talks with regional players that would lead Syria to rejoin the Arab League. Some Arab states and Western officials viewed the rebellion as a lost cause, and sought to embrace Assad and freeze the conflict.

The sudden collapse of the Assad regime late last year revealed just how badly the international community miscalculated. In one of their first acts as they swept into Damascus in the predawn darkness on Dec. 8, rebels stormed the prison and shot the locks off the doors, freeing the remaining prisoners and pulling back the veil on one of the worst examples of systematic state killing since World War II.

via www.wsj.com

Enjoying his well earned retirement in Russia, Assad is, I trust. Maybe the Israelis or the Ukrainians will grant him some Old Testament justice, if the Syrians ask nicely.