The Egyptian Judiciary
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Suspects into Collaborators
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MUST READ Long Analysis of the role of Assad played in Creating Jihadists
MUST READ Long Analysis of the role of Assad played in Creating Jihadists
Three years ago, it was hard to find anything significant about Syria in books about al-Qaida. Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, which many consider the definitive history of al-Qaida, contains only five references, while Fawaz Gerges’s The Rise and Fall of al-Qaida mentions Syria just once, as the home of Osama bin Laden’s mother. Today, by contrast, Syria is widely – and correctly – seen as the cradle of a resurgent al-Qaida: a magnet for jihadist recruits, which offers the networks, skills and motivation needed to produce a new generation of terrorists. How did this happen? And why did it happen so quickly?
For Bashar al-Assad, the blame lies with outsiders – especially Turkey and the Gulf monarchies – who have used their money and influence to sponsor the uprising, arm the rebels and supply foreign recruits. This is certainly the case, but it’s only part of the story. In the years that preceded the uprising, Assad and his intelligence services took the view that jihad could be nurtured and manipulated to serve the Syrian government’s aims. It was then that foreign jihadists first entered the country and helped to build the structures and supply lines that are now being used to fight the government. To that extent Assad is fighting an enemy he helped to create.
To make sense of his policy, it is important to understand the long history of confrontation between Islamists and the Baath Party governments of Bashar and his father Hafez. Violent clashes between the government and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood broke out in 1964 – less than a year after the Baath Party seized power. From the Islamists’ perspective, the country had been taken over by people who were diametrically opposed to everything they stood for: the Baath Party’s stringent secularism ruled out the creation of an Islamic state; its socialism threatened the interests of the small traders and businessmen who were the Brotherhood’s main constituency; and its strong support among minorities – especially Christians and Alawites – meant that the Sunni majority was going to be ruled by ‘unbelievers’ and ‘apostates’.
It was not until 1976, however, that a sustained uprising took shape. Initiated by the so-called Fighting Vanguard (an aggressively sectarian group on the Brotherhood’s fringes) it eventually gained support from all factions of the Brotherhood, parts of the secular opposition and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The confrontation culminated in a three-week battle in the city of Hama in February 1982 during which government forces killed thousands of people and caused virtually every known supporter of the Brotherhood to flee the country. This marked the end of the Muslim Brotherhood inside Syria and explains why its voice and presence during the current conflict has been so marginal: the Syrian Brothers, unlike their Egyptian counterparts, have had no organisation, no structure, and most of their (surviving) leaders haven’t set foot inside the country for decades.
The ruthless elimination of the Brotherhood didn’t mean that the country was exempt from the ‘religious turn’ which many Arab societies experienced during the 1990s. Fuelled by economic and political grievances, widespread corruption and a sense that Syrian society in its existing state offered no hope, direction or opportunity, many Sunnis embraced Islam and adopted more religious lifestyles. Conscious of what was happening, Bashar, who succeeded his father in 2000, sought to co-opt and control this revival. In the first years of his presidency, he spent much of his time grooming religious leaders, controlling mosques, and making sure that the burgeoning Islamic sector was playing by the regime’s rules. He also funded religious institutions, created Islamic banks and loosened government regulations on public displays of piety, such as the wearing of headscarves in public buildings and prayer in the armed forces. InIslamic Revivalism in Syria (2011), the academic Line Khatib noted that Bashar’s conciliatory attitude towards Islam stood in marked contrast to the Baath Party’s original doctrine, which regarded any mention of religion as politically deviant and denounced Islam as a ‘reactionary ideology’.
Bashar’s more accommodating approach towards Islam did not, at the time, extend to the jihadists, who had quietly gained a following among Salafist communities in Syria’s deprived suburbs and the countryside: places like Dara in the south, Idlib in the north, and the outskirts of Aleppo. In late 1999 a jihadist ambush resulted in four days of clashes and prompted a nationwide crackdown, resulting in the arrest of 1200 suspected militants and their supporters. Following the 11 September attacks, Bashar offered his government’s assistance in the war on terror. Though wary of his motives, the Bush administration agreed to co-operate, rendering ‘high-value’ jihadist suspects to Syria until at least 2005.
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Practically overnight, Syria became the principal point of entry for foreign jihadists hoping to join the Iraqi insurgency. Inside the country, Assad’s intelligence services activated their jihadist collaborators. The most prominent among them was Abu al-Qaqaa, a Salafi cleric from Aleppo who had studied in Saudi Arabia and whose sermons attracted hundreds – sometimes thousands – of people. Before the invasion of Iraq, Abu al-Qaqaa’s followers acted as religious vigilantes, meting out punishments for ‘indecent behaviour’ and stirring up hatred against the infidel governments of Israel and America. After the invasion, his group turned into a hub which provided Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq with Syrian recruits. Qaqaa’s efforts were so successful that for most of 2003 Syrians constituted the largest foreign fighting contingent of the (emerging) insurgency. Four years later, when the political calculus had changed and the Syrian government wanted to slow down the traffic, Qaqaa was shot dead in mysterious circumstances. His funeral was attended by members of the Syrian parliament along with thousands of Islamists. According to a Lebanese media report, ‘his coffin was draped in a Syrian flag and the affair had all the trappings of a state occasion.’
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Indeed, there can be little doubt that many of the older and more senior figures in groups like ISIS will have records with Syrian intelligence, and that some are likely to be collaborating with the regime. Nor is there any question that the Syrian government, which is fighting large numbers of secular defectors from its own forces, has an interest in portraying the opposition as crazy fanatics, or that some of its actions – such as releasing more Islamists from Sednaya prison, or sparing ISIS-controlled areas from attack – have been designed to strengthen the jihadists vis-à-vis their rivals. There still is no solid evidence, however, that the jihadists as a whole are controlled by the regime, despite repeated announcements by opposition figures that such evidence would be forthcoming. No one doubts that jihadist groups in Syria draw on external support and international networks, including foreign fighters from across the Middle East and even Europe. But the reason they were able to mobilise them – and mobilise them quickly – is that Assad’s government had helped to set them up.
Egypt’s Courts Further Repression With Journos on Trial & Mass Death Sentence for Morsi Supporters
Democracy Now!
"Egypt is facing international criticism after the largest mass sentencing in its modern history. On Monday, 529 supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi were ordered killed over the death of a single police officer in protests last summer. The trial lasted just over two days, with the majority tried in absentia. The exceptionally swift trial and harsh sentences mark a new escalation of the Egyptian military regime’s crackdown on Morsi supporters, which has led to hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests. In another closely watched trial, Al Jazeera journalists Peter Greste, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy have been denied bail after nearly three months in prison. They are accused of belonging to or aiding a terrorist organization. Meanwhile two leading Egyptian activists have been freed after over 100 days behind bars. Alaa Abd El-Fattah and Ahmed Abdel Rahman are among a group of activists charged with violating the military regime’s anti-protest law. They and 23 others have been released on bail but still face a trial that resumes next month. We go to Cairo to speak with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous......."
"Egypt is facing international criticism after the largest mass sentencing in its modern history. On Monday, 529 supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi were ordered killed over the death of a single police officer in protests last summer. The trial lasted just over two days, with the majority tried in absentia. The exceptionally swift trial and harsh sentences mark a new escalation of the Egyptian military regime’s crackdown on Morsi supporters, which has led to hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests. In another closely watched trial, Al Jazeera journalists Peter Greste, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy have been denied bail after nearly three months in prison. They are accused of belonging to or aiding a terrorist organization. Meanwhile two leading Egyptian activists have been freed after over 100 days behind bars. Alaa Abd El-Fattah and Ahmed Abdel Rahman are among a group of activists charged with violating the military regime’s anti-protest law. They and 23 others have been released on bail but still face a trial that resumes next month. We go to Cairo to speak with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous......."
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Shia fighters tip balance in Assad’s favour in Syria
By Erika Solomon in Beirut
Shia Muslim foreign fighters motivated by an increasingly politicised religious identity are coming to Syria to fight for President Bashar al-Assad in numbers that some observers argue match or even outnumber the Sunni militants who have joined the armed opposition.
While the estimates are contested, they show how much Syria’s war has become embedded in the fabric of Shia communities across the region – posing both advantages and risks to Mr. Assad and his main backer, Iran.
The number of independent Shia fighters in Syria is estimated to range between 8,000 to 10,000, mostly from Lebanon and Iraq, though anecdotal evidence suggests some come from as far as Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. The number of Sunni fighters is thought to be similar, with foreigners coming from around the world, but mostly from Arab countries.
YouTube videos with catchy pop tunes are modelled for recruitment. One shows gunmen posing in a picture where their faces are cut out, as if waiting to be replaced by those of new fighters. “The time has come to leave and join Hussein,” it says, referring to a leader whose martyrdom in 680 is central to Shia dogma.
The impact of mobilisation goes well beyond the front lines, says Lokman Slim, a Shia activist in Beirut who opposes and monitors Hizbollah, the Shia militant group in Lebanon that has provided thousands of fighters to support Assad.
“It’s not just the two fighters shooting at each other. Each fighter needs around three or four people behind them,” he said. You have communications needs, you have first aid, you need drivers...So when you say Hizbollah has sent 5,000 fighters, it means the party has actually involved 20,000 people.”
Estimates of the number of foreign fighters in Syria are based on social media and death counts. Although the numbers cannot be confirmed, it is clear that the foreign involvement stokes the sectarian element of Syria’s conflict and highlights the proxy war between Shia Iran and rival Sunni Gulf Arab states supporting the rebels.
The mobilisation of Shia fighters appears to be more successful than that of their Sunni counterparts, some argue, because it is organised and encouraged by Iran, from where recruits are trained and sent to Syria in groups, say Syrians who have joined Pro-Assad militias.
“The main big difference is the state backing. It is a far more organised process,” says Phillip Smyth, an analyst at the University of Maryland who follows Shia militias. Tehran’s systematic support makes Shia fighters a more unified force than that of the Sunni foreign fighters who tend to travel alone to Syria and join disparate groups.
The Shia fighters are associated with a shift in the balance of Syria’s three-year conflict in Mr Assad’s favour. In late 2013 his forces secured a belt of territory around Damascus and central Syria, up to the coastal stronghold of his own minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam.
“Assad was losing big swaths of territory then...When they came in, there was a clear shift in the balance of power on the ground,” said Janaina Herrera, analyst at the New Generation Consulting group in Beirut.
A tool used to motivate Shia fighters is the sect’s own apocalyptic scripture, which predicts that the saviour, or Hidden Imam, will return after a massive battle in Syria. Some clerics encouraging young men to fight have equated the largely Sunni rebels with the prophesied army of an enemy leader who will appear before the Imam’s return.
“Whoever wants to prepare for that moment, what is his combat readiness today?” Iraqi Shia politician and cleric Jalal al-Deen al-Sagheer asks in a speech posted on the internet. “If he has not taken a course in combat training how is that practical?”
Hayder al-Khoei, Iraqi expert at Chatham House, the London think-tank, said young Iraqis with no combat experience have also become eager to join, often receiving only two weeks of training in Iran.
“Young kids from Iraq go to Iran, they’ve never used a gun in their life before, they get trained for two weeks and then they send them to the front lines in Syria,” he said.
Families of a martyr are always taken care of. Their education and healthcare are free
- Resident of Hizbollah stronghold in Beirut
Economics could be another factor in the growing numbers of Shia heading to fight. Youth unemployment is nearly 30 per cent in Lebanon and about 20 per cent in Iraq. Shia militias offer the rare chance of a decent salary, whether they work on neighbourhood watches or in Syria’s battlegrounds.
“Instead of sitting around smoking, they can do something and get paid,” said a resident of the impoverished southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hizbollah is dominant. “Families of a martyr are always taken care of. Their education and healthcare are free.”
But the Shia mobilisation that has been a boon to Mr Assad could yet undermine him. Just as Sunni radicals initially helped rebels advance but later weakened them by pursuing their own agendas, so could Shia fighters if they find their interests diverging.
Iran’s patronage dampens that risk, but it still exists. One popular Iraqi Shia YouTube music video shows fighters dancing with Kalashnikovs to a chorus with the line, “We are not for Bashar, our concern is the Shia”.
Adnan al-Kanani, the spokesman of the Iraqi Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, insists Iraqi fighters have no love for Mr Assad, whom he accuses of sending Sunni militants to Iraq during American occupation.
“We support the right of the Syrians to change their government. We have our own issues with Assad’s regime,” he said. “Some believe we support the regime – No.”
Egypt: Shocking Death Sentences Follow Sham Trial
529 Denied Right to Meaningful Defense, Face Capital Punishment
(New York) – The criminal court in Minya, Egypt sentenced 529 people to death, possibly the largest mass death sentence in recent years anywhere, in a trial lacking basic due process protections.
The March 22, 2014, trial, in which the vast majority of defendants were tried in absentia, took place in under an hour. The prosecution did not put forward evidence implicating any individual defendant, even though it had compiled significant evidence during its investigations, and the court prevented defense lawyers from presenting their case or calling witnesses, three of the defense lawyers told Human Rights Watch. A second summary session was held two days later solely to announce the verdict.
“It’s shocking even amid Egypt’s deep political repression that a court has sentenced 529 people to death without giving them any meaningful opportunity to defend themselves,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The Minya court failed to carry out its most fundamental duty to assess the individual guilt of each defendant, violating the most basic fair trial right. These death sentences should be immediately quashed.”
The North Minya prosecutor collectively charged the defendants for their alleged participation in a mid-August 2013 attack on a police station in Minya, a city in central Egypt. The specific charges include killing a police officer and attempting to kill two others, damaging public property, seizing weapons, illegal public assembly, and membership in a banned organization, according to the official court judgment obtained by Human Rights Watch. The incident took place in the immediate aftermath of the government’s violent dispersal on August 14, 2013, of the pro-Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins in Raba’a Al-Adawiya and Nahda Squares in Cairo and Giza. Police and army forces used excessive lethal force in dispersing the protesters and killed up to 1,000 of them.
Out of the 545 people charged, 291 are at large, 185 had been released pending investigations, 11 are in detention, and 58 are in prison, according to the official judgment. Ahmed Shabib, one of the defense lawyers, told Human Rights Watch, though, that 147 of the defendants had been in detention, though authorities only brought about 70 to court. The court also barred several defense lawyers from attending the trial, according to a joint statement issued by the defense lawyers.
During the March 22, 2014, trial, the judge, Sa’ed Youssef, brought the session to a close before completing customary opening procedures after an argument broke out in the courtroom between the judge and defense lawyers, the statement further noted. The statement also said that Youssef advised the parties that they had 24 hours to make any written motions, and that he would announce a verdict on March 24. Some defense lawyers filed administrative motions with the court and separately, on March 23, brought an action challenging Youssef’s actions in front of the Bani Suef Appeals Court.
The court nevertheless issued its verdict on March 24. In its judgment, the court did not explain the evidentiary basis for its ruling, listing only the names of the defendants and the accusations against them. The court acquitted 16 of the 545 defendants.
A judicial official involved in the case and speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Associated Press on March 24 that “We are in exceptional circumstances. We don’t have time to summon each and every defendant, prove their presence, and confirm who are their lawyers.” He further stated that “Now no one would dare to think to attack a police station or a state institution after they saw death penalties falling on their group's heads.”
Under Egyptian law, Egypt’s Grand Mufti must ratify a death sentence before it can be executed. The state-run Al Ahram newspaper reported that the Minya criminal court will issue its final verdict in the case on April 28 after the grand mufti issues his decision. The defendants may appeal once a final verdict has been issued.
On March 25, the Minya criminal court will hear another case in which the local prosecutor has charged 683 people, among them Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamad Badie and the Freedom and Justice Party chairman, Saad El-Katany, with involvement in an attack on a second police station in Minya. No one was killed in that incident.
The 1,200 defendants charged in these two cases are among the over 16,000 Egyptians across the country whom the government has arrested in recent months, according to figures provided to the Associated Press by senior Interior Ministry officials. Human Rights Watch has documented numerousincidents of arrests solely based on the peaceful exercise of the rights to free expression, association, and assembly.
The nationwide arrests have not been matched by any effort to hold security officials accountable for ordering or carrying out attacks that have killed well over 1,000 people since July 3, 2013, Human Rights Watch said. Although Interim President Adly Mansour on March 19, 2014, requested the justice ministry open an investigation into the Raba’a dispersal, Egyptian authorities have taken no steps to prosecute those responsible for the use of excessive force.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Egypt is a state party, limits the circumstances in which a state can impose the death sentence. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body that interprets the ICCPR, has said that“in cases of trials leading to the imposition of the death penalty, scrupulous respect of the guarantees of fair trial is particularly important.” Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently cruel and inhumane punishment.
“The Minya court’s sentencing more than 500 people to death for the killing of a police officer highlights the fact that no Egyptian court has even questioned a single police officer for the killing of well over 1,000 largely peaceful protesters since July 3,” Whitson said. “This trial is just one of dozens of mass trials taking place every day across Egypt, riddled with serious due process violations and resulting in outrageous sentences that represent serious miscarriages of justice.”
Real News Video:Over 500 Muslim Brotherhood Members Get Death Penalty Ahead of Egyptian Presidential Election
Journalist Mohamed Elmeshad says that hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members were sentenced to death for a single death while many police officers still remain on trial for over a thousand killed during the Egyptian Revolution
Arab summit strives to heal rifts, stave off 'enormous' peril
THE ARAB ASSHOLES MEET AGAIN!
WHO GIVES A DAMN??
A death sentence not just for hundreds of Islamists, but Egypt's democratic future
The judiciary's role in the sentencing of almost 530 Muslim Brotherhood supporters could destroy faith in the electoral process
Journalists on trial in Cairo on 24 March for allegedly supporting a terrorist group – the Muslim Brotherhood. On the same day more than 500 Brotherhood supporters were sentenced to death. Photograph: Tarek Wajeh/Almasry Alyoum/EPA
Ever since the interim government in Egypt declared war on the Muslim Brotherhood and designated it a terrorist organisation, it has pursued a course of action that has swelled the ranks of the government's detractors, even among those who are sympathetic to its declared objective of suppressing the Islamist group.
The sentencing to death yesterday of more than 500 Brotherhood supporters on charges related to the violence that followed the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in July last year belongs to that class of action: preposterously self-defeating.
The hardliners in the government clearly think overwhelming force is the answer. The security crackdown has severely undermined the Brotherhood's ability to mobilise and stage big street protests. Those who think this way are undoubtedly encouraged by the conduct of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in the Ukraine crisis, and the apparent failure of the west to stand up to him. These hawks dismiss any international response to the action of the police or the judiciary as of little consequence.
There's already been a barrage of criticism both inside Egypt and abroad. The procedure itself lacked basic standards of fairness. Many are ridiculing a legal system that allows for a mockery of justice on this scale to take place. The trial lasted two days, and more than half the defendants are on the run.
This is not the first time the Egyptian judiciary has attracted widespread condemnation. Last November a court in Alexandria gave 21 Islamist women and teenagers jail sentences of up to 12 years for taking part in a pro-Brotherhood protest that turned violent. The disproportionate punishment produced a howl of protest. The sentences were later commuted on appeal, and the women were released.
The Egyptian judiciary has a mixed record. It has, for example, given Hosni Mubarak a life sentence, which he's appealed against. He is currently being retried. But none of the police or military accused of killing protesters since the uprising that toppled him in 2011 have been found guilty.
Given this record, most observers will conclude that the verdict is political, designed to send a message to the Brotherhood and its backers abroad – in Cairo this usually means Turkey and Qatar, which have made no secret of their unwavering support for the Brotherhood– that the Egyptian state is still in no mood to compromise with the Islamists: surrender or annihilation.
But coming down with a sledgehammer on anything that moves makes the government look more like a raging bull than a confident operator playing by the rules. It also adds to perceptions of the Brotherhood in the outside world as clear victims, despite the fact that government action against the Islamists still enjoys broad support in Egypt itself.
Within days the electoral commission is expected to issue a timetable for the presidential election. Given that it is the judiciary that will be supervising the election, anything that undermines its independence will cast a long shadow over the electoral process. The credibility of the transition will be called into question if the judiciary is seen to act at the behest of those who hold power.
Yesterday's verdict comes at a critical moment in Egypt's muddled transition from authoritarian rule to what many still hope, despite all the disturbing signs, will be an elected and representative government. Many others remain sceptical, though. Sentencing almost 530 suspects to death en masse will most probably strengthen the scepticism of those who believe Egypt is heading towards anything but democracy and rule of law.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Egypt: death and the deep state
The sentencing of 529 of the Muslim Brotherhood to death will send a shudder through those who cheered on the revolution
The numbers alone are staggering: an Egyptian court in the city of Minya on Monday sentenced 529 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood to death for their alleged role in the killing of a policeman. They were convicted after just two court sessions, most in absentia and without being allowed to present a defence. On Tuesday a further 683 members of the Brotherhood, including its leader, Mohammed Badie, will face similar charges in the same city. Although many of these sentences are likely to be commuted when the defendants reach the last stage of Egyptian justice and are brought before the grand mufti, legal experts cannot recall a court coming to such draconian conclusions on such a scale. It will send a shudder through those who once cheered on the Egyptian revolution and imagined the country was on the path to democracy.
There are now so many political prisoners in Egypt that its jails are close to bursting. By the government's own estimate, 16,000 people have been locked up in the crackdown that followed the military coup in July last year in which Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt, was ousted. Prisoners are packed up to 40 to a cell and are routinely beaten. The thousands rounded up in the past eight months consist largely of members of the Brotherhood, and almost all of its leaders, but include secular revolutionary activists such as Alaa Abd El Fattah, who was bailed on Tuesday, as well as reporters. Twenty journalists were arrested after being accused of spreading misinformation and aiding terrorists.
To say that Monday's death sentences were ordered by the military leadership as part of the brutal counter-revolution would credit army chief and defence minister Abdul Fatah al-Sisi with a level of control he may not have. There is little evidence, in this case, of direct interference from the army in the rulings of the court. A more likely scenario is that parts of the judiciary are fully signed up to the army-led campaign of political repression. They felt threatened by Mr Morsi's government and have rallied round the old establishment, the "deep state" of shadowy bureaucrats created by the deposed dictator, Hosni Mubarak.
The response of Egypt's most important ally to the crackdown against the largest of Arab revolutions has been equivocal. In October, the Obama administration – which famously failed to describe the events that toppled Mr Morsi as a coup because US law forbids Washington from giving money to "any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree" – announced it would withhold some military and civilian aid to the country, including tanks and fighter aircraft. Congress has since passed legislation requiring that Egypt make progress on democracy and human rights before the aid, worth $1.5bn, can be released. However, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, has declared his intention to unblock the aid as soon as he feels he can. "We want this interim transitional government to succeed. We are committed to try to help make that happen," Mr Kerry told a congressional hearing earlier this month. "I'm hopeful that in the days ahead I can make the appropriate decision. And when I say days ahead, I mean short term."
Mr Kerry's desire to restore the US subvention to Egypt stems in part from his reluctance to upset another gambit he has in the Middle East: the push to restart the Israel-Palestinian peace process. Israel has been lobbying hard for the release of aid to Cairo's government in recent months because it sees security co-operation between the countries as a major line of defence against Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual ally in the Gaza Strip.
The judge in Minya may have designed his ruling in order to help General Sisi quell the voices of the opposition. If so, he is deluded: his draconian decision will only help push the country deeper into crisis. Before Mr Kerry can even contemplate fully restoring aid, he must demand concrete steps towards democracy and human rights.
Syria: Unlawful Air Attacks Terrorize Aleppo
Human Rights Watch
New Evidence of Government Barrel Bombs Despite UN Resolution
(New York) – New satellite imagery, videos and eyewitness accounts reveal the indiscriminate nature of the government’s large-scale air campaign on opposition-held parts of Aleppo since November 2013. The attacks on populated areas in Aleppo and its countryside continue despite a UN Security Council resolution on February 22, 2014, demanding all parties cease “indiscriminate employment of weapons in populated areas, including shelling and aerial bombardment, such as the use of barrel bombs.”
New Evidence of Government Barrel Bombs Despite UN Resolution
(New York) – New satellite imagery, videos and eyewitness accounts reveal the indiscriminate nature of the government’s large-scale air campaign on opposition-held parts of Aleppo since November 2013. The attacks on populated areas in Aleppo and its countryside continue despite a UN Security Council resolution on February 22, 2014, demanding all parties cease “indiscriminate employment of weapons in populated areas, including shelling and aerial bombardment, such as the use of barrel bombs.”
The air attacks on Aleppo and its countryside have killed and wounded large numbers of civilians and led to large-scale displacement. One local group estimated that the attacks have killed 2,321 civilians in Aleppo governorate between November 1, 2013, and March 21, 2014.
“New satellite photos and witness accounts show the brutality unleashed on parts of Aleppo,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Use of barrel bombs in residential neighborhoods has done the expected: killed hundreds of civilians and driven thousands from their homes. If these indiscriminate dumb weapons managed to hit a military target, it would be sheer luck.”
“New satellite photos and witness accounts show the brutality unleashed on parts of Aleppo,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Use of barrel bombs in residential neighborhoods has done the expected: killed hundreds of civilians and driven thousands from their homes. If these indiscriminate dumb weapons managed to hit a military target, it would be sheer luck.”
Using satellite imagery analysis, Human Rights Watch identified at least 340 distinct sites in Aleppo city’s opposition-held neighborhoods that were damaged between early November and February 20, the date of the most recent image reviewed. The majority of these identified sites have damage signatures that are strongly consistent with the detonation of barrel bombs – unguided high explosive bombs, which are cheaply made, locally produced, and typically constructed from large oil drums, gas cylinders, and water tanks, filled with high explosives and scrap metal to enhance fragmentation, and then dropped from helicopters.
Damage sites were widely distributed across almost all neighborhoods under opposition control, with a majority falling in heavily built-up residential areas far from the frontline. In most of the cases about which Human Rights Watch spoke to witnesses, the witnesses said there were no military targets nearby, reflecting the indiscriminate nature of the strikes.
Caption: Map of the 340 major damage sites identified between November 1 and February 20, 2014.
In mid-March – after the Security Council called for an end to barrel bomb attacks – refugees newly arrived in Turkey, and other people displaced inside Syria, described to a Human Rights Watch researcher recurrent, almost daily indiscriminate air attacks on residential and commercial areas in Aleppo, mostly by barrel bombs, far, they said, from any conceivable military target. The residents spoke consistently about seeing helicopters drop barrel bombs over them, the characteristic noise of the bombs while dropping and of seeing unexploded bombs, and remnants of what were clearly barrel bombs.
A barrel bomb attack in Hraytan, northwest of Aleppo, on December 19, decapitated Noura al-Abdu, aged 13, and severely injured a nine-year-old girl. She told Human Rights Watch that she was going down the stairs in her building when the bomb fell, severing her leg above the knee, and killing her relative. “We heard the helicopter but I couldn’t make it down in time [to hide],” she said. “The barrel came and killed Noura and took my legs.”
The repeated use of barrel bombs and other unguided high explosive bombson heavily built-up residential areas shows that these are not isolated incidents but suggest a strategy of deliberately attacking such areas. For instance, satellite imagery shows over 30 probable air strike damage sites in the residential neighborhoods of Masaken Hanano and Jouret Awad in Aleppo city, destroying more than 100 buildings. Human Rights Watch was unable to reach witnesses from Jouret Awad, but two witnesses from Masaken Hanano told Human Rights Watch that while there was an opposition barracks in the neighborhood that neither these barracks nor any other military target were near the areas struck by barrel bombs.
According to the Violations Documentation Center (VDC), a Syria-based monitoring group, there were more than 266 airstrikes on Aleppo and its countryside between November 1, 2013, and January 31, 2014, killing at least 1,380 civilians, including 441 children, 78 women, and 14 combatants. Based on interviews with doctors and hospitals, VDC estimates that more than 20,000 were wounded as a result of these attacks. The organization has recorded 2,321 fatalities from airstrikes in the same region between November 1 and March 21. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), another local group, has reported that the government’s airstrikes on Aleppo city and surrounding rural areas killed 2,426, including 2,401 civilians, between November 23, 2013, and February 24, 2014.
The air campaign has also displaced large parts of the civilian population from opposition-held Aleppo. A Syrian relief coordinator in the Turkish border town of Kilis who was registering refugees living in urban areas told Human Rights Watch in mid-March that approximately 5,000 to 6,000 families from Aleppo had sought refuge in Kilis since the government’s air offensive intensified in November 2013.
In a resolution adopted unanimously on February 22, the UN Security Council demanded that all parties “immediately cease all attacks against civilians,” referring explicitly to ending “the indiscriminate employment of weapons in populated areas, including shelling and aerial bombardment, such as the use of barrel bombs.” The council also explicitly expressed “its intent to take further steps in the case of non-compliance with this resolution.”
Military commanders should not, as a matter of policy, order the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas due to the foreseeable harm to civilians, Human Rights Watch said.By using barrel bombs on densely populated areas, Syrian government forces used means and methods of warfare that could not distinguish between civilians and combatants, making attacks indiscriminate and therefore unlawful.
Given Syria’s continuing indiscriminate air war against civilian areas, the Security Council should impose an arms embargo on Syria’s government, as well as on any groups implicated in widespread or systematic human rights abuses, and refer the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC), Human Rights Watch said. Such an embargo would limit the Syrian government’s ability to conduct aerial attacks, including by ensuring that Syria does not receive new helicopters or have its current helicopters serviced overseas.
Further, in light of compelling evidence that the Syrian army and security forces are responsible for ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity against Syria’s people, companies and individuals that continue to provide arms, ammunition or materiel to Syria or to opposition forces that have been implicated in crimes against humanity or war crimes risk complicity in these crimes, Human Rights Watch warned.
Under international law, providing weapons to forces or armed groups in Syria that are likely to be used in the commission of crimes against humanity may amount to assisting in the commission of those crimes. Any arms supplier could bear potential criminal liability as an accessory to those crimes and could face prosecution, Human Rights Watch said.“For three years the Syrian government has declared open season on civilians with almost no consequences,” Whitson said. “The UN Security Council should respond to this disregard of its resolution, including by imposing an arms embargo, to show there will be penalties for widespread human rights violations.”
For more detailed accounts, see below.
Satellite Imagery and Video Analysis
Human Rights Watch identified at least 340 distinct damage sites in Aleppo city’s opposition-held neighborhood damaged between early November and February 20, 2014, by analyzing four satellite images recorded over the city between October 31, 2013, and February 20, 2014. The heaviest concentration of the 340 distinct damage sites identified in Aleppo city were in the neighborhoods of al-Marjet, Jouret Awwad, al-Myassar, Helwaniye/Tariq al-Bab, Salheen, al-Sakhour, al-Heidariyya, Dahret Awwad, and Masaken Hanano.
Human Rights Watch identified at least 340 distinct damage sites in Aleppo city’s opposition-held neighborhood damaged between early November and February 20, 2014, by analyzing four satellite images recorded over the city between October 31, 2013, and February 20, 2014. The heaviest concentration of the 340 distinct damage sites identified in Aleppo city were in the neighborhoods of al-Marjet, Jouret Awwad, al-Myassar, Helwaniye/Tariq al-Bab, Salheen, al-Sakhour, al-Heidariyya, Dahret Awwad, and Masaken Hanano.
Both the level and the location of this destruction varied from the damage Aleppo had seen prior to this government offensive. Approximately 300 major damage sites were identified from earlier dates of satellite imagery recorded between mid-2012 to October 31, 2013, a number now exceededin less than four months. And the pattern of these sites shifted, with earlier sites more concentrated in certain neighborhoods and closer to disputed areas, and the newer sites revealing wide scale destruction of neighborhoods that had been relatively undamaged and were further from active conflict.
Although some of the damage sites identified in the satellite imagery were likely caused by the effects of other explosive weapons, such as prolonged artillery shelling and a handful of apparent attacks by guided munitions, a substantial majority of these 340 sites have damage signatures strongly consistent with the detonation of high explosive unguided bombs.
Barrel bombs, and other high explosive unguided bombs, tend to create larger zones of building destruction than is typically seen with other types of air strikes and artillery fire, often with irregularly shaped blast craters of shallow depth with “scalloped edges.”
Caption: Typical signature of barrel bomb impact site
Human Rights Watch has further determined from a review of YouTube videos, satellite imagery and testimony that a small number of damage sites identified near front line positions since the beginning of the government offensive are likely attributable to opposition forces. In one documented case opposition forces dug tunnels under government-held positions near the citadel and detonated two large explosive charges destroying multiple buildings and possibly damaging the ancient citadel between February 2 and 20, 2014.
Barrel bombs account for much, if not most, of the damage that Syria’s aerial campaign has inflicted on Aleppo’s residential neighborhoods, Human Rights Watch has concluded, based on its examination of satellite imagery, video footage, and witness testimony.
Human Rights Watch reviewed over 70 videos posted to YouTube during this period, to verify the use of barrel bombs by government forces, assess the scale of damages and establish the presence of civilians at the time of the attacks. When possible, the video recording locations and impact sites as seen in videos were determined by matching common landmarks with satellite imagery.
Many videos reviewed clearly show government helicopters releasing one or more barrel bombs over residential areas in Aleppo, as distinguished by their large shape and usually unstable motion while in free fall. Barrel bombs also are distinguished because they are often pushed out or dropped from the back ramp of the helicopter. Human Rights Watch also reviewed videos of the unexploded barrel bombs on the ground.
In one case, a video posted to YouTube on February 2, shows a government Mi-8/Mi-17 “Hip” multipurpose helicopter dropping three barrel bombs on the neighborhood of Tariq al-Bab during a 10-minute period. Human Rights Watch identified both the exact video recording position as well as the location of the first barrel bomb impact site shown in the video by matching it with common landmarks in satellite imagery. A second video of the aftermath of the first attack posted to YouTube on the same day shows the destruction of at least three buildings, as well as a large civilian presence at the time of the attack. Human Rights Watch determined the incident occurred between January 31 and February 2 based on satellite imagery.
Caption: Video of Government Mi-8/Mi-17 helicopter dropping barrel bombs on residential areas matched to satellite imagery.
Witness Accounts
Human Rights Watch also interviewed 30 Aleppo residents, most of them after they escaped the city, about air strikes between December 2013 and March 2014, and corroborated their statements wherever possible by analyzing video and photographs posted on the Internet. All those interviewed described helicopters hovering high over their neighborhoods and dropping barrel bombs.
In all but one case of barrel bomb attacks that residents described to Human Rights Watch, witnesses said there were no military targets nearby at the time of the attack. One witness from Masaken Hanano told Human Rights Watch that fighters from armed opposition groups were sleeping in residential buildings in the neighborhood at the time of the attack, but that they were not near the strike site and were not hit.
Attacks since the UN Resolution
Hraytan
According to witnesses who spoke to Human Rights Watch, on February 23 a barrel bomb hit a family compound approximately 100 meters from Hraytan public square killing three civilians, including a child, and injuring two more. Human Rights Watch spoke with several members of the Masri family, whose house was hit, who explained that Hassan Mahmoud Masri, approximately 70 years old, was killed in the attack along with his five-year-old grandson, and neighbor Fouad Ali Belkesh. The Violations Documentation Center identifies Hassan Masri, Ghaith Masri, a child, and Belkeshas having been killed by barrel bomb strikes on Hraytan on February 23.
According to the relatives, the attack also injured Masri’s two adult daughters, one of whom lost her right arm. Human Rights Watch reviewed a video taken of the aftermath of the attack shortly after it took place with a family member who identified the victims. This relative also explained that there were no military positions near the home or the town square, which he described as an active commercial area.
Anzarat Neighborhood
In the last days of February two barrel bombs struck a residential building in the Anzarat neighborhood at approximately 11:00 a.m., witnesses said. “Wajih,” (names in quotes have been changed to protect the identifies of the witnesses) one of the residents of the building, originally from Azaz, which he had fled to escape government shelling, told Human Rights Watch that the attack took place while he, his wife and five children, the youngest just 20 days old, were home. He said that his wife, father, and brother were all injured in the attack, along with another woman who lost her arm and eye. He said that he also saw two people killed in the attack, a man who lived in his building and a 45-year-old woman.
“The barrel destroyed our building,” he said. “My youngest was nearly dead for 30 minutes but they revived him. My wife was injured on her mouth, right hand, and waist from shrapnel. The barrel fell just 15 meters in front of the house and the house collapsed …We left the same day, and so did most other people.”
He told Human Rights Watch that the nearest front line was four kilometers away, and that their home was in a residential area with schools and mosques in it, but no military sites, checkpoints, or fighters.
He told Human Rights Watch that the nearest front line was four kilometers away, and that their home was in a residential area with schools and mosques in it, but no military sites, checkpoints, or fighters.
The HaidariyehRoundabout
The Syrian Air Force has repeatedly hit the Haidariyeh roundabout, a key intersection on one of the main roads connecting opposition-controlled Aleppo to the countryside. The roundabout is also a gathering point for buses serving the Aleppo countryside, so it is usually crowded with civilians, residents told Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch has previously reported on attacks in Haidariyeh including on December 15 and 16. Three witnesses also told Human Rights Watch that the roundabout was attacked more recently.
Two residents told Human Rights Watch on March 17 that the roundabout was attacked about 20 days beforehand. One resident, “Samer,” said that three barrel bombs struck the roundabout one right after the other, killing civilians who were in taxis and microbuses there. A second witness, “Nidal,” speaking about the same attack, said that while he was leaving Aleppo for the countryside, barrels struck the roundabout, hitting microbuses that were parked there. “A Suzuki full of displaced people was hit in the Haidariyeh roundabout and other microbuses were also hit with a barrel bomb. Thirteen people from the same family died,” he said.
Wajih also told Human Rights Watch that on March 13 while he was on his way back to Aleppo, the roundabout was again struck by two barrel bombs on the Haidariyeh bus gathering point, where cars and microbuses were parked. He could not estimate the number of dead, but said that large numbers of residents in cars that were hit were killed.
Anadan
In an aerial attack on the evening of March 12 two bombs fell on east Anadan, a town northwest of Aleppo, killing members of the al-Ateek family. A witness from Anadan who saw first responders taking the injured to hospitals and collecting corpses, told Human Rights Watch that Ahmed al-Ateek’s family of five was killed in the aerial attack by barrel bombs that fell on their home and that approximately 30 other people were injured in the strikes. He described the area as residential and told Human Rights Watch that armed groups are not present in the vicinity. The Violations Documentation Center identifiedfour members of the al-Ateek family who were killed on March 12 in Anadan in an airstrike: Hassan al-Ateek, Zalegat al-Ateek, and two children, Khadija Mohammed al-Ateek and Imad Mohammed al-Ateek.
Earlier Barrel Bomb Attacks
Hraytan
On December 19, a Syrian government helicopter dropped at least two bombs that witnesses described as barrel bombs in the town of Hraytan, to the northwest of Aleppo city. The second of these bombs decapitated Noura al-Abdu, aged 13, and injured a second girl, “Wafa”, aged nine. “I was in the market when the attack happened,” Wafa’s mother told Human Rights Watch. “I heard about it just 10 minutes afterwards. People were talking, and saying that a barrel had just fallen in our street … by the time I got home they had already taken her [to the hospital].”
Wafa explained that she was going down the stairs in her building when the bomb fell, severing her leg above the knee, and killing her relative. “We heard the helicopter but I couldn’t make it down in time [to hide],” she said. “The barrel came and killed Noura and took my legs.”
Wafa’s mother explained that one leg was severed in the initial attack, but that the other, which was also injured, was later amputated at a hospital in Turkey. She told Human Rights Watch that they knew a barrel bomb caused the injuries because a relative saw the bomb falling towards them from a helicopter.
She said that there were no armed opposition military positions in their town but that there was an opposition-run police station there, although this was one kilometer away. While this was the first barrel bomb to hit their neighborhood, Wafa’s mother explained that it is not the first time their neighborhood has been bombed, despite it being a residential area.
Human Rights Watch also reviewed five videos taken shortly after the attack. In oneof these videos a girl seen being carried by a man was identified by the videographer as Noura.
Tariq al-Bab
In a December 28 attack, a civilian witness who saw a helicopter overhead and then the destruction caused by its bombing, told Human Rights Watch that barrel bombs struck the western part of the vegetable market in the Tariq al-Bab neighborhood between midday and 3 p.m. “They bomb areas like this where people gathering so that they will leave,” he said. “There are no [armed opposition] military positions there.”
He estimated that the closest military target was about five kilometers away. The witness believed that dozens of market-goers were killed in the attack. The Syrian Network for Human Rights has identified36 individuals, including seven children, who were killed by barrel bombs in the Tariq al-Bab vegetable market on December 28. The Violations Documentation Center has identified 20 victims, including four children.
Masaken Hanano Neighborhood
Human Rights Watch has identified a total of 35 distinct impact sites in the Masaken Hanano neighborhood in north-eastern Aleppo between early November 2013 and February 20, 2014. A majority of the attacks occurred between February 6 and 20. Most of the sites have damage signatures strongly consistent with the use of barrel bombs and possibly conventional bombs dropped by helicopters. Impact sites are almost exclusively located in neighborhoods with a high density of residential buildings. In addition to the 35 main damage sites, multiple impact craters from artillery shelling were also identified, indicating that both government ground and air forces have targeted the district.
Caption: The map illustrates 17 probable air strike / barrel bomb impact sites (highlighted in red) concentrated in the middle of a large residential area on the eastern side of Masaken Hanano. All but one attack in this section occurred in February 2014.
Human Rights Watch spoke to two witnesses from Masaken Hanano who described two separate barrel bomb attacks on the neighborhood in February in which civilians were killed or injured.
“Bassel,” a media activist from Masaken Hanano, told Human Rights Watch that on February 6, he documented a barrel bomb attack in the eastern section of the neighborhood. Before the attack he saw a helicopter hovering over the neighborhood and then received a call from a friend who told him the helicopter had dropped a barrel bomb there. He said that on arriving at the scene approximately 20 minutes after the barrel bomb struck, he saw 14 civilians who were killed, including four women and two children, two buildings destroyed and several others damaged, and six to seven destroyed cars. Bassel identified 11 of the victims by name: Abdul Kader Tabakh, Mohammed Rihawe, Abd al-Mohsen al-Hamawi, Mohamed Mahmoud Tedabli (16), Ahmad Ramadan al-Sharif, Bushra Abdulkader Tabakh, Shahla Abdulkader Tabakh, Hiba Abdulkader Tabakh, `Ala’ Tabakh, Ameen Abdulkader Tabakh (6), and Sama al-Hassan (6).
“One man was holding a dead child who looked around five years old to me,” he told Human Rights Watch. Others were injured. “The injuries that I saw were mainly severed legs and hands, and injuries caused by shrapnel,” he said. “I don’t remember the number of injured but I saw at least 20.” He told Human Rights Watch a second barrel was dropped on the northern section of the neighborhood on the same day, killing civilians, but that he did not document it. Bassel said that there was no armed opposition group presence at the time, whether fighters, checkpoints, or a military base, and that the frontline was 10 kilometers away.
“Mansour,” a media activist from the neighborhood, told Human Rights Watch that on February 10 at around 8:30 a.m. a helicopter dropped four barrel bombs in the southern part of the neighborhood near the cemetery in al-Ahmadiya. He said that he was meters from where one of the bombs dropped on a residential street and that he saw one man and woman on the street injured by that bomb. Mansour told Human Rights Watch that while there was an opposition barracks in Masaken Hanano, the frontline was five kilometers away near the Syrian government’s 80th Brigade base.
Nayrib Neighborhood
In mid-February at around 5:30 p.m. a bomb that witnesses described as a barrel bomb struck a one-story home in the Nayrib neighborhood of Aleppo city, killing a mother and her three children and injuring a fourth child. The witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch were unable to recall the exact date. The children’s father told Human Rights Watch that his wife, Diyah Wawee, and Hasan, 18 months, Abdelkarim, 3, and Ahmed, 10, were killed in the attack and that their fourth son was injured. He also told Human Rights Watch that the same bomb killed his brother’s son, Mohammed, 10, and daughter, Fatima, 2, and a third child, Mohammed al-Ali Wawee. He said that the bomb hit their homes in a residential area where no military targets were present.
Hendarat Palestinian camp in Aleppo
Human Rights Watch spoke to four men from the Hendarat Palestinian refugee camp, northeast of Aleppo city, who said they had fled the area with their families because of the government’s barrel bomb attacks on the camp.
According to the men, surrounding neighborhoods were hit with barrel bombs in the days before the camp itself was struck on February 21, after which more than 200 camp residents from 48 families decided to flee to Turkey. One man, “Omar,” told Human Rights Watch that this was the third mass displacement from the camp because of the war, and that almost none of the original 7,000-8,000 inhabitants remained.
A second resident, “Bassam,” told Human Rights Watch that three barrel bombs struck part of the camp on February 21 (the Mashrou` section), at around 11:20 a.m., before Friday prayer. He said that one of these strikes killed a girl and her mother as they were walking near the water tank in the neighborhood.
Omar and two other residents also spoke to Human Rights Watch about the attack on February 21. None of the residents knew the names of the women and girl victims, and believed they were Syrians who had moved in to escape government attacks in other parts of Aleppo governorate.
Omar and two other residents also spoke to Human Rights Watch about the attack on February 21. None of the residents knew the names of the women and girl victims, and believed they were Syrians who had moved in to escape government attacks in other parts of Aleppo governorate.
The residents also told Human Rights Watch that there were no military positions inside of the camp, characterizing it as a residential area far from the frontlines. The camp, they told Human Rights Watch, is administered by a local opposition Sharia council, which the residents described as civilian. The Sharia council was not in the Mashrou` area of the camp that was hit.
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