In the Ruins of a Dream

 'In March 2011, a popular uprising began in Syria against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The protests were violently opposed by the Syrian army. Some areas and cities have suffered destruction on an enormous scale.

 In the Ruins of a Dream features five Syrians who've been internally displaced or sought refuge in Europe. They reflect on the devastation wrought on their homes, some of which took years to build.


 "Syrians go through a lot to build a house, especially because of the economic situation like the high cost of construction materials," says Shahoud al-Jadou, from the town of Kafr Zita. His father built the family home but was killed by the Syrian air force, so Shahoud and his family were forced to leave.


 "When the revolution started, we took part in the protests," says Ahmed Dabbis, from the small town of Kafrnbodeh. "We thought it would succeed quickly, like in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. During this time, the regime was absent in our areas. So we started to build the house and homeland. Military operations in Kafrnbodeh town started in July [2011]. I left the town for a couple of hours each time I heard an operation was about to start. Every time, the government army broke into my house, destroyed and looted it. It's where my wife and I felt safe and comfortable and where we started our family, had our kids and planned for the future," says Ahmed, as he looks at his destroyed home. "I wasn't enraged by the destruction because I was grateful for my family's and my own safety."


 Muhammad al-Obaid is a singer who performed songs for the protesters during the 2011 revolution. He used to live and work in Beirut, doing manual jobs, to save enough money to build a family home over the course of 12 years in al-Lataminah.

 One day he rushed home and found his house levelled after a helicopter had dropped two barrel bombs. "It had been completely demolished. Nothing was left, not a single brick. My heart was broken. It had taken me years to build it," says Muhammad.


 Human rights activist Mohammed al-Abdo's Idlib home was commandeered by the army who then burned it down. "I became targeted by the regime because of our intensive activities". Sifting through the rubble and old stacks of papers, he says "I wasn't upset by the destruction of the house. I just felt sad for my books. It took me about 25 years to collect them all. I had some very rare books."


 While those who actively took part in the 2011 anti-government protests were targeted, others like Um Hisham became victims simply because their homes were in the wrong place. "A large military patrol was always deployed in our neighbourhood. They stayed in the shop next to my house," says the 70-year-old widow from al-Kadam area of Damascus.

 When the military action increased, she says, "I went to my daughter's house in al-Yarmouk refugee camp, and it was the same there. So we went back home." Um Hisham now lives with her daughter in a tiny apartment in Worms, Germany, after her Damascus home was burned and robbed.

 The monumental loss of her family home is still very painful and has worsened her heart condition. "My house is always on my mind... It's very difficult to see your own house burned...All the trees in my house were burned. We went inside the house, and everything was burned. You could even see the iron girders in the ceiling. I hope no one ever sees what I saw," says Um Hisham.

 "I told my daughter I'd just like to see our home in Syria one more time, to see our family. Unfortunately, there's no one left there. All my neighbours have died."

Iran tells Assad – Pay the bill

  'Iran today demands the régime pay the new bill which has reached nearly twenty-one billion dollars, the price of Iran support to the regime. General Yahya Rahim Safavi (military adviser to Khamenei), has publicly demanded that Assad pay the bill.

 “We are serious about defending Syria and its territorial integrity, but the regime has to pay the cost bill,” Safavi said during a seminar at the Institute for Future Studies in the Islamic World, according to the ISNA news agency. “In Syria, there are Gas and phosphate mines, and these natural resources can pay the required bill. “

 Safavi offered to establish long-term agreements between Iran and Syria to ensure compensation for what Iran lost there, pointing out that the Syrian mines began exporting phosphate to Iran effectively. “Syria’s neighbours wanted the Assad régime to fall, including Jordan, Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia, but our alliance has prevented the régime falling, and we expanded our influence in Iraq.”

 The mullahs’ government may not have noticed that oil and gas have become under American control for an indefinite period.

 Russia, which is still preventing Assad from visiting the city of Aleppo, the largest economic and industrial city in Syria, is not likely to share the spoils with Iran. In fact, during the last visit of the foreign minister to Moscow, the Assad government granted the largest percentage of contracts with the acceptable return to Russia. It has authorized Russia to consider the contracts of other countries with the Syrian government, and any state, which wants to participate in the contracts, should pass through the Russian government for approval before Damascus' approval.'

Under Turkish tutelage FSA becomes better organised, but its mission shifts

 'Since the moniker “Free Syrian Army” was first used nearly seven years ago, it has been a movement marked by loose coalitions and often deadly competition between groups.

 But militants in northern Syria say that one of the effects of Turkey's two year-intervention in the war has been to provide increasing order in areas controlled by the rebel groups under its patronage, a force that now has as many as 20,000 fighters.

 The groups have continued to use the acronym FSA to describe their alliance, even as their primary mission has changed and they have become a more effective fighting force, at least when backed by the Turkish military.

 Turkey began to provide covert support to rebel groups in northern Syria at least as early as 2012, funneling weapons and aid across the border in concert with other foreign backers.

 The redirection of foreign support inevitably changed the nature of Syria’s conflict.

 The FSA groups that Turkey initially backed fought the Syrian government in hopes of overthrowing President Bashar Al Assad, but the rebel groups it now supports are largely engaged in clearing the Syrian side of the two countries’ border of the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia that Turkey regards as terrorists.

 “In 2012 I was a member of the FSA,” said Firas Mierzafi, a Syrian fighter from Idlib. “In 2013, I moved to Ahrar Al Sham,” he said, referring to a different opposition group.

 But by 2017, rebel infighting had paralysed Idlib and the campaign against the Syrian government, Mr Mierzafi said. Idlib had also simply become a dangerous place to live, as criminals and armed groups kidnapped with impunity and no single group could impose social order.

 “We didn’t want to continue in this disordered situation. Factions were going against one another. We joined the revolution to topple the regime, not to fight one another,” he said.

 So Mr Mierzafi left Idlib and joined the Al Hamza Division, a Turkish-backed group that was participating in Operation Euphrates Shield, a campaign along the Turkish border in Aleppo province further east. Euphrates Shield marked the first major deployment of Turkish troops to Syria since the war began.

 Mr Mierzafi, who is currently participating in Operation Olive Branch, the latest Turkish-backed operation, cited financial support provided to rebels by Turkey as a crucial factor in the operation's success.

 “Our brother Turks will take care of the injured and of the families of the martyrs,” he said. “After seven years, our fighters are very poor. They are no more able to feed their children.”


 Fighters said Turkish government support for the families of fighters who are killed includes free apartments, cash, and Turkish citizenship.

 “On the other hand, the injured of the groups in Idlib get nothing. The families of the martyrs are paid nothing and left to homelessness,” Mr Mierzafi said.

 Whether the Turkish-backed FSA will again take on the Syrian government directly remains to be seen – for now, they are preoccupied with the YPG, though they insist that it is the same fight.

 “We are fighting for the same cause of liberating our lands from the regime and the (YPG), but with better conditions,” Mr Mierzafi said.

 The YPG has links to the Syrian government, but has also received extensive backing from the US as an ally in the fight against ISIL.

 But commanders of the FSA now echo Turkish leaders when speaking of their next objective: moving further eastward against the YPG, which still controls hundreds of kilometers of the Syrian side of the border with Turkey.

 “This is a terrorist and a separatist party,” said Mustafa Waddah, a commander of the Zinki Movement, another group that is part of Operation Olive Branch. “We have achieved a substantial proportion of our goal, but there is more future work to come.”

 The vast majority of the rebels Turkey backs are Syrian Arabs, and there have been claims and counterclaims of ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses across northern Syria.

 “We will liberate Arab towns from the (YPG)," Mr Waddah said.

 Videos from the Kurdish city of Afrin last week showed Turkish-backed fighters looting everything from livestock to automobiles from the city after the FSA and Turkish forces drove out the YPG as hundreds of thousands of civilians were displaced.

 Mr Waddah said his group was working to stop such crimes.

 “With the liberation of each new area, there are some of the corrupt who take the chance for personal illegal gains,” he said. “We erected more checkpoints and put an end to all thefts."

 Turkey has also turned the FSA groups under its command into a more effective fighting force, including with the provision of air cover - something it was unwilling to do when the FSA was fighting the Syrian government.

 “We also received artillery coverage and some trained special forces that were used to storm territory along with FSA,” said Muhammad Al Hamadin, a member of the FSA and spokesperson for Operation Olive Branch.

 Mr Al Hamadin acknowledged that Turkey had “its own interests” at heart in securing its border, but denied that his men had become mercenaries.

 “Liberating Afrin from the (YPG) is like liberating any Syrian land from the regime or ISIL,” he said. “We will be satisfied only if we get Syria rid of oppression and help people live in dignity and freedom.” '

Remembering Free Harasta

 Fadi Dayoub:

 'Today we are at the end of a story that is more than five-year-old. A bittersweet story for sure, but one that saw people reach and touch the dream, even if they did not get to experience its full potential. Only six months ago, we were debating what's next for Harasta. We had just concluded the direct elections of a local council, a process that upheld electoral standards within our means--we even had debates among the candidates.

 Harasta, to be fair, was not the first to lead the way with direct elections of a local council; Saqba did it only a month before. And so, we were discussing what our next step should be. How to work with the council to increase the participation rate in the next elections, particularly that of women. We decided that the 'Center for Social Engagement"--which was established a few months prior and had taken part in overseeing the elections in Harasta producing a detailed report--should focus on encouraging higher electoral turnout.

 We did not know at the time those would be the last elections in Harasta... Harasta today, as those who remain there tell us, is almost completely destroyed. Part of its people has been made, under fire, to leave and go north. They wanted to still be able to smell free air, even if away from home. Another part decided to stay back, even deprived of their basic freedoms. A few days ago, several hundred people in Kafr Batna were filmed demonstrating, chanting "We do not want Freedom anymore!" They, thus, agreed to the trade the regime had asked of them: Their liberty for their life.

 And so, as some Harastans choose to let go of their freedom, while others choose to let go of their homes, remember that none of this was actually their choice. They made their decision at gunpoint. Today, as we turn the page on the five-year story of Free Harasta, I only hope for the safety and well-being of its people, wherever they are, and wherever they are made to be. We bow our heads to you in humility and we raise them with pride.'

‘Death and destruction all over’: Ghouta residents brave intense fighting to stay

 'Thousands of Syrians have fled from the shrinking rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta to government areas since February as government forces continue to take neighborhoods in the brutal battle.

 But others are fleeing deeper into rebel territory. They fear the government and seek to avoid them at all costs.

 Um Ahmad is one of them. A mother of five and the wife of a former fighter, she left her neighborhood Mesraba a month ago as the government advanced, leaving behind most of her possessions and braving mortar bombs all around her.

 She made her way to Douma – one of the last rebel-controlled areas. Despite the nonstop bombings, she thinks staying among the rebels is her best chance at survival.

“I could lose my husband forever,” she said of the prospect of going to safer areas held by the government. “I am ready to sacrifice here until the end.”

 The people in the increasingly small rebel territories face an uncertain and difficult future as the government continues to advance.

 Um Ahmad said she was staying in a basement as of 21 March with little food. Leaving Eastern Ghouta would spell a failure of the revolution and subsequent armed struggle that she doesn’t want to face.

 “We couldn’t imagine after all these years going back to the regime,” she said over the phone. “Leaving behind what we have been building and fighting for.”

 Despite her support for the rebel cause, she’s critical of the groups’ failure to stop the government offensive.

 “The FSA didn’t act to stop the regime, despite the big arsenal they have,” she said.


 The government began a major offensive to take Ghouta on 19 February, and split the rebel-held territory up on 11 March. The fighting has left over 1,000 dead, and caused immense damaged to Ghouta’s infrastructure, which has been pounded by Syrian air force bombs.

 The government's success in Ghouta is part of its momentum since the Russian intervention in 2015, which led to the victory in Aleppo at the end of 2016. The government has also benefitted from rebel infighting in Ghouta, where Jaysh al-Islam has clashed with Faylaq al-Rahman and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly the al-Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front.


 Others remaining in rebel areas of Eastern Ghouta share Um Ahmad’s bleak view. Safwan Alo left his home with his wife and kids in Al Shefoney when government forces took it on 3 March. They bounced around rebel neighbourhoods before coming to Douma, where they are now. His travels were nightmarish.

 “In those days it was like judgement day,” he said. “Death and destruction all over.”

 Fed up with a life of war, Alo wants to leave Ghouta, but only under certain circumstances.

 “We want to leave from here, not through regime or Russian corridors for sure. It’s not a safe passage for us. We don’t know if they will arrest us or leave us alive,” he said.

 “Everyone here is desperate to leave. However, they are frightened by what will happen to them after through these corridors.”

 Jaish al-Islam’s fighters are defiant despite defeat being all but certain.

 “They have been relentlessly trying to gain more area, destroying buildings and clearing the path to the ground forces, which have succeeded so far in many areas,” said Maher al-Ghoutani, a soldier from the Arbin area. "We are doing what are capable of so far and always will.”

 Al-Ghoutani said that the different groups are working together, and denies rebels are preventing people from leaving. He has no intention to leave himself, nor stop fighting.

 “I hope and we will fight the regime until the end, we will not leave the east and will fight until the last man,” he said.

 “We will continue fighting here and everywhere we could as long as we have breath running blood in our bodies.”


 Staying in eastern Ghouta means staying in horrible conditions from the war.

 “Relentless strikes, very little food…Entire families in tatters on the roads,” said Sara Kayyali, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.

 Kayyali said bombing has been nonstop and that many families are staying in basements to avoid death, and that the healthcare situation is deteriorating.

 “Doctors claim to receive hundreds of injured a day, and more are stuck under the rubble,” she said.

 She echoed concerns that people going to government territory could face detention or worse, citing past executions of civilians.

 “The current choice is between staying and risking death, and leaving and risking retaliation,” said Kayyali.


 Until a solution or a complete government victory is reached, Alo will stay put, hoping for a UN-brokered evacuation from his part of the city.

 “They should guarantee our safety,” he said. “Otherwise we would rather stay here and not die in the regime's jails.” '

Syrian rebel victory in Afrin reveals strength of Turkish-backed force

 'The Syrian rebel commander Abu Ahmed was smiling. His troops had played a key role in Turkey’s assault on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, a fight they have won.

 Abu Ahmed is a senior officer in the 10,000-strong rebel force that, with Turkish backing and instigation, took control of Afrin on Sunday after a two-month battle. His name has been changed, along with others, to freely discuss their sensitive relations with their backers in Ankara.

 Their quick victory in a fight against an adversary trained and armed by the US, which had ousted Islamic State from vast tracts of territory, underlined the growing power of a rebel army in Syria’s north, armed and paid by Turkey, that now comprises three legions and controls a growing swathe of territory.

 Throughout northern Syria, bands of disparate rebel groups have fallen in line behind the Ankara-backed project, which has imposed military discipline on fighters that Washington, while covertly backing, had deemed too fractious and weak to defeat Isis.

 “I mean, even Bashar al-Assad didn’t succeed in uniting us,” said one rebel official. “We are militarily and politically weaker than the regime, which is using scorched-earth tactics and areas are falling while we are accusing each other of betrayal.

 “The people now hate all the rebel factions, and this will change when there is a unified army,” he added.

 Critics, including within the opposition, say they are no more than mercenaries fighting Turkey’s battles, pitting Syrians against Syrians. Their fighters, while acknowledging they have no ultimate say in the broad contours of the war, disagree.

 “If Assad stays with his apparatchiks this will not be over, but if there is a transition away from Assad and his top echelons in the leadership, we can work together with the army with the support of the international community to impose security on all the liberated areas,” said Abu Ahmed’s political aide. “And if we are tricked, the weapons are still there, and the fighters are there, and it will be a fight to the death.”

 It was Ankara’s second major campaign in Syria. In August 2016 it launched Euphrates Shield, an operation that relied on Syrian rebel groups to clear towns controlled by Isis from the border and halt Kurdish expansion west of the Euphrates river.

 After the campaign, Turkey sought to better organise and train the rebels allied with it, providing them with training, arms, and even a monthly stipend for the fighters in the military factions that join the alliance. The three legions that form the rebel army, which nominally falls under the authority of a barebones transitional government formed with Turkish backing, are led by defected Syrian soldiers who are themselves advised by senior Turkish military officers, according to rebel officials and commanders.

 Rebels say they conducted the vast majority of the fighting in Afrin, backed by Turkish artillery and fighter planes. They are convinced that the battle was an overall strategic victory, because it will open a ground corridor into nearby Idlib province, and link them up with other rebel factions that want to join the coalition there.

 While acknowledging their lack of agency in determining the course of the war, they see no problem in aligning themselves with Ankara, given what they see as a convergence of interests in Syria. The prospect of a united rebel army, as the war in Syria enters its eighth year, appears to overpower their dependency on an ally with whom their goals might not always align.

 “The main goal is to build an army for the opposition, and we built a nucleus,” said one rebel commander. “The regime doesn’t make its own decisions, it’s basically a military faction like all the rebels, and neither does the opposition. When the international powers agree, [the war in] Syria will be over, and when that happens, time will help everyone forget.” '

How the war in Syria destroyed my childhood idyll in Eastern Ghouta

 'As the bombs rain down on the rebel-held area on the edge of Damascus, Steve Ali remembers the idyllic summers he and his friends spent there as children — and how their young lives were torn apart by Syria’s civil war
In Syria, we don’t say, “Once upon a time …” We say, “There was and there wasn’t a long time ago …” So that is how I shall start my story here.

 There was and there wasn’t a long time ago a boy called Mustafa who had a friend called Mahmoud. The most exciting challenge in Mustafa’s life was to climb the tallest oak tree in a field owned by Mahmoud’s family in Ein Tarma in Eastern Ghouta. The field was by the Barada river that ran all the way from Western Ghouta and across Damascus to Eastern Ghouta. From the top of this oak Mustafa felt like he could see the whole world. He loved to ride the bendy branches as the howling wind rocked them back and forth.

 Mahmoud’s father would scold Mustafa. “Get down, you monkey! You’ll hurt yourself if you fall, son,” he’d shout, but Mustafa did not fall.

 Mustafa and Mahmoud and their friends Samer, Ahmad, Amer, Rami and little Ziad were a tight summer crew. They played football in the long, wide field, through the emerald plants and the dark red soil. They chased each other through the trees. They planted vegetables, fed the farm animals, swam in the river and found adventures in the woods until the sun went down. Then they pulled aubergines and potatoes from the field and cooked them over an open fire under the moonlight. Then they rode back to the house on their bicycles.

 Mahmoud’s older brother Karim was a teacher and sometimes he would manage to gather the scattered children into the house to teach them maths. He had kind, twinkly eyes and a warm heart and stealthy means to make the children laugh as they learnt that “numbers are important”. After lessons the whole family would sit in their large living room full of treasures, on a beautiful Persian rug that Mustafa thought looked like Aladdin’s flying carpet. They would share a picnic of traditional Syrian dishes made by Mahmoud’s adoring mother.

 When the children were tired of running outside on the long summer days, they’d visit Samer, whose father was a master craftsman. Sometimes he would take the boys to his workshop in Hazeh where he taught them how to make wooden clocks. Each child had a role in the production line and at breaktime Samer’s mother would reward the little workers with sandwiches and a huge kettle of tea.

 Ahmad wouldn’t come to the workshop. He was too shy. He preferred to work in his father’s florist’s, more excited by flowers than people. He would lecture Mustafa about orchids with a spark in his eye and a passion in his quiet little voice. Mustafa loved watching his friend leave his awkwardness to one side whenever he was able to be an authority on orchids.

 Amer and Rami were brothers. The children were sometimes invited to their father’s factory in Hamoryah where he produced generators and electrical products. The boys fiddled with the machines and tools and broke them as often as they learnt how to get them going.

 Little Ziad, the last of the gang, was from Douma. His dad had a convenience shop on the corner in the main square where he chatted and chain-smoked. Mustafa always warned him the smoking was very bad for his health and he always promised to quit but never did.

 Many blissful summers in Eastern Ghouta and peaceful school years in Damascus passed. Mustafa and his friends laughed and argued, played and studied, and grew tall — even little Ziad. Eventually the crew split up to travel to different universities. The idyllic years of their childhood grew into their first days of adulthood. Then the war began. It was and it wasn’t a long time ago … the kind of slaughter that belonged in a savage ancient myth. Except this time it definitely was — and it was happening now. It was happening to me and everyone I’d ever loved.

 None of us living in Damascus knew what was happening in the country at first. We lived under the relentless brainwashing machine of national television, where we were told that the rumours of torture and killing were lies to turn people against the government. We couldn’t imagine life being any other way than it had been when we were riding bicycles in the woods.

 But soon everyone could smell the blood. The sickeningly dry and suffocating smell of burning flesh made it hard to breathe. As the conflict intensified, we all had to be identified as either a loyal supporter of the regime or the enemy. For them or against them. Damascus was turned into one massive fortress, crawling with army officers, with checkpoints on every street. Walls were painted with the regime’s flag and propaganda. Veiled figures walked the streets at night writing revolutionary phrases on walls. The regime responded by threatening to knock the walls of people’s houses down if they couldn’t keep them clean.

 From my room at night I could hear the peal of cannons. My house would tremble as I watched the bombs like shooting stars in the distance. A walk to see friends would turn into a battlefield, running through bullets from armed soldiers and rebels, like something out of Mad Max. Bombings, explosions, assassinations and arbitrary arrests became the norm.

 I was a student, so immune to being called up to shoot and gas Syrians my own age and younger. But soon young men my age were randomly pulled off university campuses and forced into uniform with a gun in their back and a threat to kill or be killed. So on March 13, 2013, I packed as lightly as possible, dressed as discreetly as I could and left my home for the last time.

 I set off with the intention of passing through about 20 military checkpoints, including one known as the checkpoint of death. My ID card was torn, which would have signalled disloyalty and meant certain death. I slipped it into a clear plastic folder, masking the tear, and showed my passport instead wherever I could. At each checkpoint I was waved through, my heart beating in my mouth — until the final one.

 An enormous, bald, armed man with huge bushy beard and a face from hell approached me and asked for my ID. He stared at the torn document for a long time and I knew my time was up. I was going to be taken away. I knew not where, except that I would not return. After what seemed like a short lifetime, he handed it back to me wordlessly and walked away. I have no idea why, to this day. I didn’t look back. Not long afterwards, I was in Turkey. I felt born again, but I had no idea how far away peace would be for me.

 I walked across countries where Syrians were not welcome and there were no rights for refugees. I crossed seas in dinghies and I slept rough. I avoided arrest from ruthless police, dealt with unscrupulous, terrifying smugglers and nearly died of exposure. After three years, I finally arrived in the Calais Jungle refugee camp, where I lived for a year. By night I worked as a firefighter. It was a very flammable place, in every way. The French police tear-gassed and intimidated the traumatised population and threatened to bulldoze our shelters to the ground. Eventually they did.


 I tried every possible death-defying way to get to London until one of them worked. I was sofa surfing while waiting for asylum. Then a friend asked me to do a panel show podcast called Global Pillage with some stand-up comedians who were doing a refugee season for TimePeace, an app that connects refugees with local people. Deborah, the host of the show, said she and her husband, Tom, were going away and needed a cat-sitter. I agreed immediately.

 When they returned, we all stayed up for hours chatting, drinking tea and stroking Toast, their cat, in front of the fire. It was the loveliest night I’d had in a long time. Like something I would have done in Syria before the war. It felt … normal.

 Afterwards, Deborah said that if I left it was clear that Toast would leave with me, so I should stay on in their spare room. I feel very lucky and grateful in every way to have met them. The sense of family we’ve developed and the calm stability that I have being there has meant I’ve found some of my old self. I’ve unpacked in more ways than one and made my bedroom my own space, like it was in Damascus. I haven’t had any room except a shelter in a refugee camp from the age of 20 to 25, so I love this one.

 I make silver jewellery, so I got a desk from Freecycle and began collecting tools. As soon as I got my papers, I started selling my jewellery and called my company Road from Damascus, because I had my epiphany coming the other way.

 Being granted asylum is like becoming a person again. Life is getting better and normality is returning. Recently, I was offered a job as an interpreter for a news agency. I speak Arabic, Turkish and English, and this is quite well-paid work for someone who loves languages. For the first time in years, I have an appetite for the future.

 I wake up. My phone reminds me it is 1,808 days exactly since I left Damascus. Numbers matter. Karim taught me that, but now I understand what that means in a way perhaps he didn’t. I go to work at the news agency and I am distracted because it is my best friend’s 26th birthday, but he only lived 21 of them. Our university was bombed just after I escaped. We spoke the night before he was killed. He was making plans to join me.


 I sit behind a desk, going through videos and reports. They come through thick and fast from Eastern Ghouta. The region is being bombed and devastated. I need to prepare for a report for the 6pm news on national American television. I interpret a speech from a man they call “The Tiger” — Brigadier Suheil Salman al-Hassan, commander of the government’s Tiger Forces. He is leading the attacks on Eastern Ghouta. I translate his words into English but they stick to the roof of my mouth. He says: “I promise, I will teach them a lesson, in combat and in fire. You won’t find a rescuer. And if you do, you will be rescued with water like boiling oil. You’ll be rescued with blood.”

 I feel sick. Furious, devastated, sad, battered and broken. How much longer will this last? How much longer do my people have to suffer?

 I can’t see the screens any more. My mind blocks the carnage with all the summers with Mahmoud, Samer, Ahmad, Amer, Rami and little Ziad. I can hear their laughter, feel the softness of the magic carpet, taste the roasted aubergines and smell the orchids. Every colour is vivid. A hundred images in a second, as if their lives are flashing before my eyes.

 I realise my tea is cold. And I am numb. I have forgotten where I am. And remembered where I’ll never be again.

 Mahmoud died in an airstrike when a bomb fell on the house with the big Persian rug that we had picnicked on so many times. His father was killed beside him.

 Mahmoud’s older brother Karim, who taught us to love maths, came home to find his loved ones dead and his kind eyes stopped twinkling when he buried them and four more of his siblings. Not long afterwards, Karim’s warm heart stopped beating. He was shot in the head by a sniper.

 Samer left his house full of wooden clocks one day and went to a protest to call time on Assad’s regime. He was arrested and so badly beaten by the police he was unrecognisable. When his father went to the police station to try to get his son back, he was arrested too. Neither of them has been seen again. About a year after that, Samer’s mother who had made us so many sandwiches and big pots of tea was killed in an explosion alongside her seven-year-old daughter.

 Shy Ahmad got on a bus to go to university one day. It was stopped at a checkpoint. They ripped his student card out of his hand and forced him into the military. Ahmad was killed in a battle and thrown into a large ditch with many other young, violently conscripted men. A young soldier who knew Ahmad recognised him while trying to cover his body with some soil. He contacted his family to let them know. There were no orchids on his grave.

 Amer and Rami’s father’s generator factory was stormed by the regime. Everyone working there was arrested and the place was looted. Their father was accused of having connections with terrorists and put on trial. All his possessions and property were taken and he was sent to the notorious military prison of Sednaya, where later he was executed.

 In response Amer and Rami joined the rebel forces. Amer got shot in one of the vicious battles during the siege. Rami saw his brother go down, ran directly into the line of fire to try to save him and was instantly shot dead.

 Little Ziad, barely grown up at 20, tried to flee Syria with his family, who left their convenience store and everything they knew behind, but he was detained at a border. His father went back for him and paid someone he knew to get his son out. They took his money and sent him Ziad’s dead body. Soon after, Ziad’s father had his last cigarette and died of a heart attack.

 And then there is me, Mustafa, nicknamed Steve by my Syrian friends, which is easier for my English ones. The only one left who can remember the tallest oak tree in the field in Ein Tarma in Eastern Ghouta.

 I walk back to the desk and see a post from Hassan Akkad, a friend from Damascus who is now in London. “A few years from now, there will be a huge Hollywood film about Syria. It will tell the true story of the systematic torture and rape Assad’s troops used against millions of peaceful protestors to shut down the revolution. A film we will watch, weep and then say, ‘Never again’.”

 It was and it is and it’s happening now — and every day nobody stops it. I feel as if I have climbed to the top of the oak tree again and I can see the whole of Ghouta from here. I can hear Mahmoud’s father’s voice in my head, warning me to be careful, but I am the lucky one. I did not fall.'

‘I screamed, but no one came’: The horrifying sexual violence facing Syria’s women and girls

 'Syrian government forces, under the control of Bashar al-Assad, have systematically used rape and sexual violence as a tool to victimize and humiliate its perceived enemies.

 That's the conclusion of the United Nations' Human Rights Council, which just released a new report on the horrific sexual violence facing the people of Syria.

 The stories in the report, written after interviews with more than 450 people, document a terrifying and systematic pattern of sexual abuse by the government during house raids, at checkpoints and in detention centers.

 Rape and sexual humiliation weren't a bug of the system — they were a feature, designed to break combatants and destroy the structures of family life.


 The report documents the way rape was deployed during government raids on the homes of people it suspected to be in the opposition.

 As one women explained: “My home was invaded ... One security officer told me to go to my room and he followed me in. He began insulting me and telling me he would 'do me' and that I would never 'be clean again.' I screamed, but no one came.”

 In some instances, women and girls recounted being raped outside or forced to walk naked in the streets in front of tanks. One woman told interviewers that she'd been raped in front of her brother. Another woman said she'd been raped in front of her husband and three young children. Some women who resisted were killed, or were forced to watch their relatives die.

 In other cases, women and girls were taken to detention centers as a way to pressure their male relatives to surrender.

 At government checkpoints, particularly in opposition-held areas — a near-daily reality in Syria, where most roads are controlled by someone — women and girls suffered similar humiliations. Sometimes women were separated from their groups and raped. One woman recalled being pulled off a bus and taken to a house with eight other women, who were all naked and injured.

 Even elderly women were not safe. Many were subject to “intimate searches.” One woman recalled being taken to a basement and beaten by a militia member, who also touched her breasts and genitals. Another said she had “an object inserted in her genitals.”

 The worst abuse, however, was reserved for the girls and women in detention. As the report explains, “thousands of women and girls were also apprehended, including female lawyers, journalists and activists expressing anti-Government sentiments. Large numbers of female relatives of men perceived to be opposition supporters, or suspected of belonging to armed groups, were also arbitrarily detained.”


 For those girls and women — some as young as 9 years old — there was a parade of horrors: Pregnant women were raped. At least one interviewee miscarried as a result.

 On arrival, women were sometimes stripped naked in groups and forced to squat in front of an audience as a male officer inserted his fingers into their genitals. In detention, many women reported rape. Some reported electrocution of their genitals and breasts. Others said they had been gang-raped.

 All reported horrific conditions and frequent beatings. According to the report, one detainee said that at one point, the fact that she was covered in blood, urine and lice prevented officers from raping her.

 “The officers of the Syrian forces were not only aware of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls,” the report found. “They ordered it or were themselves the perpetrators.”

 In detention centers, men suffered too. According to the report, several reported that they had been raped in front of other detainees. Some said that pipes or rods had been used, “seemingly for amusement.” Others reported that male relatives were forced to have intercourse with one another.

 “Survivors of sexual violence and defectors of the Syrian army linked rapes of women and girls during house raids to the arrest of men, with the rapes considered as punishment for rebellion and a way to deter opposition.” This kind of assault eased up after 2015 as the government's forces shifted to air raids.

 These were not isolated incidents, but rather reported countrywide, in Daraa, Homs, Damascus and Latakia.

 There are accounts of sexual violence against women from armed groups too. But the report finds that that was sporadic, or at least not part of an organized campaign.'

Everything is going to get worse and worse until you get rid of Assad

 My contribution to a debate on Syria and the Left at SOAS on 15th March, 2018.

 ‘I spent a lot of time in 2013-14 unpacking the concept of intervention. Because you had an awful lot of people, especially on the left, whose entire discussion about Syria would be, “Well I’m not in favour of intervention,” and that would be simply the end of the conversation.


 Partly it’s based on the war in Iraq. Believing that everything is about the war in Iraq. Which is partly an understandable carry forward from having your government lie to you. But is partly instrumentalised by people on the left, who say that was a great success for us, so if we cast everything in those terms, then that will mean everything else is a success for us. So if we say, anyone who says we should intervene in Syria is a right-wing warmonger, then we will be doing a good job for the left. Because we were proved right about Iraq, and you are all now Tony Blair.


 What the intellectual versions of this would be, is to cast any sort of intervention as a full-scale invasion à la Iraq, so that you could steal their oil. Any sort of intervention was a slippery slope on the road to doing that, because that is what happened in Iraq. It was totally to ignore what was specific to Syria.


 So much so that today you get people going, “Oh, Salisbury. Would the Russians really use chemical on people?” Because it’s in Britain it is more obvious that this is a complete pack of lies. This is where getting into the mindset of believing all these conspiracies gets you. But while it has been very successful in building a left alternative consensus in 2013, that what we needed to do was throw Syrians under the tank, and that was done because we’ve learned from experience tells us that staying out of wars is the way to solve them.


 Whenever someone who had previously supported the war in Iraq proposed a solution. Then it would simply be read by what you would now call alt-left commentators as there is someone who wants to go and bomb Syria. Even if what they said was that we should have a No Fly Zone and support for the Free Syrian Army, and various other things that would try to avoid having Western boots on the ground as much as possible, it was simply, “Oh, you want to bomb Syria.” And that was the end of the debate.


 Where Stop the War came in. They developed the belief after about 1991, that there was only one significant imperial power in the world, which was the US. And so everything they did was about saying what was bad was about the US. Even people who came from a tradition of saying Neither Washington Nor Moscow”, still, it’s everything is about the US. So when Russia invaded Georgia in 2009, the problem is that John McCain has been seen in Georgia, and they are going to try and oppress all these people and split up Russia. And we have to oppose all this.


 Stop the War had organised lots of coaches for the Iraq War demo. And then they needed a reason to continue their existence. So they began to get funding because they were a voice opposing American power. And so that’s why they’ve been some of the worst people, because they’ve had a particular in saying this is all about America, this is all about stopping Britain from invading anywhere.


 There are practical solutions that could have worked better five or six years ago. I think still the best way to go is to empower Syrians to fight against Assad.


 I don’t think Syria is that complicated. I think it is essentially a question of Assad staying is such an immense destabilising force, that everything is going to get worse and worse until you get rid of Assad. You have to say what the critical debate is. There are other things you can do about solidarity. You can have solidarity with people under siege. But the fundamental debate about how you make things better, is about how you support Syrians to overthrow Assad, however difficult that looks at the moment.


 I was going to try to avoid the whole Afrin question, because I am generally more positive about it than Leila is, but what can say about it is that there are now tens of thousands of trained Syrian fighters, fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army. Who once the operation is over, will want to see a free Syria that is liberated from Assad.


 So while the forces that we would call the Free Syrian Army are now more dominated by foreign states than they ever have been, particularly Turkey, and that’s a problem, of self-determination, they do at least exist.


 You can arm people with anti-aircraft weapons. That will stop the bombing. I remember the last time there was a debate about anti-aircraft weapons in relation to Aleppo, people said, “Oh yes, but MANPADS don’t work against the Russian bombers.” Well, that shouldn’t be the end of the debate then. Why can’t they get BUKs like the Russians are handing out like candy to their forces in the Ukraine to shoot down airliners with, and give them to Syrians to shoot down the Russian airforce? Or the US equivalent. Stinger missiles, whatever it is. Once you have decided the problem is Assad, that there is going to be no democracy, there is going to be no freedom of assembly, while he continues to rule, then the question is what are the practical ways you go about it.


 I also think it is a situation in which you need all the forces fighting Assad to be fighting against Assad, and not fighting each other. There are Islamists who are more extreme than I would ever want to live under, and I’m not saying they should take over the place, but I am saying I don’t think these are the people the more secular forces should be fighting against. They should all be fighting against Assad.


 It is a situation like the 1930s, where the Germans had a question of: you’ve got the Communist Party who are doing everything Stalin tells them, you’ve got the Social Democrats, who are selling out to Hitler in various ways, and selling out to capitalism, and so on. These people have to unite, in order to stop the fascists. And you can argue about what sort of society you create afterwards, but that’s sort of the brutal thing.’

The Bravehearts of Syria

 'Lieutenant colonel Yusuf al-Jadir made a strategic advance in one of the suburbs of Aleppo on December 15, 2012, destroying several tanks of Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad.

 One of his fighters asked him how he was feeling about the victory. Jadir said, “By God, I’m really sad. These tanks are our tanks, the ammunition [of the enemy] is ours, and the people we are fighting are our brothers. By God, I feel sad whenever one of us or them get killed. If that man [Assad] had resigned, Syria would have been one of the best countries in the world.”

 Born in 1970 in the suburbs of eastern Aleppo, Jadir defected from Assad’s military in July 2012. Five months later, a few hours after gaining hold of an Aleppo suburb, he was killed in an air raid.

 Jadir was among the most influential military officers who defected from the regime’s army in the summer of 2012. Though the “Free Syrian Army” was officially launched in July 2011, more and more soldiers joined the revolutionary ranks by 2012, a defining moment for tens of thousands of Syrians who protested against the Assad regime.

 But seven years later, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is no longer a well organised conglomerate of several fighting units. It is rather a deeply fragmented resistance movement that is spread across Syria, holding up key territories in Daraa, Idlib provinces, Aleppo suburbs and Ghouta, a Damascus suburb.

 What happened between 2011 and 2017 is a story of Assad’s brutal military campaign aided by Russia and the culmination of several dozen fighting units backed by international players that changed the course of Syria’s revolution, pushing the country to a full-fledged civil war.

 From 2012 onward, competing ideologies and interests caused cracks in the opposition. Some battalions and brigades started to form their own agendas beside toppling Assad.

 To understand why the revolutionary forces were able to make strategic gains in the initial years, one must look into the lives of some of its key leaders. They were somehow able to bridge a gap between various fighting forces – whether they were “moderate”, “Islamists” or “patriotic.” And even today, the space they left seems to be unfilled. And until now, they are proving to be the irreplaceable leaders of the revolution.

 Yusuf al Jadir defected from Assad’s army on July 18, 2012, and took the leadership role of Al Tawheed Brigade, one of the biggest armed oppositions in Aleppo. In its heyday, the brigade had at least 10,000 fighters.

 Jadir participated in many battles against the regime forces north of Aleppo. He died in an air raid on December 15, 2012. Instead of harbouring the feelings of enmity, anger or revenge, Jadir looked after the welfare of hostages or the regime soldiers who surrendered in various battles. Many Syrians consider him as a national figure.

 Zahran Alloush wa born in 1971 in eastern Ghouta, Alloush came from a family of religious scholars. He studied in Saudi Arabia, where he finished his MA in Islamic Studies at the Islamic University.

 He was known for being “moderate active Salafi,” a title that landed him in trouble. The regime arrested him for holding Salafist views in 2009.

 Soon after the armed rebellion gained momentum, Assad released thousands of prisoners. Alloush was also set free. He was quick to gather fighters and form what he called the Islam Platoon, which gained several territories. He then named it the Army of Islam with more than 10,000 fighters under his belt.

 Under Alloush’s military command, Daesh failed to impose its presence in eastern Ghouta. Alloush was against the extremist group, often referring to it as the “Baghdadi Gang”.

 A few months before his death, foreign countries intervened against the revolutionary fighters, giving an advantage to the Assad regime, Alloush launched a key battle in Ghouta that enabled the opposition forces to get closest ever to Assad’s stronghold, Damascus.

 But he was killed by a Russian air strike on December 25, 2015.


 Known by his nickname “Hajji Mare,” Abdulkadir Salih was born in 1979 in Aleppo. Prior to the revolution, he used to be a grain merchant. As protests against Assad morphed into a nationwide uprising, Salih organised many demonstrations.

 Salih felt the urge to protect the people of Aleppo as the regime deployed brutal tactics to quell the uprising, often killing unarmed protesters, torturing and disappearing people. He joined the armed opposition and became one of the founding members of Al Tawheed Brigade, which succeeded in taking control of more than half of Aleppo.

 Salih organised many rebel brigades in the region and was part of the FSA’s command structure.

 He played a crucial role in bridging the gap between various opposition groups with different ideologies and schisms. His moderation was accepted by most of the fighting units in Aleppo and that alone led the regime to put a $200,000 bounty on his head, local experts say.

 Salih survived at least two assassination attempts before he died on November 17, 2013, as a result of an air raid on the Infantry Academy of Al Muslimiyah north of Aleppo.

 When some opposition fighters asked him about composing an anthem on his name, he said:

 “If you want to write a song, do not mention my name, you could mention the name the Al Tawheed Brigade, the whole Muslim Nation, Syria, that is okay, however, don’t mention the name of a person. He might get arrogant."

 So what changed after the revolution lost key leaders?

 Aleppo’s largest Al Tawheed brigade collapsed soon after the death of Salih.

 Rebel group Jaish ul Islam remained stuck in eastern Ghouta and never made any further advances after losing Zahran Alloush.

 So far, no one has managed to replace them. Their charisma and ability to unite battalions and move away from the control of their funders made them indispensable.

 Ahmad Abazzed, a military analyst from Daraa, said that the Assad regime had pinpointed these leaders and was desperate to eliminate them.

 “Assad knew all the revolutionary forces were following the command of these charismatic leaders as they were from the first generation of rebels who fought against the regime,” Abazzed said.

 It was clear, he added, that Assad’s and Russia’s first target was never Daesh or other extremist groups that killed in the name of religion, rather it was the FSA and other moderate opposition groups.

 Though the strategy of bumping off top leaders worked with Al Tawheed and Jaish ul Islam, Abazzed said other battalions have learned to survive even after losing their main leaders.

 “Because they have built an institutionalised structure and popular base among the masses.”

 Moving forward, he said, the armed opposition has moved from building large military brigades to forming small and compact fighting units. “The new battalions that have been formed recently are easier to control than brigades that led the assault at the beginning of the revolution,” he said.

 “I think regaining independence, strategic thinking, cultivating an understanding with various allies is important so that the opposition forces would be able to balance between the interests of the allies and the interests of the Syrian people.”

 Abazzed said one thing was clear in the series of negotiations between the Assad regime and the opposition that took place in Geneva, Astana and Sochi. "The opposition should be able to represent Syria as a whole rather than representing local battalions or councils," he said. "Then only they can redefine themselves and stick to their main goal to topple Assad first.” '

Syria Is In No Civil War

 'Having now completed its seventh year, the Syrian conflict, one of the deadliest humanitarian crises of our time, continues to be characterized as a civil war.

 Such a categorization, however, is both inaccurate and troubling, as it simplifies a very complicated situation.

 It allows us to become disillusioned with the idea that problems “over there” are just that and have no impact elsewhere, resulting in a collective numbness and shrugging-of-shoulders when images of war-torn Syrian cities and towns (too rarely) dominate our front pages.

 Such a simplification is dangerous.

 It exonerates the international community of responsibility, producing global apathy. It allows internal and external groups to justify their involvement and use of violence, fails to acknowledge the direct and active role of powerful players like Russia and Iran, and gives Syrian president Bashar al-Assad a facade of legitimacy by equating the killer with the victims.

 In March 2011, following decades of stagnation and oppression, a sudden awakening of a disenchanted Syrian populace – one which had lost patience with a failing, anocratic state – swept through the nation when a group of teenagers were arrested and tortured in the southwestern Syrian city of Daraa for painting graffiti featuring messages in support of the Arab uprisings.

 Daraa’s consequent rallying cry for the release of the boys was met with a ferocious crackdown of security forces, who reverted to the logic of violence by killing and detaining innocent civilians.

 Struggles for freedom, economic woes, and public anger over harsh government retaliation resulted in a shift in chants from local and reformist demands, to a call for the complete overthrow of the Assad regime.

 Further, the toppling of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes fuelled hope among Syrian protesters, who continued risking their lives demanding dignity (karama), liberty (hurriyya), and revolution (thawra).

 Armed resistance against the Assad regime grew in the form of self-defence as soldiers began defecting from the Syrian military via YouTube videos following the summer of 2011. This led to the birth of the Free Syrian Army, marking the weaponization of the conflict.

 There are local factions that fight against one another from time to time – still, the underlying power dynamic between the regime and the Syrian people is one that is too convoluted to be characterized as a civil war.

 We see this in the arbitrary violence perpetrated by the Assad regime against a helpless populace.

 Soldiers were forced to shoot unarmed demonstrators or were shot themselves. Stadiums and school classrooms were turned into prison camps where mutilation and torture of the worst kinds imaginable were inflicted on men, women, and children, including the elderly and wounded. Public rape, forced starvation, aid obstruction, and indiscriminate executions were used as instruments of warfare and deterrence.

 This degree of atrocities deployed against a largely unarmed population failed to suppress rebellion. The regime’s survival strategy – one of oppressive tactics and its attempt to blame sectarian divisions and foreign conspiracies for the violence – proved ineffective.

 And so, in a deliberate attempt to aggravate the conflict and radicalize what remained of formerly peaceful demonstrations, Assad released dangerous extremists from prison – a number of whom now compose the majority of ISIS leadership. This has helped him shift the narrative, emphasizing so-called Islamic terrorism as a key characteristic of the conflict, thereby presenting himself as a partner in the global war on terror and justifying his use of violence.

 How can we refer to the conflict as a civil war, given the vast amount of external interference?

 Foreign powers have prioritized violence and significantly exacerbated the conflict.

 Following the outbreak of demonstrations in 2011, Shiite fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran were immediately deployed in Syria to support the Assad regime.

 Moscow has also been integral to Assad’s survival. Since 2015, Russia has been launching airstrikes targeted at Syrian rebel forces, which often entails targeting Syrian neighbourhoods, hospitals, and schools.

 The most brutal bombardments are currently being carried out by pro-government forces in eastern Ghouta, an agricultural, rebel-held enclave located in the northern Damascene countryside that has been under siege since 2013 and is home to an estimated 400,000 civilians. Since mid-November, over 1,200 air strikes and more than 6,000 rockets and shells – some of which have reportedly contained chlorine gas – have been fired at the enclave. This is despite the fact that eastern Ghouta was declared a “de-escalation zone” last May; that is, the region is under a diplomatic ceasefire agreed to by Russia, Iran, and Turkey.

 The death toll in eastern Ghouta continues to rise. In a one-week period earlier this year, the number of casualties exceeded 500, with thousands of civilians severely injured. Relentless air and artillery strikes have forced civilians to seek shelter underground and has left the region largely deprived of medical care, foodstuffs, sanitation, and other basic necessities.

 The conflict has produced well over five million refugees and six million have been internally displaced – more than half of the country’s pre-war population. More than eight million children have been affected by the conflict and over 13 million Syrians are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance. Nearly half a million people have been killed, more than two million injured, and more than 65,000 have disappeared in Syria’s torture prisons.

 This is a war carried out by Assad and his foreign allies against the people of Syria, a murderous campaign to exterminate a nation in order to maintain a long-standing power dynamic in the region.

 Do not equate the killer with the victim.

 This is not a civil war.'

Assad’s rape victims break their silence

 Yvonne Ridley:

  'The torture victim stood in front of her tormentor wondering what treatment would be meted out this time in the notorious Branch 215, also known as Raid Brigade run by military intelligence in Damascus. Would it be a merciless beating or would it be another sex assault on her already broken body?

 The start of the investigation was interrupted suddenly by a ringing telephone and she watched and listened with incredulity as the voice laughing and giggling down the line prompted the torturer to break into a warm smile. Almost automatically, he softened the tone of his voice, for that is the effect most daughters have on their fathers.

 In the seconds that he looked away from his torture victim he had morphed from brutal monster into a warm and caring father. This was one of the more chilling aspects that emerged from the stories I heard from Syrian women who have been swept up on an industrial scale and thrown into Bashar Al-Assad’s prisons since the start of the 2011 war. The cold reality is that the mass rapes, sexual assaults, punishment beatings and mental torture are being inflicted on women routinely by someone else’s fathers, husbands and even grandfathers.

 At the end of the shift, these men must return to their family homes and normality, having completely destroyed the lives and souls of the women and young girls in their grip. The harsh reality is that if your husband works in Branch 215 then he is probably a serial rapist or is standing by as a spectator watching the most heinous, unimaginable crimes being carried out on women prisoners and girls.

 I wonder how this particular monster responded when he got home and was asked, “What did you do today, Daddy?” Obviously he would not be telling his daughter about the teeth he smashed, the bones he had broken or the sex he had forced on his victims.



 While trying to shine a light on this dark underbelly of the Assad regime, I met several women who ended up in Branch 215 or other equally terrifying prisons and ghost jails run by the Syrian regime. In every encounter, the image of Bashar Al-Assad loomed large, either in portraits hanging on walls or on the T-shirts worn by the men responsible for the brutal rapes.

 Yes, you read that accurately. Incredible as it may seem, the face of the Syrian leader is emblazoned on T-shirts worn by the rapists in his employ, as if he defiles Syrian women by proxy. No wonder that many who manage to get out of the prisons cannot bear to look at the face of the Syrian leader. Those small, thin lips and piercing stare must send shivers down their spines every time they see his image.

 “Some days I manage to forget what happened to me,” Noor told me, “and then suddenly I’ll see someone sneer or curl their lip in a certain way and it acts like a trigger; I’m back inside 215 suffering from a flashback, feeling terror and anxiety.” Three years on from her own ordeal she puts on a good face for the outside world but you just know, in her darker moments, that she’s plunged back into the stuff of nightmares.

 Badria is not as fortunate; for her, the nightmare continues five years after she and 40 women in Homs were rounded up and taken to an apartment in the Syrian revolution’s fallen capital. When she was arrested she was dressed in black and wore a full face veil, which made her more of a target for her Alawite captors who taunted, mocked and abused her for her piety.

 Once the captors had left the large, spartan room she began to perform tayammum using the stone floor because normal wudu — the Islamic ritual of washing before prayer – was impossible. Unknown to her, CCTV cameras caught her actions and as soon as she tried to prepare for Salah the men returned and beat her with sticks.

 She had her feet and wrists bound and was left hanging from a ceiling hook by the rope around her hands. Every time she mentioned the name of God or any Islamic reference she was beaten. Hands shaking, she looked at me and opened her mouth slowly before removing her dentures. Her teeth, top and bottom, had been shattered by the sticks swung hard and with deliberate precision across her face. Her cheekbones were fractured.

 “I used to have full breasts,” she said as she lifted her shirt, “but now look.” Doctors have told her that the beatings across her breasts were so severe that the tissue was destroyed and will probably never recover. In terms of dress size she was probably an English 14, medium to large when she was arrested, but as she sat before me she looked more like a Size 6, a skeleton draped in skin which will bear the scars of captivity for life.

 Speaking through a translator, she told me how the women in her group were taken into a smaller room where they were raped and humiliated by two or more of the military intelligence officers. There, above the bed, staring down, were portraits of Assad and his brother Maher. To the side of the bed was a small table with various bottles of alcohol for the men to drink.

 To combat their drunken state, explained Badria, they took blue pills before forcing themselves on their prey. She also described how some would put an orange pill under their tongue. After some research I concluded that the drugs she described were the blue diamond-shaped Viagra and the orange pill Levitra, which works four times faster in some men, taking effect after just 15 minutes.

 There was no need to ask Badria if she had been sexually assaulted; the detail she provided about the inside of the rape room, the pills and the alcohol, and the portraits of the Assad brothers leering down told me all I needed to know. She had been forced into the room on numerous occasions where cameras were also installed and the women were led to believe that their images and photographs had been taken.

 She told me of one woman who was “gang raped to death” while another had simply lost her mind. Freedom for Badria came at a price; $17,000 was the ransom paid by her family to get her out of prison. If she thought the nightmare would end then, though, she was wrong. Her husband did not survive the military prison in Homs where he was held; witnesses told her that he died after having his eyes gouged out by his captors.

 Her father and one of her brothers were martyred fighting in the Free Syrian Army and the brother who borrowed so heavily to get her released is now in prison himself, being unable to repay the debt. Meanwhile her sister has been arrested and locked up, and those left in the family are trying desperately to raise the $1,000 being demanded for her release. So not only is the Assad regime abusing women on an industrial scale, but it is also making money out of their misery and running what amounts to a sordid slave trade.

 Badria’s son, aged around seven, sat in silence as his mother told her story; every now and again, when the details became too graphic, she sent him on an errand. He looked nearly as traumatised as his mother who was shrinking before his eyes in stature and health. She looked so frail as I got up to leave, that it was difficult to give her a sisterly hug; I honestly felt that she might snap.

 At another house I was taken to I met a mother-of-five called Aishah who was arrested in the early days of the war because she had taken part in the street demonstrations. She was taken to Branch 215 where she was beaten “in a humiliating manner”. She was moved around the intelligence system and taken to three other branches, including one at Adra.

 During her incarceration she saw girls as young as seven, old women and every age in between detained, raped and abused. She spoke of the five military officers who put on T-shirts bearing the portrait of Assad before carrying out their gang rape on one woman. “They declared Assad to be their god,” she said.

 Now living safely on the Turkish border near Hatay with her five girls aged three to 17, Aishah is widowed. Her husband, who was also arrested and abused, survived his prison ordeal only to be killed in an air raid in eastern Ghouta three years ago just after the birth of his fifth child.



 The women I met all want justice. They want to see the men who tortured, raped and abused them stand trial for the war crimes that they have all undoubtedly committed. I’d like to be able to report that they are now safe and secure but I’m not sure that they will ever be able to recover fully. One told me that the moment she closes her eyes she’s back inside the hellish prison, waiting for Assad’s men to pounce.

 What makes this all so much worse is that there are believed to be around 7,000 women and 400 children still inside the Syrian regime’s jails. That is what last week’s Conscience Convoy to the Turkey-Syria border was all about; 10,000 women from 55 nations assembled to demand the release of the prisoners.

 I don’t care if it takes money to get them out of the grip of these monsters, but having spoken to the victims, I know for certain that Assad can never be part of the solution in Syria. In more than 40 years as a journalist, I’ve interviewed prisoners from Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Bagram in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Abu Saleem in Tripoli and Toulal 2 Prison in Meknes, Morocco, but I have never encountered evidence of so much depravity and inhuman behaviour on such a large scale as what is unfolding right now — even as you read this — in Assad’s prisons.

 There is a brutal regime in Damascus, run by monsters who masquerade as doting husbands and family men in homes around Syria while carrying out of the most horrendous crimes. “What did Daddy do at work today?” Trust me, you don’t want to know, habibi; Daddy and his monstrous associates have to be stopped.'