Syrians, Iraqis archive Daesh jail crimes in virtual museum

Syrians, Iraqis archive Daesh jail crimes in virtual museum
Ten years after the proclamation of the so-called caliphate by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Daesh Prisons Museum (IPM) unveils its first-ever physical exhibition, “Three Walls: Spatial Narratives of Old Mosul.”(X/@prisonsmuseum)
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Updated 10 November 2024
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Syrians, Iraqis archive Daesh jail crimes in virtual museum

Syrians, Iraqis archive Daesh jail crimes in virtual museum
  • They managed to capture 3D footage of around 50 former Daesh jails and 30 mass graves before they were transformed
  • In total they have documented 100 prison sites, interviewed more than 500 survivors and digitised over 70,000 Daesh documents.

Paris: After jihadists jailed him in 2014, Iraqi religious scholar Muhammad Al-Attar said he would sometimes pull his prison blanket over his head to cry without other detainees noticing.
Daesh group extremists arrested Attar, then 37, at his perfume shop in Mosul in June 2014 after overrunning the Iraqi city, hoping to convince the respected community leader to join them.
But the former preacher refused to pledge allegiance, and they threw him into prison where he was tortured.
In his group cell of at least 148 detainees at Mosul’s Ahdath prison, at times “there was nothing left but to weep,” Attar said.
But “I couldn’t bear the thought of the younger men seeing me cry. They would have broken down.”
So he hid under his blanket.
Daesh seized control of large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq and declared a so-called caliphate there in 2014, implementing its brutal interpretation of religion on inhabitants.
The militants banned smoking, mandated beards for men and head-to-toe coverings for women, publicly executed homosexuals and cut off the hands of thieves.
They threw perceived informants or “apostates” into prison or makeshift jails, many of whom never returned.

- 'Messages into the future' -
Attar’s story is one of more than 500 testimonies that dozens of journalists, filmmakers and human rights activists in Syria and Iraq have collected since 2017 as part of an online archive called the Daesh Prisons Museum.
The website, which includes virtual visits of former jihadist detention centers and numerous tales about life inside them, became public this month.
The project is holding its first physical exhibition, including virtual reality tours, at the Paris headquarters of UNESCO, the UN’s culture and education agency, until November 14.
Syrian journalist Amer Matar, 38, is director of the web-based museum.
“Daesh abducted my brother in 2013, and we started to look for him,” he told AFP.
After US-backed forces started to expel jihadists from parts of Syria and Iraq in 2017, “I and my team got the chance to go inside certain former IS prisons,” he said.
They found thousands of prison documents from the group whose caliphate was eventually defeated in 2019, but also detainee scratchings on the walls.

Etched inside the football stadium in the Syrian city of Raqqa, for example, the team found prisoner names and Qur’anic verses, as well as lyrics from a 1996 television drama about peace eventually prevailing.
Inside one solitary cell, they discovered exercise instructions to keep fit in English.
Matar says he was detained twice at the start of the Syrian civil war, in a government jail for covering protests against President Bashar Assad.
“I too would write my name on the wall because I didn’t know if I’d get out or if they’d kill me,” he said.
“People usually write their names, cries for help or stories about someone who was killed,” he added.
“They’re messages into the future so that people can find someone.”

- 'Ask us for evidence' -
Matar and his team decided to film the former prison sites and archive all the material within them before they disappeared.
“Many were homes, clinics, government buildings, schools or shops” that people were returning to and starting to repair, said Matar, who is now based in Germany.
They managed to capture 3D footage of around 50 former Daesh jails and 30 mass graves before they were transformed, he said.
In total they have documented 100 prison sites, interviewed more than 500 survivors and digitised over 70,000 Daesh documents.
Younes Qays, a 30-year-old journalist from Mosul, was in charge of data collection in Iraq.
“To hear and see the crimes inflicted on my people was really tough,” he said, recounting being particularly shocked by the tale of a woman from the Yazidi minority who was raped 11 times in IS captivity.
Robin Yassin-Kassab, the website’s English editor, said the project aimed to “gather information and cross-reference it” so it could be used in court.
“We want legal teams around the world to know that we exist so that they can come and ask us for evidence,” he said.
Matar has not found his brother.
But within the coming year, he hopes to launch a sister website called Jawab, “Answer” in Arabic, to help others find out what happened to their loved ones.


Russian bases in Syria threatened by insurgent advance, say Moscow’s war bloggers

Updated 33 sec ago
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Russian bases in Syria threatened by insurgent advance, say Moscow’s war bloggers

Russian bases in Syria threatened by insurgent advance, say Moscow’s war bloggers
Rapid advances by the insurgents threaten to undermine Russia’s geopolitical clout in the Middle East
Russian war bloggers say the most immediate threat is to the future of Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria’s Latakia province and to its naval facility at Tartous on the coast

DAMASCUS: Two strategically-important Russian military facilities in Syria and Moscow’s very presence in the Middle East are under serious threat from rapidly advancing insurgents, Russian war bloggers have warned.
With Russian military resources mostly tied down in Ukraine where Moscow’s forces are rushing to take more territory before Donald Trump comes to power in the US in January, Russia’s ability to influence the situation on the ground in Syria is far more limited than in 2015 when it intervened decisively to prop up Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Rapid advances by the insurgents threaten to undermine Russia’s geopolitical clout in the Middle East and its ability to project power in the region, across the Mediterranean and into Africa. They also risk dealing an embarrassing setback to President Vladimir Putin, who casts Russia’s intervention in Syria as an example of how Moscow can use force to shape events far away and compete with the West.
But Russian war bloggers, some of whom are close to the Russian Defense Ministry and whom the Russian authorities allow greater freedom to speak out than the military, say the most immediate threat is to the future of Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria’s Latakia province and to its naval facility at Tartous on the coast.
The Tartous facility is Russia’s only Mediterranean repair and replenishment hub, and Moscow has used Syria as a staging post to fly its military contractors in and out of Africa.
Influential Russian war blogger “Rybar,” who is close to the Russian Defense Ministry and has over 1.3 million followers on his Telegram channel, said Moscow’s forces were facing a grave threat.
“In reality we need to understand that the insurgents will not stop,” Rybar warned.
“They will try to inflict the maximum defeat and the maximum reputational and physical damage on the representatives of the Russian Federation (in Syria) and in particular to destroy our military bases.”
Relying on the Syrian army alone was a lost cause, he added, saying it would continue to fall back unless properly supported by the Russian air force and specialists.
The Russian Defense Ministry could not be reached for comment on a non-working day. The Russian Embassy in Damascus has advised Russian nationals to leave Syria.
Asked on Saturday in Doha about the fate of the Russian bases, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he was “not in the business of guessing” what would happen, but said Moscow was doing all it could to prevent “terrorists” from prevailing.
He said he was not worried about how events in Syria would affect his own reputation or that of Russia, but was worried about the fate of the Syrian people.

RUSSIAN FORCES BADLY EXPOSED, SAYS BLOGGER
The Russian air force has been helping government forces launch air strikes against insurgents and the Kremlin has said it still supports Assad and is analizing the situation to see what help is needed to stabilize the situation.
However, Russia’s “Fighterbomber” war blogger, who has over 500,000 followers, said Moscow’s forces in Syria were badly exposed and that losing the Hmeimim air base would mean losing the ability to carry out air strikes which he said was 75 percent of Moscow’s capabilities there.
“The Hmeimim airfield is not a multi-story industrial project with basements. It is a field with lightly assembled buildings on top, which will cease to function as soon as the enemy gets within artillery or drone flight range,” he said.
“The situation with the naval base in Tartous is about the same. Of course, it can be defended and held for quite a long time if there is someone and something to do it, but it will either not be able to function at all, or in a very limited way.”
Nor, he warned, would a full evacuation of all of Russia’s military equipment be possible if it became necessary.
“Therefore, the main task of our forces in Syria is to prevent the enemy from entering Latakia, even if we have to temporarily give up the rest of the territory.”
With over 600,000 followers, war blogger “Starshe Eddi” said Russia had paid a heavy price for a foothold in Syria.
“Ten years there, dead Russian soldiers, billions of roubles spent and thousands of tons of ammunition expended — they must be compensated somehow and somehow,” he wrote.
“The only thing that can...give us a chance to compensate for the current failure and the resources we have used up is our retention of the Latakia and Tartous provinces.”
Igor Girkin, a prominent Russian ex-militia commander who fought in Ukraine and who is serving a four-year jail term after accusing Putin and the army’s top brass of mistakes in the Ukraine war, said Moscow’s position in Syria had always been exposed from a reinforcement and supply point of view.
“Now our enemies have naturally decided to take advantage of our weakness at the moment when we are busy on the Ukrainian front,” he wrote from prison.
“We are overstretched. The defeat of the Syrian side will also be our defeat.”

Source close to Hezbollah says sent 2,000 fighters to Syria

Source close to Hezbollah says sent 2,000 fighters to Syria
Updated 43 min 39 sec ago
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Source close to Hezbollah says sent 2,000 fighters to Syria

Source close to Hezbollah says sent 2,000 fighters to Syria
  • The source said that since the Islamist-led militant offensive began last week, Hezbollah has not taken an active part in the fighting
  • The group’s fighters had been sent “to defend its positions” in the mountains along the Syria-Lebanon border

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah has sent 2,000 fighters into Syria, a source close to the armed group said on Saturday, as ally Damascus reels from a militant offensive that has seized major cities.
The Iran-backed group, which has fought alongside the forces of President Bashar Assad during Syria’s war since 2011, “sent 2,000 fighters to the Qusayr area” near the Lebanese border, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The source said that since the Islamist-led militant offensive began last week, Hezbollah has not taken an active part in the fighting.
The group’s fighters had been sent “to defend its positions” in the mountains along the Syria-Lebanon border, the source said, adding that Hezbollah “has not yet participated in any battles.”
The militant coalition in Syria has already seized two of Syria’s main cities, Aleppo in the north and Hama in the center.
They launched their offensive on November 27, the same day that a ceasefire took effect in the war between Hezbollah and Israel, which has left the Lebanese group weakened.
On Saturday, militant forces were at the gates of the key central city of Homs and were advancing toward the capital Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
The source said Hezbollah sent “150 military advisers to Homs, to help the Syrian army if it decides to defend” the city.
Since 2013, Hezbollah has openly backed Assad’s forces.
Hezbollah fighters helped Assad regain territory lost earlier in the civil war, which broke out in 2011 after the repression of anti-government protests.
The Lebanese group supported Syrian government forces as they seized Qusayr city from militant control in 2013, with Hezbollah later setting up a military base and training camp there.
But as the war in Syria had been largely dormant until last week, Hezbollah has “withdrawn the majority of its fighters over the past two years,” said the source.
It did keep military advisers in Aleppo and Hama, the source said, without specifying whether they had left before the militant forces captured the two cities in recent days.
Russia and Iran have also intervened in the war to prop up Assad’s rule and help his forces claw back territory.
Tehran on November 28 announced that one of its Revolutionary Guards generals had been killed in the fighting in Aleppo.


Yemen can’t wait ‘forever’ for peace roadmap, UN envoy says

Yemen can’t wait ‘forever’ for peace roadmap, UN envoy says
Updated 55 min 57 sec ago
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Yemen can’t wait ‘forever’ for peace roadmap, UN envoy says

Yemen can’t wait ‘forever’ for peace roadmap, UN envoy says
  • Any chance of implementing a roadmap has effectively been put on hold by escalating regional crises sparked by the war in Gaza
  • Although preparatory discussions are continuing with all sides, “obviously... it cannot stay like this forever,” Grundberg said

MANAMA: Yemen’s warring parties and beleaguered people cannot wait indefinitely for a roadmap to peace before the country slips back to war, the UN special envoy told AFP.
Hans Grundberg insisted it was “still possible” to solve the conflict in impoverished Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthi militants control much of the country.
But any chance of implementing a roadmap has effectively been put on hold by escalating regional crises sparked by the war in Gaza.
Although preparatory discussions are continuing with all sides, “obviously... it cannot stay like this forever,” Grundberg said in an interview at the Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain.
“At a certain point, there is an expected delivery that the parties want to see happen. And if that doesn’t take place, you risk losing the necessary momentum that you have, and that danger is clear.”
He added: “There are belligerent voices in the region. What I’m saying is, don’t go down that road — it’s possible to settle this conflict.”
Yemen has been at war since March 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition began a campaign to dislodge the Houthis who had seized control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, months earlier.
A UN-brokered ceasefire in April 2022 calmed fighting and in December last year, even after the Israel-Hamas war had started, the warring parties committed to a peace process.
But US and British strikes on Houthi targets in January, after the militants began attacking shipping on the vital Red Sea trade route, “complicated the mediation space tremendously.”
“On the basis of that, we have not been able to take the step forward from the commitments that were agreed to in 2023 to the assigned roadmap,” Grundberg said.
The UN envoy said it’s not “possible to move forward with the roadmap right now, because I don’t think that the implementation of that roadmap would be possible.”
But he added: “I still believe that the foundation for a roadmap in Yemen is there because the conflict between Yemenis is solvable.
“However, the complicating factor now is the regional destabilization, where Yemen has become an integral part through the attacks in the Red Sea.”
Grundberg said the roadmap is “not a magic wand” for Yemen, which has been plunged into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises with two-thirds of the population dependent on aid.
The roadmap is intended as a structure for implementing humanitarian and economic commitments, and steps toward a permanent ceasefire and political process, over a nominal period of three years.
“So here I think the responsibility that lies on our side is to ensure that this momentum is upheld and that the parties understand the necessity to... trust in the fact that this is possible to achieve,” Grundberg said.
“If not, the consequences are known. If you slip back into a violent confrontation internally, I think the consequences of that are pretty well known and I don’t think that they would be in favor of anyone.”
He added: “I would guess that the Yemeni people should be impatient as a whole. I think that they have been waiting for peace for far too long.
“Everyone wants this to come to an end.”


Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 44,664

Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 44,664
Updated 07 December 2024
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Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 44,664

Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 44,664
  • The toll includes 52 deaths in the previous 24 hours

GAZA STRIP: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Saturday that at least 44,664 people have been killed in nearly 14 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 52 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 105,976 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.


Israeli military says it killed Hezbollah fighter threatening troops in southern Lebanon

Israeli military says it killed Hezbollah fighter threatening troops in southern Lebanon
Updated 07 December 2024
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Israeli military says it killed Hezbollah fighter threatening troops in southern Lebanon

Israeli military says it killed Hezbollah fighter threatening troops in southern Lebanon
  • The Israeli military released aerial footage of an operation along with the statement

CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Saturday that it struck a Hezbollah fighter in southern Lebanon who posed a threat to its troops, adding it was operating within ceasefire agreements while remaining deployed to address threats to Israel.
The Israeli military released aerial footage of an operation along with the statement, showing a motorcycle being targeted with an airstrike, resulting in the bike bursting into flames.
Hezbollah did not immediately comment about the incident.