Syria using ‘crematorium’ at prison near Damascus to hide mass killings, says US

This satellite image taken on April 18, 2017, shows what the US state department has described as a building in a Syrian prison complex that has been modified to support a crematorium. State DepartmenShow more

WASHINGTON // The Syrian regime has installed a crematorium in a military prison in order to destroy the remains of thousands of murdered prisoners, the United States alleged on Monday.

Stuart Jones, acting assistant secretary for the state department bureau of near eastern affairs, gave reporters satellite pictures apparently showing snow melting on the roof of the facility.

“Beginning in 2013, the Syrian regime modified a building within the Saydnaya complex to support what we believe is a crematorium,” he said, referring to a military prison north of Damascus.

“Although the regime’s many atrocities are well documented, we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of the mass murders taking place in Saydnaya.”

Mr Jones said Washington’s information came from credible humanitarian agencies and from the US “intelligence community” and that as many as 50 people per day are thought to be hanged at Saydnaya.

He did not give an official estimate for the total number killed, but cited an Amnesty International report that 5,000 to 11,000 people had died between 2011 and 2015 in the prison.

President Bashar Al Assad’s Syrian regime, he alleged, had detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same period.

The latest satellite photograph presented by Mr Jones was from January 2015, and it was not immediately clear why the US waited to present its evidence.

Also on Monday, activists said air strikes on an ISIL-held village and town in Syria had killed at least 32 civilians over the past two days. The news underscored the risk for hundreds of thousands of residents still trapped in areas under the extremist group’s control ahead of the looming battle for Raqqa.

Meanwhile, the UN envoy for Syria insisted that the latest round of peace talks between the government and the opposition in Geneva are serious, after president Bashar Al Assad said last week that they were just for show.

Staffan de Mistura assured reporters that the government delegation attending the talks was “here to work”. The talks are scheduled to begin on Tuesday and last around four days.

The envoy declined to comment on Mr Al Assad’s remarks, which were aired by Belarus ONT television on Thursday. The Syrian president said “nothing substantial” would come from the talks in Geneva and that they were “merely a meeting for the media”.

The delegations aren’t expected to meet face-to-face, and Mr de Mistura has called for reduced media involvement to foster a more “businesslike” atmosphere.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the air strikes on the ISIL-held village of Akayrshi on Sunday and the ISIL-held town of Boukamal on the Syrian-Iraqi border on Monday. Activists blamed the US-led anti-ISIL coalition, which responded by saying it would look into the reports.

The coalition has come under increasing scrutiny by monitoring groups regarding civilian casualties in the fight against ISIL in both Iraq and Syria.

The Pentagon said late last month that at least 352 civilians had been killed by coalition strikes in the two countries since the start of the air campaign against ISIL in 2014. But activists and monitoring groups say the number is much higher.

In the raid on Boukamal, the activist-run Justice for Life rights organisation said fighter jets struck a mosque and surrounding houses. Omar Abu Laila, from Deir Ezzor 24, an activist-run news site, said 15 homes were destroyed and at least 20 displaced people and refugees killed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition monitor, said 23 civilians were killed in that raid, with the toll likely to rise. Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman said ISIL fighters were also killed.

In the village of Akayrshi, meanwhile, the Observatory said strikes killed 12 women, while Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, another activist-run news site, said the strikes hit a convoy of farm workers, killing 22 people.

ISIL claimed 22 women were killed and eight wounded in a drone strike on a bus in Akayrshi, which is about 16 kilometres from Raqqa, the group’s last remaining major stronghold. It said another 25 civilians were killed in Boukamal.

US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian forces are advancing on Raqqa after capturing several nearby towns and villages from the extremists.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press