SPECIAL RELEASE-A plot from the Assad era to hide Syria's dead has turned the desert into a mass burial

The stench of death was evident along the Syrian highway for four nights per week, nearly two years. It was the smell that thousands of bodies were being transported from one secret location to another mass grave.

It was forbidden for drivers to leave their cars. The mechanics and bulldozer drivers were ordered to remain silent and warned that they would pay with their life if they spoke out. The only way to receive orders for "Operation Move Earth", was verbally. The transfer was orchestrated primarily by a Syrian colonel who spent nearly ten years burying the dead of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

The transfer order came directly from the presidential palace. The colonel known as Assad’s “master of cleansing” directed the operation between 2019 and 2021.

The first grave

Qutayfah in Damascus's area contained trenches filled to the brim with remains of those who died under interrogation, in prison.

during battle. Human rights activists had exposed the existence of this mass grave during the civil conflict and it was considered to be one of Syria's biggest.

A recent investigation found that the Assad regime secretly manipulated elections.

Excavation of the Qutayfah Site

The bodies were transported by truck to a military base in the Dhumair Desert, more than an hours drive away.

Exclusive report published on Tuesday

The second mass grave and clandestine reburial plan were revealed. Now, we can reveal in detail how the perpetrators of this conspiracy carried it out and kept it secret for six long years.

We spoke with 13 people who had direct knowledge of the 2-year effort to move bodies, and we analyzed over 500 satellite images taken of both mass graves.

Over a decade

The excavations revealed not only the creation of the Qutayfah tomb, but also the expansion of the site as the burial trenches were opened and dug up.

The use of aerial drone photography was used to confirm the transference of bodies. The news agency took drone and ground photographs of both sites under the guidance of forensic scientists to create composite high-resolution images. The drone photos at Dhumair showed that the disturbed soil near the burial trenches were darker and more reddish than the nearby undisturbed soil. This is what would have been expected if Qutayfah subsoil was added to Dhumair soil, according to Lorna and Benjamin Rocke.

Syria

Mass graves are scattered throughout the area

The secret site discovered was one of the largest ever known. The grave near Dhumair, a desert town in the middle of the country, is one of the largest ever created. It has at least 34 trenches that total 2 kilometers. The new grave site is large enough to accommodate tens or even hundreds of thousands of people, according to witness accounts and the size of the area.

Reduce the chances of intruders tampering

The site must not be revealed to the public before it can protected.

The new National Commission for Missing Persons of the Government said that after the first story, it had requested the Interior Ministry seal and protect Dhumair. The commission said that the transfer of bodies haphazardly to Dhumair could make it more difficult for victims to be identified.

The commission stated that "each family of a lost person is faced with a unique set of problems, which are intertwined in scientific complexity and could make the identification process a long and expensive technical project."

According to witnesses, for four nights, almost every week, six or eight trucks were filled with maggots, human remains, and dirt. According to witnesses, the stench clung on the clothes and hairs of everyone involved. This included two truckers and three mechanics as well as a bulldozer driver, a former Republican Guard officer and a former member of Assad's elite Republican Guard.

Former Republican Guard officer said that the idea of moving thousands of bodies was born in late 2018 when Assad seemed to be winning Syria's civil conflict. The dictator hoped to gain international recognition after years of sanctions.

Allegations of brutality

The officer replied.

Assad was accused at the time of holding thousands of Syrians in detention. No independent Syrian groups, or international organizations, had access to either the prisons or mass graves.

The officer reported that Assad received assurances from Russian intelligence in 2018 during a meeting to ensure his isolation was ended. The Russians told the dictator to conceal evidence of widespread violations of human rights. "M

He said that the most notable examples were mass graves and chemical attacks, as well as arrests.

The officer and two truckers were told that the purpose of the transfer of goods was to remove the mass grave at Qutayfah and conceal evidence of mass murders.

Satellite images from 2012 showed the first trench in Qutayfah. Human rights activist in Syria

Qutayfah exposed

By releasing photos in 2014 to local media, revealing its existence and general location near Damascus's outskirts, the group accused Assad for using the site to hide the sheer number of people who were killed under his rule. The grave's exact location was revealed a few decades later.

In court testimony

Other media reports

By the time Assad fell

All 16 trenches described by, however, had been completely emptied.

The Russian foreign intelligence service refused to comment and a Assad legal advisor did not respond when asked to comment on the findings.

According to reports, more than 160,000 people were believed to have disappeared into the vast security apparatus of the former dictator and to be buried within the dozens mass graves that he had created.

Syrian Rights Groups

According to the government, the number of missing people since 1970 when the Assad family began ruling the country is estimated at 300,000.

Organised excavation and DNA analyses could help track what happened to these people, alleviating one of Syria's worst faultlines.

With few resources, Syria's well-known mass burials remain largely unexcavated and unprotected. The country's newly elected leaders, who ousted Assad in

In spite of the fact that December has passed, no documentation was released for any of these.

Families of missing persons have repeatedly called to express their concern.

According to the National Commission for Missing People, this is because many records were destroyed or lost and that even well-known sites such as Qutayfah have huge gaps in their data.

They said there are plans to create an DNA bank and a central digital platform for the families of missing people, but that there were not enough experts in forensic medicine or DNA testing.

Court testimony and dozens signed documents showing command chain from deathbeds in prison to morgues were reviewed. Many of these documents bore the stamp of the same Colonel who was responsible for the two mass grave sites: Col. MazenIsmandar.

All those interviewed involved in the transfer bodies remembered nights spent working for Ismandar.

Ahmed Ghazal is a mechanic who described how soldiers would order him to clean out his garage at night so that the trucks could be repaired quickly and out-of-sight. Ghazal said he did not believe the initial explanation that the smell was due to expired medicines and chemicals.

The first time he saw the corpses was when he got into the truck bed to do a job. Ghazal was curious after an rotting hand fell onto one of his trainees. He approached a military driver to find out where the bodies came from. The driver informed him that they were from Qutayfah and that orders had been given to move them so Syria would not be exposed to international scrutiny.

Ghazal described in a deep, methodical voice the events that he had witnessed at the Dhumair site. He said that he did not speak out at the time.

To talk, he said, "means death. You could be the next victim of what happened to those buried in this graveyard just by talking.

I also spoke with the driver, who remembered his conversation Ghazal. He said Col. Ismandar had warned them they would be punished if they spoke about what they saw.

Ismandar, when contacted through intermediaries by the media, declined to comment.

If I had been able act freely, I would not have taken this position. "I am a servant of the orders, I'm a slave to orders," said the driver. "I was overcome with fear, horrible smells and guilt."

He said that he wore cologne when he returned home at dawn.

"THE MASTER CLEANSING"

As the opposition to Assad's regime deteriorated in 2012 into civil war, Qutayfah was one of the only places firmly under the control of the government. Anwar Haj Khali, former head of the City Council, explained that the people who found the bodies during the initial days of fighting brought them to a military base in the area.

In 2013, trucks were bringing bodies from hospitals, prisons and battlefields. According to Haj Khalil, a former brigadier-general in the Syrian Army’s 3rd Division who coordinated burial logistics, there were so many bodies that two government owned food distributors, meatpackers, and another company which distributed fruit and vegetables, redirected the refrigerated truck to transport the dead to Qutayfah. Like many others involved in the conspiracy he requested anonymity when describing how it worked.

Haj Khalil who lives in the region said that no one wanted to be responsible for burying these bodies.

They needed someone to oversee operations and the location. Ismandar started playing this role in 2012, according multiple witnesses and testimony at court. According to the officer of the 3rd Division, he was introduced to crew members as "masters of cleaning operations" by the division.

According to documents from 2018, bearing his signature and reviewed by, Ismandar was the budget manager of the Syrian military Medical Services. This unit was one the most powerful government agencies, controlling medical care of soldiers, anyone who went to military hospitals and thousands of prisoners.

Haj Khalil, the brigadier-general and Ismandar both confirmed that they had jointly decided on a plot of land controlled by the military at Qutayfah.

In the beginning, the bodies were brought in by a few dozen from two hospitals nearby. Haj Khalil reported that the shrouds were inscribed with names. He said that after a few weeks, he became accustomed to receiving calls at midnight from Ismandar to dispose of the bodies from Tishreen Hospital, outside Damascus. Haj Khalil would be called by another officer to dispose of bodies from the

notorious Sednaya Prison

"Ismandar told me that the refrigerator trucks were heading your way. Haj Khalil replied, "Tell the bulldozer that we will be at the site within a half hour."

According to a bulldozer driver who began working at Qutayfah in 2014, initially, all of the bodies from Tishreen were blindfolded and their hands were bound with plastic strips. He stated that the bodies from Tishreen were first placed in body bags and then nylon bags. Finally, they arrived without any bags. The operator said that nearly all of the men were naked. He recalled hearing his phone ring at 2 am with instructions to begin digging.

The bulldozer driver said that the early trenches dug up by the army, were too shallow. "They were partly the reason why I was called," he said. The soil was a mixture of gravel and small stones. This caused the smell to spread quickly.

He claimed to have dug trenches between 75 and 90 m long, 4 m wide and up to 4 meter deep. Satellite imagery analysis shows that his account is in line with satellite images taken in 2013 as trench digging started in earnest. The images show shallow trenches followed by deeper and longer gashes on the ground in 2014.

The bulldozer driver said, "I was unable to sleep or eat during the first two weeks due to the horror I witnessed." "But then, I snapped out of it."

Ismandar kept a logbook detailing the number and security branch of the bodies that arrived.

The sworn statement

In German and U.S. court cases involving accusations of torture against the Assad regime, a gravedigger by the name Mohammed Afif Naifa was cited. Naifa testified to a German court he coordinated burials for political prisoners from 2011 until 2017 with Ismandar. Naifa's testimony, which referred to Qutayfah, but did not touch on Dhumair declined to be interviewed.

He said that the number of bodies in the logbooks was undercounted. He said that the victims included infants and children.

Naifa, who testified 2024 at a hearing in A, said that the system of undercounting was how the regime buried and disappeared so many more than they had recorded.

U.S. civil suit

A torture victim brought a lawsuit against the Assad regime.

Ismandar was mentioned 73 times in the thousands of documents found and photographed at a military forensics lab that had been abandoned by Ahmed al-Sharaa's forces, now Syria's President, during a December visit.

Damascus is swept to the top

. Documents from 2018 and 2019, which track the way prisoners were transported to Tishreen Military Hospital, and then to Harsta Military Hospital after their death, are stamped with Ismandar’s name. The documents do not mention mass graves.

The analysis of aerial drone and satellite photography revealed that 16 burial trenches with a combined length of over 1.2 kilometers were dug in Qutayfah from at least 2013 to 2018.

Local roads were shut down when the trucks drove into the graveyard. According to the officer of the 3rd Division who accompanied the convoy, in 2014, a truck broke down on a highway, and everyone stopped en route to Qutayfah. Naifa also gave an account of the same incident.

The officer of the 3rd Division said that he received a furious phone call from Ismandar’s commanding general, Maj. Gen. Ammar Suliman: "Orders by Mr. President: block the international road until assistance arrives."

Suleiman was a top Syrian general and a member of Assad's inner circle of trusted confidants. He was Ismandar’s direct commander and led the Military Medical Services. Naifa and a commander from the National Defense, a group of paramilitaries that reports directly to Assad was involved in Syria’s most sensitive security missions.

Suleiman didn't respond to an inquiry for comment.

There was no documentation containing direct instructions from Assad regarding mass graves or Operation Move Earth. The Republican Guard officer and National Defense commander both said that it was impossible to believe that Assad had not ordered it.

The National Defense commander said, "I challenge anyone to find any documents issued in Bashar Al-Assad's honor." He knew the day of reckoning was coming, and wanted to keep clean his hands.

Haj Khalil (former council chief) estimated that Qutayfah had between 60,000 and 80,000 people dead at the end of 2018 based on the pace in which the deliveries were made during those years. According to satellite imagery, that's when trench digging ceased.

Then, with the assistance of

Russia and Iran

Assad is widely regarded as the winner of the civil war. He had still lost control of much northern Syria to al-Sharaa Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Kurdish forces who both carved out autonomous areas.

The Republican Guard officer said that on a late evening in 2018, Assad invited four chiefs of military and intelligence to the Presidential Palace to discuss the fate of the mass graves. The Republican Guard officer said that he worked at the palace and was one of a few people who saw the minutes.

The officer stated that the military intelligence chief Kamal Hassan came up with an idea to excavate the entire Qutayfah Mass Grave and move the contents elsewhere.

He said that "the idea seemed insane to most people who heard it but it was given the green light by Assad". He said that the main criteria for a new location was to be under military control.

The officer stated that Hassan, chief of military intelligence, ordered the weekly report to be sent to President's palace.

Hassan is believed not to be in Syria and could not be reached for a comment.

According to an officer, the former council chief Haj Khalil, and satellite imagery analysis, work began on a concrete barrier around Qutayfah in November 2018. Satellite images from February 2019 show the concrete wall that surrounds the mass grave. It was 3 meters tall and blocked all views of the mass grave from the ground.

In the Syrian desert early in February 2019, more than an hour from the city of Dhumair, the first trench appeared. The wind-swept base of the military near Dhumair, surrounded by mountains and protected by fences and berms, had a new operation underway.

OPERATION MOVE THE EARTH

According to Haj Khalil and the Republican Guard officer, the written orders stated that the mission was to deliver dirt and sand at a construction site. Ismandar, a clean-shaven man with graying hair gathered his drivers just minutes before the first day of work. The military driver explained that the bodies needed to be moved because the location of the mass grave at Qutayfah was exposed.

According to the Republican Guard officer, and the National Defense Officer, it was called Operation Move Earth.

"The first day, the instructions were that no one should carry or use a phone. "No one can leave the trucks while the bodies are being loaded or unloaded, under pain of death," stated one of the drivers. "Nobody would dare to violate the orders."

The driver reported that the truckers left Qutayfah at sunset and were not allowed to leave their cabs while loading. Ismandar was gesturing in his rearview mirror to tell him where to stop. The truck shook every time the bulldozer empty itself five or six times.

The Republican Guard officer who was directly involved in the project said that some skulls were decomposed, and others were fresh. There were many maggots. "Hundreds, if no thousands, of maggots were thrown into the truck with every dump from the bucket."

Ismandar ordered the vehicles to form a line, and they headed towards Dhumair. Six or eight dull orange Mercedes-Benz dump trucks followed the white van of the colonel.

A stench of overwhelming magnitude accompanied the convoy. The smell of the late night air was always the first thing drivers and mechanics mentioned when describing those late nights, which lasted four days a weeks, from February 2019 to April 2021. This excludes holidays, snowdays, and the four-month confinement in Syria.

According to a local who remembered the smell, after years of these trips, the payload of the trucks was a secret among people living in the vicinity. One of the drivers said, "Everyone saw" us.

It is impossible to estimate the number of bodies buried in Dhumair without excavation. A convoy of 6-8 trucks, making 4 trips per week, would mean a conservative estimate for 2,600 trips. Experts said that based on the size of trucks and this, it's reasonable to think that tens or even thousands of people may have been buried in Dhumair.

Satellite imagery revealed that by the end of Operation Move Earth, all 16 trenches in Qutayfah documented by satellite had been opened. Calculations show that Dhumair has 2 km of trenches. According to the drivers and mechanic, each trench was approximately 2 meters wide and three meters deep.

Reporters who visited the site in this year found human bones scattered all over the place, including a fragment that experts have identified as being a human skull.

Ghazal said that he saw the convoy often. The trucks were from the mid-1980s, and they had a tendency to malfunction.

He was able to distinguish two kinds of corpses that were headed to Dhumair from their periodic appearances in his garage. Some bodies were covered with soil and decomposed. Some bodies, such as young men and woman, appeared to have just died. Both his cousins who worked in the garage said they also saw freshly deceased bodies. Could not determine the source of the recently dead bodies.

Ghazal led his team to the location, which he recognized because he had been called there for an emergency repair on a truck.

He pointed to the desert and said: "There are people buried under the earth everywhere you look."

Ammar Al Selmo is a member of the White Helmets, an organization that finds and excavates mass graves.

The first person to report a mass grave in Dhumair was. He claimed that locals in Qutayfah had informed the White Helmets that the mass grave was empty, and a Dhumair witness reported the convoys containing bodies. Al Selmo stated the organization lacks staff and resources so it could not verify either claim.

He said that the White Helmets will be making an initial visit to the area in a few days after learning about'findings.

Analyzing hundreds of satellite photos taken over many years revealed a color shift on the Dhumair site. Even the most sophisticated commercial imagery lacks the resolution required to examine the soil in detail.

Then, we set out to capture thousands of drone images with the goal of creating composite images of Qutayfah using photogrammetry software.

Composites revealed that bulldozers had repeatedly rolled over the trenches in order to compact the soil. The composites also confirmed the 'key finding' that bodies were transferred from Qutayfah and Dhumair.

According to the analysis of the drone photos, color changes were found around the Dhumair trenches. This suggests that soil from Qutayfah was mixed with the soil in Dhumair. According to Dawson, an expert in forensic soil sciences at The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland, as well as Rocke, a specialist in locating burial sites with remote imagery, this is what would be expected if soil from Qutayfah, which was dug up along with human remains, had been mixed in the soil of Dhumair.

According to satellite imagery analysis, Dhumair's last trench was filled during the first weeks of April 2021. Qutayfah’s rubble was flattened by the end of 2021, as an effort to erase any sign of the now empty mass grave. The scars left by attempts to cover the graves are still visible in images of both sites.

In late 2021, the intelligence chief who first came up with the idea to move the bodies to Dhumair got one of the final weekly reports on the operation and turned to an officer of the Republican Guard. The officer remembered his words: "Syria has won and is opening itself up to the rest of the world." "We want our guests to find a clean country when they arrive."

Ismandar,

Like Assad and other people

Two former military officers who were familiar with his movements claim that many people in the government fled Syria when the dictator fell.

Ghazal, who was watching footage of thousands and thousands of Syrians flooding into Sednaya prison in the hopeless search for missing family members after Assad's departure, said that the mass graves are the first thing he thinks of. Some of the

Burial sites

Qutayfah was already well-known.

In December 2024 several local and foreign media outlets, including, visited the newly accessible website, which included. An association for missing Syrians also noted that Qutayfah was bulldozed between 2018 and 2021.

No one reported the trenches as empty.

Ghazal who lives and works near the Dhumair Desert said that no one has ever searched the site. It still haunts him.

He said that so many Syrians were looking in all the wrong places. (By Maggie Michael and Feras Dalatey. Khalil Ashawi contributed to this article. Allison Martell, Benjamin Lesser and others contributed to this report. Ryan McNeill is responsible for the data. FeildingCage did the visual editing. Khalil Alfiky and Amr Ashawi took the photos. (Edited by Lori Hinnant.

(source: Reuters)