Meet the soldiers hunting down senior Assad regime leaders who terrorised Syria

Published

3 months ago

February 13, 2025

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By the standards of other cities I have been in or visited shortly after a revolution, Damascus seems on the face of it relatively calm.

More often than not, I’d expect masked gunmen to be deployed on every corner, patrolling the streets in groups, or whizzing around on battered trucks, with heavy machine guns at the ready and rocket-propelled grenades strapped to roofs or on the backs of fighters.

But that isn’t the case in Damascus.

There are checkpoints in and out of the city but generally speaking, the militia groups that supported Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), which led the takeover of Syria, are keeping a low profile.

Indeed, many have now become part of the newly formed General Security force, and they’re all dressed in matching black uniforms and fatigues.

I’m often asked what Damascus is like now that Bashar al Assad’s regime is gone.

First, I have to admit that apart from a couple of brief visits to Damascus before 2011, once the uprising began, I was either in the west or north of the country with the demonstrators and later the rebel forces – far from the capital.

I was also among a small group of journalists on a wanted list by the regime, so travel to government-controlled areas was a non-starter.

So for me, my visits to Damascus are part discovery, and part depressing confirmation of what I had expected to see, especially the vast suburban areas reduced to rubble by Assad’s security forces with the aid of the Russian military.

My impression is of a city looking to the future but still suffering from its recent bloody history.

Its people are trying to move on, but many remain in the midst of the ruins, and rebuilding remains a distant hope.

Listen: Inside the fall of Assad

‘Syrians have every right to see justice served’

From the Umayyad Square in Damascus, we jumped onto the back of a pick-up truck full of General Security soldiers and sped away through busy traffic and towards a road leading to a hilltop that overlooks the city.

We passed the sprawling presidential palace, built by the Assads, but now under the management of the self-proclaimed “Salvation Government”.

We were meeting the man in charge of security here in the capital, Abdulrahman Dabbagh, a youthful cousin of the country’s new president Ahmed al Sharaa.

He told me that to move forward, Syria must also hunt down the senior leaders of the Syrian regime who terrorised the entire population.

“Syrians have every right to see justice served for those who caused them harm during the reign of this now-defunct regime,” Mr Dabbagh said.

“By nature, every human finds comfort in witnessing accountability, justice, and the rightful reclaiming of what was taken.”

I asked him if it is difficult tracking down those responsible.

“There are assessments, research, and round-the-clock work being done to locate these criminals,” he explained.

“It’s not always about taking direct action against every person we identify, though, we wait for official orders to arrest certain figures.”

‘The torture was endless’

Barely a family in this country was untouched by the regime and its relentless programme of detentions and torture in jails.

Bariya, 63, was detained for 100 days. Her crime? She was accused of cooking food for demonstrators and spying on regime checkpoints in the city of Homs.

Inside her prison, she says torture was the norm, and the memories of the cries of the men still haunt her.

“It would begin as soon as the sun went down. The torture was endless. My husband was not spared – I recognised his cries. They tormented him,” she told me.

“One of the inmates called out to him, shouting that his family was here, the warders heard her, came straight for him, they dragged him away and beat him in the corridor.”

“They tortured him relentlessly, with no regard for his age – he was born in 1955,” she sobbed.

A legacy of pain and death

Bariya is still so afraid of the Assad regime, she won’t show her face or allow us to use her last name.

She was arrested at the height of the anti-Assad protests, along with multiple members of her family. Seven of them died in detention: her husband, one of her sons, two of her brothers, her nephew, a cousin, and the son of her brother-in-law.

To this day she has no idea what happened.

The legacy of the Assad tyranny is pain and death, and this ancient country’s recent history is still raw for so many.

Consigning it to the history books is going to take some time.

World

Donald Trump says he has call with Putin planned – as Ukraine condemns Russia over bus attack

Published

8 hours ago

May 18, 2025

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Donald Trump says he has call with Putin planned - as Ukraine condemns Russia over bus attack

Donald Trump has said he will speak to Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy separately on Monday in a bid to secure a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine.

The US president made the announcement on Truth Social – shortly after the Ukrainian president condemned Russia for the “deliberate killing of civilians” after a drone hit a bus in north-eastern Ukraine.

Mr Trump said he will speak to Mr Putin over the phone. He will then talk with Mr Zelenskyy and “various members of NATO”, he wrote.

In an all-caps post, he said: “HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE DAY, A CEASEFIRE WILL TAKE PLACE, AND THIS VERY VIOLENT WAR, A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, WILL END. GOD BLESS US ALL!!!”

The Ukrainian town of Bilopillia today declared a period of mourning lasting until Monday after nine people were killed in a Russian drone attack – which occurred just hours after Kyiv and Moscow held peace talks.

Seven others were injured, Ukrainian authorities said. The bus was evacuating civilians from a frontline area when the drone hit, the country’s national police said.

A “father, mother and daughter” were among the dead, Mr Zelenskyy said, writing on Telegram: “All the deceased were civilians. And the Russians could not have failed to understand what kind of vehicle they were targeting.”

The attack has also been condemned by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who said he was “appalled”.

“If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done,” he wrote on X.

Representatives for Kyiv and Moscow met for direct peace talks in Istanbul, Turkey, just hours before the drone attack.

While the discussions – which were not attended by the Mr Putin or Mr Zelenskyy – did not result in a truce, both countries agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners in their biggest swap yet.

Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said on national television the exchange could happen as early as next week.

Russia ‘threatened eternal war’ at peace talks

After a Ukrainian official yesterday said Russia made “unacceptable” demands during the discussions, a source from the Kyiv delegation has now told Sky News that Moscow threatened “eternal war”.

Separately, a senior Kyiv official said Russia’s proposed ceasefire terms included the full withdrawal of troops from four regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Luhansk.

Moscow also called for international recognition that those regions and Crimea – annexed in 2014 – are Russian and for Ukraine to become a neutral state, with no allied troops stationed there, they said.

The Kremlin declined to comment on the matter.

Ukraine has rallied support from its allies following the talks, and a number have spoken out.

French President Emmanuel Macron said: “Today, what do we have? Nothing. And so I tell you, faced with President Putin’s cynicism, I am sure that President Trump, mindful of the credibility of the United States, will react.”

The EU is working on a new package of sanctions against Moscow, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

World

Israel and Hamas resume ceasefire talks after ‘extensive strikes’ on Gaza

Published

11 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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Israel and Hamas resume ceasefire talks after 'extensive strikes' on Gaza

Israel and Hamas said ceasefire talks have resumed in Qatar – even as Israeli forces ramped up a bombing campaign and mobilised for a massive new ground assault.

Earlier, the Israeli military said it had been “conducting extensive strikes and mobilising troops” as part of preparations to expand operations in Gaza.

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said Hamas had “refused to discuss negotiations without a cessation of the war”, but after the airstrikes and the mobilisation of forces the militant group’s representatives “have agreed to sit in a room and seriously discuss the deal”.

“Israel emphasises that if the talks do not progress, the [military] operation will continue,” he added.

A Hamas source told Sky News that ceasefire talks began in Doha on Saturday morning.

Hamas official Taher al-Nono told Reuters news agency that the two sides were involved in discussions without “pre-conditions”.

He added Hamas was “keen to exert all the effort needed” to help mediators make the negotiations a success.

More than 150 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

This week has been one of the deadliest phases of bombardment since a truce collapsed in March and marked a significant escalation in Israel’s offensive.

The Israeli military’s preparations to expand operations in Gaza have included the build-up of tanks and troops along the border.

It is part of “Operation Gideon Chariot”, which Israel says is aimed at defeating Hamas and getting its hostages back.

An Israeli defence official said earlier this month that the operation would not be launched before Donald Trump concluded his visit to the Middle East.

The US president ended his trip on Friday, with no apparent progress towards a new peace deal.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, leaders at the annual summit of the Arab League in Baghdad said they were trying to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

They also promised to contribute to the reconstruction of the territory once the war stops.

The meeting comes two months after Israel ended a ceasefire reached with the Hamas militant group.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on 5 May that Israel was planning an expanded, intensive offensive against Hamas as his security cabinet approved plans that could involve seizing Gaza and controlling aid.

This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but Sky News analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.

Israel’s goal is the elimination of Hamas, which attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages.

Its military response has killed more than 53,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

World

The chilling moment in Russia-Ukraine peace talks – as Putin makes mockery of Trump’s efforts to end war

Published

11 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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The chilling moment in Russia-Ukraine peace talks - as Putin makes mockery of Trump's efforts to end war

Vladimir Putin made a mockery this week of Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Far from punishing him for it, the US president went out of his way to dodge calls to get tough with the Russian leader.

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On Sunday, President Trump called on leaders of both Russia and Ukraine to meet.

He posted: “President Putin of Russia wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY.”

That post let the Russian leader off the hook. Only the day before, Putin had been ordered by Ukraine’s allies, including America, to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.

The Russian president had swerved that demand, suggesting talks instead.

“If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions,” Trump posted before swivelling and backing Putin’s proposals for talks instead.

Undeterred, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepted the call.

Putin though refused to go, sending officials instead.

And yet there was no reprimand from the US president. Instead, he chose to undermine the talks he had himself called for.

“Look, nothing is going to happen until Putin and I get together,” he told reporters on Air Force One. So much for that then.

It is what happened in those talks though that should give the US president the greatest pause for thought about Putin’s intentions – as it does in Kyiv.

The message they brought was blunt and belligerent, threatening eternal war.

“We don’t want war, but we’re ready to fight for a year, two, three – however long it takes,” lead Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky is reported to have said. “We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?”

Far from offering a compromise, they are reported to have demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the four regions they have partially seized by force and the capitulation of another two, just for good measure.

And there was a chilling moment when the Russians are reported to have threatened their interlocutors like gangsters.

“Maybe some of those sitting here at this table will lose more of their loved ones,” Mednisky said. Russia is prepared to fight forever.

For Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, that was personal.

Max, his 23-year-old nephew, lost his life fighting the Russians in 2022 not long after their illegal and unprovoked invasion began.

At the end of this week, Putin appears scornful of Western efforts to end this war through a ceasefire and negotiations and Trump seems happy to let him get away with it.

Even Fox News, normally slavishly subservient to Trump, is wondering what gives.

Its anchor Bret Baier is no Jeremy Paxman, but in an interview last night asked Donald Trump 10 times if he might finally now put pressure on Putin.

The US president ducked and dived, talking about the money he had made in his Gulf tour, Zelenskyy’s shortcomings, Biden, and Iran instead. But he did not give a straight answer to the question.

With performances like that, Putin has nothing to worry about. Trump’s position though seems increasingly untenable.

Ukraine’s European allies though should be alarmed. They threatened Russia with sanctions and retaliation last weekend if he rejected a ceasefire. He now has.

With or without America, will they be good to their word?