Upside-Down Terrorist Crimes on Display in Geneva?

Fail Caesar Part 8: 
Upside-Down Terrorist Crimes on Display in Geneva?
April 9, 2016
(last edits April 10)

This article is modified from a forthcoming report: Do the Caesar Photos Show Rebel Crimes in Syria? This preview raises a few interrelated points I'd like people to see before 'peace talks' in Geneva resume this week. Even though, no sooner had I put this up, than Jaish al-Islam took credit for a chemical weapons attack in Aleppo, spurring calls for their political leader to be permanently barred from negotiations (emerging on RT to start)

On the verge of 'peace talks' in Geneva in late March, 2016, the Caesar photos were put on display there, to help clarify why the Syrian government – one party to the talks - had to go. The exhibit was hosted by the Swiss Press Club, at a site near the Palace of Nations where diplomats swarm.   UK Special Representative for Syria Gareth Bayley spoke there, saying “The Caesar photos are compelling evidence, brutally and forensically documented, of the Assad regime's calculated widespread attack on the Syrian people,” adding that “accountability must be central to a settlement in Syria.” A woman presenter, claiming to be a former prisoner in this system, “told a hushed room full of journalists and diplomats that she had a message to those at the Palace of Nations,” MiddleEastEye reports, “from her experience “under the criminal Assad regime”.” Exhibition organizer Yahya Al Aridhi said the victims were Syrians, Jordanians and Palestinians killed in “a non-stop Holocaust in Syria” committed by its government.

But the photos may actually show a genocidal murder spree by Islamist opposition fighters against their own captive enemies. The photo displayed at right (Photograph: Philippe Desmazes/ AFP/ Getty Images, via The Guardian) is placed upside-down, which might in itself be interesting. This photo depicts alleged detainee #63, as listed, from small-time branch 248, from the July 27, 2013 folder. Here in Geneva, they've blurred: his eyes, numbers on a card and on his chest, and his left forearm.

This teenage boy is better seen in several fuller photos in a gallery for child victims published by Zaman al-Wasl. The same one is shown here, right-side-up. Between all these, we can see he was starved, suffered mild neck burns but no evident body torture, and had his eyes damaged – they seem raw but present. He has a little blood or orange fluid from the nose.

The photo has clearly been altered in a paint program, which is unusual but not not unprecedented. It seems this is usually done to clarify a number, but this paints over and changes both the hospital and detainee numbers. The hospital number (bottom) is now 4450/b. The top probably matched the chest writing before, which says he's #62 from 248. And stranger yet, before that his body had said unclear number, for branch 215. This was partly washed off and overwritten, but still faintly visible (a simplified 3 at the end, and the 215, are fairly clear - see below). And it seems like his forehead, coated with a thin layer of soot or dirt, had its identifying tape removed along the way.

The original number – on tape or on the body - is supposedly written at the MI branch prison. But they wouldn't do the correction there, unless they briefly forgot which branch they worked for. That's unlikely, so it seems to be Caesar who knew better and corrected them, and then corrected himself later. (see FC5 who's doing the writing?)

Or perhaps he corrected himself twice. The following graphic draws on further views of the same boy in the Zaman al-Wasl photo gallery. These include the body next to his, starved to almost the same exact degree and with eye damage, but by a different division, and left more of a purple color. By number and face, that's 215-3879 as listed by SAFMCD, with the 215 left off here and that 9 looking strange. Comparing this to the boy's traces, I think they were 215-3871 and 215-3873 (see graphic, lower middle – gold writing is offset, original marks are to the left and a bit above).

It's really hard to say just what happened here, let alone why. But having such questions lying around is certainly not a good sign. However sloppy the work, who's calls did Caesar alter here, and based on what? How quickly does that ink dry? And why does the blamed branch seems so flexible and arbitrary? It doesn't seem to matter just who killed him, so long as it was Mukhabarat.

Note for holocaust/genocide-watchers: the top photo shows the the boy 248-63 has on his left forearm a clear curved sword tattoo usually taken as meaning he was Shi'ite, (lower right corner above) with unclear writing above it. The older victim may have a small simplified sword on his left arm. Was this the regime's 'kill the starved Shi'ite prisoners day' at both 215 and 248 branches? There are several other cases of Shia-suggestive tattoos, besides Alawi and Christian and various clues the captives were partly captured soldiers of the SAA or allied militias, as the report will explain (for now see FC6).

But the boy's telltale tattoo is blurred away in Geneva, along with his mess of conflicting “Mukhabarat prisoner ID numbers.” It didn't matter just who killed him, so long as it was someone inside “the criminal regime.”

Sitting atop the possibly misdirected photo furor and seeking “accountability” is the US-Saudi-backed opposition group, the High Negotiating Committee (HNC), who made the call to show the Caesar photos there, perhaps to influence negotiations. As the Guardian reported:

The High Negotiating Committee has so far failed to lift the issue of political detainees to the same level of importance as humanitarian access. To underline their position, the opposition exhibited a selection of the “Caesar” photographs – images of hundreds [sic] of detainees held in Syrian jails that were smuggled out Syria in 2013. The event was attended by many western envoys in a show of solidarity.

And sitting atop the HNC as it leverages this dubious evidence is their chief negotiator Mohammed Alloush (right, using a photo of suffering to make a point). He has promised “we will consider the resumption of negotiations for an effective transfer of power,” as soon as “the United States is able to force [the Syrian government] to stop the bombing, free prisoners and allow the entry of aid” (in other words, once foreign military intervention finally tips the balance in their favor). He earlier dictated, also from Geneva, that “the transitional period should start with the fall, or death, of Bashar al-Assad” and “those with blood on their hands can have no part in a reconstituted Syrian army,” or likely in much of anything.

Syria is not prepared to negotiate with a leader of a terrorist group currently barred from talks anyway. Alloush is a proud and founding member of Jaish al-Islam (JaI, Army of Islam, logo at right), and a close relative of recently-killed JaI leader Zahran Alloush (reportedly his brother, or cousin, and/or brother-in-law – reports conflict).

Based in Douma, about 10km northeast of Damascus, Jaish al-Islam is a leading faction within the Syrian Islamic Front, pursuing a Wahabbi-inspired Islamism for Syria, and is saddled with a slew of of credibly alleged crimes including the sectarian beheading massacre in Adra, in December, 2013 (partly detailed in a longer article here). Zahran Alloush in his time he promoted Islamism, denounced democracy and secularism, admired Osama bin Laden, and often worked with Syria's al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra in a “brotherly” way.

He advocated Sunni supremacy and genocide against Alawi and Shia citizens, vowing “the mujahedin of Sham (Damascus/Syria/Levant)” would “crush the heads” of the “enemies of God” (people of the Shia and Alawi faiths, and the Persians/Iranian ethnic group). He promised his holy warriors would “wash the filth” of Shi'ism from Syria “forever, if Allah wills it,” and promised to re-establish the ancient Umayyid Caliphate (see Landis, Alloush himself on video).

As far as we know, Jaish al-Islam committed the murders shown in the Caesar photos. This isn't proven, but the report will explain some compelling evidence I've discovered that they in fact are to blame. Zahran promised the "enemies of God" that they would "taste “the evil of torture in this world before Allah will make you taste it on the Day of Resurrection.” At right are two more victims from a starved-Shia-killing day, 215-3669 (cropped) from the 7-7-2013 folder, and 215-3670 (strangely, listed by SAFMCD as 227-3670, way out of their usual sequence but also dated 7-7 - see the shoulder scars and patch of light on the collarbone).

Also, JaI wants to help overthrow Syria's government. They're formally designated as a terrorist group only by Syria, Iran, Russia, and Egypt, while enjoying active support from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and ambivalence from allies of those nations; they're considered part of the “moderate Islamist” alternative "to both Assad and ISIS" sponsored by the West and the Gulf monarchies.

JaI's wikipedia page lists Zahran's close relative and fellow thinker Mohammed Alloush as their current “political leader.” Gulf News says he studied Islamic law, Islamic banking, and marketing, and started with Zahran's JaI in 2012 (then called Liwa al-Islam) founding "underground cells" in Douma. Note: the Caesar photo marketed massacre started slow in late 2011, and only came in heavy from November, 2012 and forward, about 1,000 per month on average. Now he's in Geneva pushing for “accountability” and deciding who is “the terrorist” in Syria. He's doing that sitting on a throne of accusations, including these thousands of photos of people like 248-63, 215-3669, 3670, and 3879, as labeled - probably by their killers. These are victims of a massive crime that Alloush himself might know all about, from the inside.

Jaish al-Islam, Protecting the Syrian People

Jaish al-Islam, Protecting the Syrian People
April 3, 2016
Modified from upcoming report

"Cages of Protection"

It wasn't long ago that Jaish al-Islam recieved some unfavorable publicity for apparently caging captured men and women “believed to be Alawite officers and their families,” in some 50 tiger cages, paraded around Douma in late October, 2015. They promoted the idea with the slogan “cages of protection,” deploying the captives as human shields claiming to to believe it might stop indiscriminate bombing by the “Alawite regime.”

The move was widely denounced in normal channels, but an activist told Al-Jazeera this was more JaI democracy and the locals supported it; “most people decided to place those prisoners from the Alawite sect and high-ranking regime officers in cages so they can taste our misery.” This disgusting display, compared to the stated reason for it, and where they got the people, does much to reveal the twisted management style of JaI that no decent person could support.

Al-Jazeera heard quickly, and predictably, how the alleged regime airstrikes continued (the “Army of Islam” might say this is because “Assad” doesn't even care about his own people). They heard JaI was “moving the prisoners to the rooftops of homes as a supposed deterrent,” but still activists told them “that 250 civilians, including 50 children and 20 women, were killed by government forces in attacks during the last three days alone.”

But this is a nationwide total: The VDC records 256 total "martyrs" from 10-30 to 11-1 (and less in all other spans they might refer to), including 26 women, 51 children, 139 civilian men, and 49 rebels, killed by all causes across all of Syria. Douma's share was sizable – 71 . There's no word whether any of their human shields were among those killed. But the VDC records 4 local but unidentified women killed November 1, all at once with a mortar shell, presumably of regime origin, as they say “while they were heading to a medical point in the city” for some prior reason. That makes little sense. Four women is, of course, about one cage's worth.

Reason: to Prevent (Their Own False-Flag) Attacks

One of those deadly attack the cages failed to stop, as common in Douma, was at a public market. Many such attacks have been reported, blamed on cruel regime shelling, sometimes with “barrel bombs.” These events have killed many hundreds total, in addition to other alleged shelling, bombing, snipers, etc. in an area (Douma) that's fairly depopulated.

But these "market attacks" are odd, and tend to kill almost totally men and older boys, suggesting the victims were segregated like captives before they died. The early November attacks were said to kill 71 civilians in Douma. 56 share the note “market,” and of those, 48 are men. This is pretty standard. Some presume this means rebels are laundering their battle deaths, and it could be. But as with the Caesar photos victims, much evidence says these – at least partly - really were civilians, just split-up by age and sex; the men are killed in huge numbers, with far less women and children taken captive, or perhaps taken but saved for other fates.

The only Douma market attack I've studied closely - and it was very closely - was the one on August 16, 2015, and this will shed some light on the rest of them (see investigation review for more). Perhaps the most famous and widely-decried example, this had about 120 civilians reportedly killed when a fighter jet hit the market district with four fuel-air or "vacuum" missiles at mid-day. There are 4 such impacts in the market strip, with some injured and dead seen at each site. But most deaths seem to be unrelated; lists show at least 110 men, about 12 boys (mostly older, so “fighting age men”), 3 women, and no girls (the lists seem to be incomplete). Two key findings:

1) Analysis shows at least 40 of the men and boys were dead, fairly dry, and gathered for burial at roughly the same time as the impact of the rockets blamed for killing them. The attack was probably around 1:20-1:25 pm, while the earliest photo of bodies was taken (right, timed roughly by sunlight angles) was somewhere between 12:55 and 1:25 PM. That means they were killed well before the “missile attack.”


2) The southerly direction of fire and evenly arcing pattern of impacts (right – the red dots are exact) virtually proves they did not come from any circling jet, but from a fixed surface position about 800-820 meters south of the stricken markets. (see the review, and here for the mapping explained.) These would be rockets, not missiles, fired by allies of the killers to provide the public explanation for the rows of corpses from the massacre earlier in the day.

A Reuters report heard from someone and concluded that the attack seemed to be “retaliation” for a recent victory, “by the Islamic Army rebel group, which enjoys strong support in Douma.” So the “regime” was aiming for the group's civilian support base. JaI Spokesman Islam Alloush (no relation to Zahran) said “We do not have any presence in the residential areas” and so couldn't themselves be the target. A “civil defence officer” told al-Jazeera from Douma. “There are only civilians here - no army and no opposition forces. Residents do not permit any armed person in this area. ... The market was intentionally targeted.” Operating outside the city then, we should wonder if one of JaI's positions was, perhaps 800m south of Douma's market district.

Finally, some more disturbing clues in the August 16 attack: no girls were listed as killed, but at least four are shown in pictures, all with head wounds, and one clearly looks like it was caused by a sword. One teenage boy was clearly pulled apart, as if tied between two vehicles driving opposite ways, in a terroristic fashion employed by Islamic State and others. Rockets don't do this. Then he had his face cleanly burned away, maybe just to mimic a fuel-air “vacuum missile” and, still alive in some clinic, was passed off as another victim of the day's Assad fighter jet “massacre” in Douma. If this happened there (unverified), JaI will at least know about it.

So really the market and similar attacks seem to be or include unacknowledged terrorist massacres of gender-segregated captives. It should be noted the victim don't have to come from Douma itself but anywhere JaI has a reach. Real explosions can be arranged with things like rockets. Then they can blame the death on the rockets and blame those on “Assad.” Later they decided to put other stolen people into “cages of protection” to help show they really do believe it's all coming from the sky, and the world has to come give them a Libya-style “no fly zone.”

Securing the Props

If that sounds outlandish, consider how they get the props for the October performance: As AFP reported, citing the opposition SOHR, “most” of the caged people “were kidnapped by Jaish al-Islam two years ago outside Adra al-Ummaliyah, a regime-held neighbourhood in Eastern Ghouta.” The report added “a Jaish al-Islam spokesman was not reachable for comment.” Another al-Jazera report quotes an activist agreeing “the men and women in the cages were detained during battles in Ghouta and Adra.”

This “battle” is also the Adra massacre, infamous to some, unknown to most (see ACLOS (talk) page unless the main page is ever filled in). This major sectarian beheading spree was the only time the army of Alloush would have direct access to most of Adra, a sprawling, mostly-government-held district northeast of Douma. Early on December 11, 2013 thousands of Islamist fighters from the new JaI coalition, Jabhat al-Nusra, and allies, swarmed over defenses and seized control. A large number of soldiers were killed and captured, and then civilians were executed in their homes, according to prepared lists. An unclear number were beheaded in the open, their bodies left in the street and their heads reportedly displayed on trees. Some were said to be cooked alive in the ovens of a bakery the rebels overran. One family was killed when the father blew them all up along with some militants to prevent their being captured. These accusations aren't proven but are precedented and quite credible.

The death toll is unclear. One detailed early report had at least 63 defenders killed (8 Palestinian fighters, 25 police men, 12 NDF members, and 18 SAA soldiers) and 60 civilians executed (including state employees, 6 Bakery employees, and civilians - mainly Alawi, Druze and Christians). SOHR heard a smaller numbers of civilians (around 30-40) were killed, all of them Alawi, Shia, and Druze. Other reports had over 100 civilians butchered, and perhaps 400 killed in total.

Witnesses reported to RT the attackers were mainly non-Syrians under the "black flags of Jaish al-Islam and al-Nusra Front. Some of them were singing ‘Alawites we have come to cut off your head’s song..." According to some reports, the operation was commanded by Zahran Alloush. Even Reuters heard "Several blamed the Army of Islam, … "Zahran Alloush has committed a massacre," one activist based in the Damascus suburbs told Reuters."

There's no proof of ISIS involvement, but it's possible at this ambiguous stage – they were part of the Islamist team in Latakia a few months earlier (see below), but starting to fight with others in some areas by this time. This might matter, as the VDC director Razan Zaitouneh had been accusing ISIS of murdering activists, and she was abducted and disappeared on the night of December 9/10, just one day before the grand Adra offensive. 

If left alone, the VDC might have finally broken their silence on JiA crimes and criticized the Adra massacre, or maybe not. As it is, with their director just kidnapped, they recorded no soldiers or civilians killed at all on the bloody first day.  During an occupation to about Dec. 29, VDC records about 90 combatants * and 45 civilians killed (33 men, 8 women, 3 boys, 1 girl. Two died on the 12th, several on the 14th and 16th, and the rest over the final days - ACLOS). By this, nine Adra civilians died, along with 36 people from other places who were living there (this could mean they're religious minorities or government loyalists who felt safer in Adra than in the place they left). They died during the rebel occupation but they from: government starvation and regime sniper (one each), 11 executed by regime forces, and the rest killed by government shelling.

* 65 rebel fighters killed during a week-long battle, and 37 "regime forces" – but none on day 1. 3/4 of these are listed as from Tartous or Latakia, suggesting killed for being Alawite. A colonel from Tartous is listed on the 12th with the note “he blew himself up.” They don't say why, and don't list any family dying with him.

Most likely the first day's mass-killing is just unreported here, and these later deaths are acknowledge but laundered hostage executions, and should be added to the likely total death toll for the Adra Massacre.

Official reports were that at least “dozens” of civilian captives were taken south from Adra, towards Douma. Al-Monitor reported in May, 2015 "the Al-Baton jail reportedly held a few hundred women and children taken prisoner from the Adra al-Omalia area. The men who had been taken alongside them are believed to have been executed." This is similar to the tactics used a few months earlier in the joint Islamist conquest of several villages in Latakia near the Turkish border, by Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIS, Ahrar al-Sham, and alies – all of similar mindset to JiA. The men were all killed, with no age exemption, with some women an children (about 200 total killed) while about 200 women and children (aged 13 and under, usually) were taken as property and used as bargaining chips. In this case, two years later JaI was tossing around metal boxes full of the people they stole from Adra. 

But their politcal/sales director Mohammed Alloush - a brother or cousin of slain JaI leader Zahran Alloush says things like this: “Abducting people is not part of [our] approach.” (see Time, at the time of the Zaitoneh abduction and Adra offensive). And so, like Ahrar al-Sham and sometime even Al-Nusra, Jaish al-Islam is considered by outside backers as "moderate Islamists," perhaps worth supporting as a counterweight to "both Assad and ISIS." Perhaps coincidentally, Western and Gulf governments and human rights groups considered the events in Adra unclear, and never really clarified them, and the story was forgotten.

But Zahran Alloush probably committed a massacre in Adra, and probably many others. And now his close relative, fellow thinker, and JaI political leader Mohammed Alloush is in Geneva as the head of the opposition "High Negotiating Committee" (Al-Monitor). At Saudi insistence, leading the push for “accountability,” deciding who has “blood on their hands” and  who is “the terrorist” in Syria. Alloush is tasked with forging an agreement with the Syruian government to end hostilities, but wants US air strikes first, and demands the "fall or death of Bashar al-Assad" before the "transitional period" can begin.

Syria refuses to talk (directly) with a member of a terrorist group. It seems current protocol blocks Alloush's involvement anyway, as a member of a terrorist group. But having picked a member to lead their team, Saudi Arabia seems sure they'll get that changed in time. Staffan deMistura is optimistic about talks towards a settlement, as the only shot there is at ending the suffering in Syria. The US urges both sides to take advantage of this golden chance, or things will get worse.