Over 160,000 vanished under Assad’s rule, believed buried in dozens of mass graves, say rights groups
A bone fragment, which experts believe to be part of a human leg, was found on the surface of the mass grave in the Dhumair desert. PHOTO: REUTERS
For nearly two years, the stench of death rose from a Syrian desert highway. Night after night, trucks hauled thousands of bodies from one mass grave to another, part of a clandestine effort ordered from President Bashar al-Assad’s palace to hide evidence of mass killings.
A Reuters investigation has uncovered how “Operation Move Earth” shifted the remains of thousands from a known mass grave in Qutayfah, near Damascus, to a new, secret burial site at Dhumair, a military zone an hour away. Satellite and drone imagery, supported by forensic soil analysis, shows how trenches were dug, reopened and filled again as bodies were moved under cover of darkness.
Thirteen witnesses — drivers, mechanics, soldiers and officials — described the two-year operation led by Col. Mazen Ismandar, known to subordinates as Assad’s “master of cleansing.” Orders were verbal; phones were banned. Anyone who spoke risked death.
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The Qutayfah grave, exposed by activists during the civil war, once held victims of torture, detention and battle. By 2019, with Assad consolidating victory, the regime began clearing it. Witnesses said the goal was to erase traces of war crimes before international scrutiny resumed.
At least 34 trenches, stretching two kilometers across the Dhumair desert, now hold the dead. Satellite evidence shows trucks shuttling between the two sites from 2019 to 2021, carrying dirt, bones and decaying remains. Experts believe tens of thousands are buried there.
After Reuters exposed the reburial scheme, Syria’s new National Commission for Missing Persons said it would seek to seal and protect the Dhumair site, warning that the chaotic transfers would complicate future identification.
Documents, testimony and imagery reviewed by Reuters trace the chain of command from Assad’s inner circle through the military’s Medical Services, where Ismandar and Gen. Ammar Suleiman supervised mass burials. Witnesses said Assad approved the transfer to “clean” the country before reopening to the world.
When the final trench was sealed in April 2021, Qutayfah’s site was bulldozed flat. The earth still bears the scars.
