Syria – live: Rebels vow to hunt down Assad’s torture henchmen as Israel condemned over military land grab
Israel has denied penetrating Syria beyond the buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights
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Your support makes all the difference.The Syrian rebels who led the lightning insurgency which toppled the Assad dictatorship have vowed to reveal the names of regime officials wanted for torture.
“We will release a list that includes the names of the most senior officials involved in the torturing of the Syrian people,” said top rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, who is fronting the rebel coalition led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
“Rewards will be offered to those who will provide information about senior army and security officers involved in war crime.”
It comes as Israel vehemently denies that its troops are now 16 miles (25km) from Syrian capital Damascus, after reports emerged that it had breached the demilitarised buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights.
An IDF official told The Independent that claims Israeli troops have advanced are “false” and that its troops are “stationed within the buffer zone”.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes on military sites in Damascus, Daraa Latakia and Hama have killed two people and caused extensive damage to key military facilities, including research centres and weapons warehouses, according to UK-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
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Dozens of tortured bodies found in hospital near Damascus
Syrian rebel fighters say they found around 40 bodies with signs of torture in a hospital morgue near Damascus on Monday.
The bodies were wrapped in body bags with numbers and names written on them, the fighters told AFP news agency.
Mohammed al-Hajj, a rebel fighter from southern Syria, said: “I opened the door of the morgue with my own hands, it was a horrific sight: about 40 bodies were piled up showing signs of gruesome torture.”
Video footage and photos which Mr al-Hajj said he took himself appeared to show corpses with signs of torture, including teeth and eyes gouged out and pieces of cloth containing bones.
After a tip from a hospital worker, the rebel fighters investigated. Mr al-Hajj added: "We informed the military command of what we found and coordinated with the Syrian Red Crescent, which transported the bodies to a Damascus hospital, so that families can come and identify them.”
HTS rebel group sending ‘reassuring messages’ - UN special envoy
The UN special envoy to Syria has been providing an update on the situation in the country.
Geir Pedersen noted that it had been nine years since Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) - the rebel group which led the quick advance which ended the Assad regime - had become a proscribed terrorist group.
Since that time, HTS and other armed groups have been sending reassuring messages, Mr Pedersen said, adding that he believes the international community may rethink its labelling of HTS.
Return of British jihadists from Syria is ‘great concern’ - Home Office minister
The return of British jihadists from Syria to the UK is a “great concern”, Home Office minister Angela Eagle said on Tuesday.
Intelligence services are “keeping a very, very close eye” on the situation, Ms Eagle told Times Radio, amid fears that British jihadists could be among those who have ben freed from Syrian jails since the fall of the Assad regime.
“Rest assured that the intelligence services are keeping a very close eye on what’s going on and we’re in contact with all of our allies to see how this pans out,” Ms Eagle said.
“Clearly any potential return of jihadists is a matter of great concern, which is why we’ll be keeping a very, very close eye on how this situation develops in the coming days and weeks.”
Erdogan speaks with NATO boss about Syria situation
Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan has spoken with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte to discuss the latest developments in Syria, his office said.
In a post on X, Mr Erdogan’s office said: “During the call, President Erdogan stated that Turkey will keep doing everything in its power for the establishment of a unified and terror-free Syria.”
Since the fall of the Assad regime, Turkis air strikes have hit areas in Syria controlled by the US-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic Front (SDF).
Watch: Blinken issues warning on Islamic State capabilities in Syria
IDF says reports of Israeli advances are ‘false’
An official in the Israeli Defense Forces has told The Independent that the allegations that its tanks are advancing towards Damascus are false.
“The reports circulating in the media about the alleged advancement of Israeli tanks towards Damascus are false. IDF troops are stationed within the buffer zone, as stated in the past,” the official said.
The inmates released from Assad’s notorious prisons in Syria: ‘I haven’t seen the sun until today’
Bashar Barhoum, 63, was one of the tens of thousands of prisoners freed from Bashar al-Assad’s prisons in Syria, as civil defence teams investigate underground cells to free more detainees.
After seven months in prison, Mr Barhoum was expecting to be executed, when he woke in his Damascus prison cell at dawn Sunday to men at the door.
But he quickly realised they were seeking to free him and were not Assad’s notorious security forces.
Rebels broke into prisons and security facilities to free political prisoners – and people who disappeared – in the years since civil war erupted in 2011, as they swept across Syria in a lightning offensive that ended fifty years of Assad family rule.
Steffie Banatvala reports:
The prisoners freed from notorious Syria jails: ‘I haven’t seen the sun until today’
The prisons have garnered an infamous reputation for their harsh conditions
Israel denies it is 25km from Damascus
The Israeli military has denied that their incursion into Syria has reached 25 kilometres from Damascus, after Syrian sources said it had penetrated territory beyond the demilitarised buffer zone in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
A spokesperson for the military said: "It's not true, the forces have not left the buffer zone.”
Scholz and Macron will work with Syria rebels
German chancellor Olaf Scholz and French president Emmannuel Macron are prepared to work with the Syrian rebels who deposed president Bashar al-Assad, according to a German government statement following a phone call between the leaders.
"(Scholz and Macron) agreed that they were prepared to work together with the new rulers on the basis of fundamental human rights and the protection of ethnic and religious minorities," the German government statement, published late on Monday, read.
They welcomed the departure of Assad, who they said had caused "terrible suffering to the Syrian people and great damage to his country".
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