Metransparent- Exclusive
The clue came from a Syrian source who had been close to Syria’s president Bashar Assad. “The mad dog of Tripoli” was his only comment when we asked background on Syria’s new minister of interior- a sensitive portfolio in Syria, the more so as the man was nominated in a new so-called “government of reform”.
So, who is Syria’s new interior minister Brigadier Mohamed Shaar?
Officially, he had been head of the Interventions Section of the Military Security at Aleppo’s Military Security Branch until 1985 or 1986. In 1986 he was transferred to Syria’s Military Intelligence in Lebanon, headed at the time by the Brigadier Ghazi Kanaan. Kanaan was famous for his brutality, ruthlessness, corruption and, later, for his sudden “suicide” at the top of his career as Syria’s minister of Interior. Kanaan died in his office, by a gunshot through the mouth, in Damascus on October 12, 2005. Two of his brother died in curious accidents a few weeks later.
It was in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city, that Brigadier Mohamed Shaar earned his nickname as “the mad dog of Tripoli”. At the time he was at the head of Syria’s Military Intelligence at Tripoli. The events took place in late 1986. Yasser Arafat and his PLO fighters had been expelled definitively from Lebanon: first from Beirut by Ariel Sharon’s army, and (a few months later) from Tripoli by Hafiz Assad’s army. Syria’s military Intelligence had been trying to impose its rule on Tripoli but the task was not easy due to the resistance of armed groups previously armed by Arafat. Barricaded in the Bab Tebbaneh area of Tripoli, the armed groups were led by the young Khalil Akkawi. Having failed to destroy the Shebab resistance in Bab Tabbaneh, Mohamed Shaar met Khalil Akkawi under the auspices of Iranian intermediaries. Although Iranian officials claimed to guarantee his safety, Akkawi was assassinated immediately after the meeting, in February 2006.
A few months later, in December 2006, Mohamed Shaar unleashed his men on Bab Tebbaneh. What followed was an earlier version of the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Night after night, young men of over 17 years were kidnappad from their homes and executed. The confirmed killings exceed 700 people. The bodies were either thrown away or buried by the soldiers. Families had nobody to complain to as Lebanese state organs had ceased to exist at the time. Parents dared not even mourn the death of their children.
After a blank, we traced the career of Mohamed Shaar to Lattakieh in north Syria where he was appointed as head of Miltary Police at Aleppo, Syria’s second city. This happened in 2005, immediately after Syrian troops forced departure from Lebanon.
Later, Shaar was appointed to the position of head of Miltary Police for the whole of Syria. It is in that later position that the (now, brigadier) Mohamed Shaar committed his second recorded “massacre”, this time against fellow Syrians in the infamous Sidnaya military prison.
According to the
International Federation for Human Rights, on 5 and 6 July 2008:
“the violent clashes which took place in Sidnaya prison between detainees and prison guards who allegedly received the support of an anti-terrorism police unit, killed several people and wounded many others. FIDH has been informed that police officers in a helicopter fired upon rioters who were isolated on prison’s roof. No official information is available on the number and the identity of persons killed and wounded, including those who have been transferred to hospital. Families of detainees are still not allowed to go to the hospital and obtain information about their relatives. Communication lines are still cut throughout the area and access to the prison area is restricted.”
The total number of prisoners killed is still unknown. It certainly includes tens of Syrian (and, probably, Lebanese) political prisoners. Syrian authorities never accepted requests for the creation of an independent investigations committee. What is certain is that Brigadier Mohamed Shaar, in peson, led the charge against Sidnaya’s prisoners who had revolted in protest against their inhuman detention conditions.
The only other important name associated with the Sidnaya military prison massacre is that of Maher Assad, brother of Syria’s president and head of the 4th armored brigade. He is seen in a video taken by members of the Military Police after the massacre (see photo and video).
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Today, April 25, 2011, according to CNN: “between 4,000 and 5,000 members of the Army and security forces raided the southern city of Daraa just after 4 a.m. equipped with seven tanks, and began shooting indiscriminately, in some cases shooting into homes as people slept, according to an activist with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.”
By this evening, 25 persons are known to have been killed in Deraa, a number which would probably go up later. It is difficult not to imagine that Syria’s new “reformist” minister of interior had had in hand in this new massacre and in the massacre of the Good Friday (april 22) in which the toll exceeded a 100 civilians killed.
Massacre of Sednaya jail in Syria Damascus 2008 par allsyriansdream