The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

For investigations in various cases, the regime forces continue to carry out raids in the Ghouta and detain about 300 persons last week

Rif Dimashq Province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: the Syrian Observatory for Human Right monitored the regime forces carrying out raids and detentions in the Eastern Ghouta in Rif Dimashq, where sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that the regime forces are carrying out daily and consecutive raids in the cities and towns of the Eastern Ghouta, in search of “wanted” people, the regime forces also take them to security branches in the capital Damascus in order to be investigated and interrogated about specific issues, while the locals and some of those arrested and released told that the investigations are related to the communication with the displaced people from the Eastern Ghouta to the Syrian north and the presence of their children in the Syrian north, and the former work with institutions belong to opposition, regional or international parties, where the numbers of people arrested reached about 300 during the last week.

The Syrian Observatory published in the past few days that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored that the regime forces carried out raids and searching processes in the towns and cities of the Eastern Ghouta of Damascus, in the past 72 hours, where these processes were carried out successively and simultaneously in the towns and cities of the area, in searching for wanted who were arrested and taken to the regime’s security branches, the sources confirmed to the SOHR that the arrests targeted more than 150 persons in the past 72 hours, through the International Security Intelligence, and these processes also targeted a majority of the persons who were arrested on charge of “investigating the sources of finance of the relief and medical institutions in the Eastern Ghouta”, amid resentment against the arrests which target the residents of the area and of those who refused to leave it, from time to time.

Intersected confirmed on the 18th of August 2018, to the Syrian Observatory, that the regime forces carried out raids during the last hours of the night in KafrBatna town in the Eastern Ghouta, where the Syrian Observatory monitored raids into the houses of the town which used to be controlled by Rahman Corps prior to its displacement of it, where the raids lasted for several hours and resulted in arrests of people of whom local sources reported that they have been arrested after the regime forces claimed that they were wanted, where about 30 people (6 of them used to work for the Revolutionary Local Council in KafrBatna town) were arrested, and these arrests come as a new episode in the series of raids, searches and detentions which are carried out by the regime forces and its security branches, against the remaining inhabitants of the Eastern Ghouta, where the raids are being carried out occasionally in towns, cities, and farms of the Eastern Ghouta searching for “wanted” or weapons, in conjunction with summoning certain people according to nominal lists in order to carry out investigations with the people who worked in relief, humanitarian, medical, and military institutions, local councils, rescue teams, and civil defense, during the period of control of the Islamic factions in the Eastern Ghouta, prior to the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians and fighters towards the Syrian north, where the Syrian Observatory monitored people who had previously served in the civil defense being called by branches of regime’s security, which conducted investigations with them and returned them to the Eastern Ghouta, without allowing them to leave it.

Also the regime forces have made incumbent upon the residents of the Eastern Ghouta, to get a “security approval”, in the case that they desire to leave towards the capital Damascus, and local sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that the regime’s checkpoints provided that the residents of the Eastern Ghouta have to head towards the officers who are in charge of the Eastern Ghouta, in order to obtain a “departure permission”, in order to be allowed to leave through the checkpoints to the capital Damascus, and the locals confirmed that this document is given after a quick investigation to those who request the “departure permission”, and the investigation includes questions about their relatives and those who remained of them inside Ghouta, and those who left towards the Syrian North or outside Syria, while sources talked about the fact that the regime forces prevented those who used to work in medic and relief fields, or within parties opposed to the regime in the Eastern Ghouta, and stayed in the Eastern Ghouta to have their situations settled, from leaving towards Damascus.

The Syrian Observatory also published on the 20th of August 2018, it obtained information about the continuation of evidence and facts obliterating process by the regime forces, which prove their carry out of the massacre, in conjunction with the 5th anniversary of the chemical massacre in the Eastern and Western Ghouta, and in the details obtained by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: the regime forces their control over the Eastern Ghouta and the completion of sweep, looting, raids and the arrests; have been working on the chemical massacre file, where reliable sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that regime’s authorities summoned tens of people who were present during and after the massacre, where they have summoned every person who documented, photographed, and participated in preparing the bodies and burying them, and all those who participated in the treatment of the injured ones, and they were investigated in detail by asking them about the full details of the massacre and its particulars, they even summoned those in charge of the cemeteries of Zamalka, Ein Tarma, and Arbin to tell them about the locations of the graves of the victims of the chemical weapons massacre in the capital Damascus, also reliable sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that they monitored the regime enter the graves and start exhumations, to recover the remains and transfer them to other areas unknown so far, in a clear actions by the regime through which it intends to obliterate the traces of the heinous crime it had carried out, which had claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians, where hundreds of civilians were more than 500 were documented in both Eastern and Western Ghouta, including 80 children under the age of eighteen and about 140 woman over the age of eighteen.

Also, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights obtained intersected information from eyewitnesses and residents of the Eastern Ghouta, which confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that the shelling that took place on the 21st of August 2013 at 01:30 AM was carried out by missiles whose launch sounds were strongly heard; but their explosions were not heard after they fell in Zamalka city and the area between Zamalka and Ayn Tarma, where -according to the locals’ testimony- no similar sounds have been heard for such a kind of weapons, and after the shelling hundreds of casualties and injuries were seen in Zamalka and the surrounding areas, and in other areas the Eastern Ghouta, the intersected and local sources told the Syrian Observatory that they attributed the reason to the preparations of the Eastern Ghouta factions for a massive military operation against the regime forces through a concentrated, intense, and violent attack, that aims to enter and controlling the capital Damascus and initiate a guerrilla war inside of it, but the security and military authority of the regime were able to get information about real preparations for a true attack by thousands of fighters of the factions, and sources said that the regime forces at that time were not ready for such a kind of attack, which was largely and carefully prepared by the factions, so the regime forces rushed to the launched missiles at the center of the military operation against Damascus carrying chemical materials, and they were launched by orders of Maher al-Assad, who is the brother of president of the Syrian regime and the current commander of the 4th Division, after appointing him in April 2018 in his position, and the order was carried out by a Brigadier General  from Safita area in the countryside of the coastal province of Tartous.