Syria's Baath regime: Decades of massacres, chemical attacks leave lasting scars

By Tugba Altun and Ethem Emre Ozcan

Decades of massacres under Syria's Baath regime and the Assad family have left an indelible mark on the country’s history, with mass killings spanning both chemical weapons and conventional attacks.

Anadolu has compiled key incidents of atrocities following the collapse of the Baath regime’s 61-year rule.

- Hama massacre: Hafiz Assad’s brutality

On Feb. 2, 1982, then-Syrian leader Hafiz Assad, father of Bashar Assad, launched a brutal campaign against a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Hama.

Under the command of Hafiz's brother Rifaat Assad, special forces bombarded the city by air and artillery for 27 days, killing tens of thousands.

According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), the assault claimed at least 30,000 civilian lives, with 17,000 others still missing. Families believe many of the disappeared were killed after being detained, likely in prisons such as Palmyra.

The attacks leveled one-third of Hama's city center and destroyed 88 mosques, three churches, and numerous historical sites.

- Chemical attacks: 1,630 killed

According to SNHR and the data Anadolu complied, while chemical weapons claimed around 1,630 civilian lives, hundreds of thousands were killed using barrel bombs, vacuum bombs, cluster bombs, bunker-buster bombs, and mortars.

On April 22, 2016, then-UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated that the death toll had reached around 400,000, though the figure was not based on official records.

From the start of the civil war, many mass killings targeting civilians by Assad's forces were documented.

Following the start of the uprising that began in March 2011 and the subsequent civil war, Assad's forces killed 70 civilians by opening fire on demonstrators in Hama on June 3, 2011.

On Aug. 4, 2011, in one of the deadliest massacres, regime forces supported by tanks entered the city center and killed at least 130 peaceful demonstrators. On Feb. 4, 2012, regime forces killed 337 civilians, including women and children, in Homs.

- 2012: A year of horror

In February 2012, Homs’ Baba Amr district endured a month-long siege, with heavy tank attacks killing an estimated 4,000 people.

In March 2012, pro-regime militias, known as Shabiha, stormed the Karm al-Zeitoun neighborhood in Homs, killing 140 civilians in their homes.

On May 25, the regime massacred 108 civilians, 49 of them children, in Houla, marking another grim chapter.

Then-UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan, who was in Damascus during the Hola Massacre, said he was “shocked and horrified by the tragic incident,” describing it as "an appalling moment with profound consequences."

The UN Human Rights Council condemned the Hola Massacre on June 1, 2012.

On July 12, 2012, over 200 civilians were killed in Hama in attacks by regime forces.

Between Aug. 20 and 25, 2012, over 500 civilians were killed when regime forces besieged the Darayya suburb of Damascus and targeted it with heavy weaponry.

On Dec. 23, 2012, airstrikes by regime forces in Homs targeted a field hospital and a bakery, resulting in the deaths of over 100 civilians.

- 2013: The bloodiest year

In 2013, Assad forces carried out the deadliest massacres of the Syrian civil war, with most of the attacks concentrated in Aleppo.

On Jan. 11, a regime airstrike on Al-Hasakah in northeastern Syria, killed more than 50 civilians, including women and children.

On Jan. 15, a regime warplane bombed the Faculty of Architecture at Aleppo University, killing 87 students. On the same day, 102 civilians were killed across the city.

Residents of Aleppo discovered the bodies of 230 people who had been detained by regime forces in Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood. The bodies were found near the Queiq River on Jan. 29.

On Feb. 9, the Syrian army executed 40 people in a village of Aleppo. Ten days later, on Feb. 19, a missile attack on the Jabal Badro area of Aleppo killed 47 civilians.

On Feb. 27, regime forces executed 72 civilians in the village of al-Malikiyah in Aleppo. In April, the Shabiha militia massacred hundreds of civilians over four days in the Jdeidet al-Fadl region.

Also in April, regime forces and army units raided al-Sanamayn city of Daraa governorate, killing more than 100 civilians, most of them women, children, and elderly.

Footage of a mass killing on April 16, 2013, showed at least 41 civilians being executed by the Assad regime in Damascus' Tadamon neighborhood. The video emerged on April 27, 2022, causing widespread outrage.

On May 4, at least 126 civilians were massacred in the Baniyas district of Tartus.

On June 2, regime soldiers supported by Hezbollah killed 191 civilians, including children, with knives and firearms in the Resmun Nefil village in the Safirah district in the southeast of Aleppo. The victims' bodies were then burned.

On July 26, a regime missile attack on the Bab al-Nairab of Aleppo killed 35 civilians.

- Chemical massacre in Eastern Ghouta

On Aug. 21, 2013, the Syrian regime launched a chemical weapons attack in Eastern Ghouta of Damascus, killing more than 1,400 civilians.

The attack, which primarily affected women and children, resulted in thousands being exposed to toxic gases. In the aftermath, Eastern Ghouta became the region where the regime imposed the strictest siege, using nearly all of its weaponry by 2018.

As a result of a forced agreement with the Syrian government and Russia, opposition forces were compelled to evacuate Eastern Ghouta in April 2018.

Civilians who emerged from the five-year siege are now struggling to survive in northern parts of the country.

According to the SNHR report, since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the Damascus regime has carried out 217 chemical weapon attacks on opposition-controlled areas.

- Massacres in 2014 and 2015

In 2014 and 2015, Assad's forces committed numerous massacres, particularly in Aleppo, Idlib, and Damascus.

On May 1, 2014, a regime helicopter dropped a barrel bomb on a market in Aleppo, killing 40 civilians.

On Oct. 29, 2014, regime forces launched an airstrike with barrel bombs on Abdeen camp in Idlib, killing 60 civilians.

On Jan. 20, 2015, a regime helicopter attacked an animal market in Hasakah with a barrel bomb, killing 160 civilians.

On Feb. 18, 2015, Assad's forces killed 30 civilians, including women and children, in the northern Aleppo town of Ratyan, some by throat-cutting and others by firing squad.

On Feb. 21, 2015, 48 civilians were executed by gunfire in a village of Aleppo.

On May 12, 2015, a regime helicopter dropped a barrel bomb on bus stations in Aleppo, killing 47 civilians.

On Aug. 16, 2015, a regime warplane dropped a vacuum bomb on a market in Douma of Damascus, killing 67 civilians. Four days later, another attack on a market killed 50 more civilians.

On Sept.16, 2015, a regime helicopter launched a barrel bomb attack on the Mashhad neighborhood of Aleppo, an opposition-controlled area, killing 45 civilians.

On June 8, 2015, a regime airstrike on the opposition-controlled town of Al-Janudiyah in Idlib killed at least 50 civilians.

- Chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun

On April 4, 2017, regime forces carried out a chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Shaykhun in Idlib, showing that they had not abandoned the use of banned weapons.

The attack killed more than 100 civilians and injured over 500.

- Duma massacre

On April 7, 2018, the Assad regime launched a chemical attack on Duma in the Eastern Ghouta region, killing 78 civilians.

*Writing by Seda Sevencan