Bashar Abdo had just returned home last month after four years in the Syrian army when a group of neighbors and others armed with guns and knives stormed his family’s door and accused him of being a terrorist. -vote for the overthrown government.
His sister and brother-in-law tried to stop the crowd while he hid. However, people forced their way in and found Mr. Abdo, 22, in the kitchen. They stabbed him before dragging him out, although his sister Marwa clung to him. He was shot there.
The account, shared by Mr. Abdo’s family, was confirmed by local police in the northwestern city of Idlib. A video widely shared on Syrian social media and verified by The New York Times captured the horrific scene that followed: As Mrs. Abdo held her lifeless body, neighbors continued to kick her. . He begged them to stop, saying that he was already dead.
“This is your turn,” a man yelled. Another confirmed video showed a crowd shouting after Mr Abdo’s body was tied to a car and dragged through the street. It is unclear who took the video.
Ms. Abdo recalled those moments in an interview with The Times four days later. He vowed revenge, a sign of the growing threat of a new cycle of violent retaliation in Syria.
The country emerged suddenly and unexpectedly from 13 years of civil war and more than five decades under the Assad dynasty, which has maintained its power through fear, torture and mass killings.
Mr. Abdo’s killing underscores the difficult calculations ahead in Syria, where wounds and anger remain fresh. Many Syrians want accountability for crimes committed during the civil war. Others seek revenge.
At least half a million Syrians have died during the war, most of them in airstrikes by Syrian warplanes and helicopters or in prisons for torture or mass killings, according to the group. Syrian human rights defender. Many people are still unknown.
Officials with the new interim government, led by the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, are racing to set up courts and police forces to address decades of grievances. They urge citizens to forgive rather than take matters into their own hands.
Ahmed al-Shara, the head of the rebel coalition that toppled the Assad government, said the government would hunt down and prosecute prominent figures for crimes that include murder, wrongful imprisonment, torture and gassing. his own people, but this priority. selected soldiers will receive amnesty.
In a recent interview, Mr. al-Shara said that “justice must be sought through the courts and the law. Not through each other.”
“As long as there is a case of retaliating against everyone, we have turned into the law of the jungle,” he said.
Some Syrians said that even if Mr. al-Shara could choose to pardon, they would not. Last week, the mayor of Dumar, a suburb of Damascus, was killed by residents who accused him of informing and arresting people under the previous government, according to the Syrian UK-based Observatory for Human Rights.
Mr. Abdo was a soldier — a soldier — in the Syrian army for four years. But his family said he tried to cheat twice by not returning after a few days of leave. In the end, he spent a month in a military prison for trying to leave and was released when the prison was seized by rebels who overthrew the Assad government as part of a swift crackdown on the country, family members said.
At first he was afraid to go home, but when he heard that Mr. al-Shara had said that soldiers like him would be given amnesty, he felt safe, his family said. Not long after he returned, the crowd was at the door.
They accused him of informing his neighbors, and killed or imprisoned him. The family said they see many of the killers every day, but they don’t confront them, they try to relocate.
In response to questions about the killing, the police in Idlib, which is linked to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which has controlled the province for years, said in a statement that they are investigating the killing. but Abdo’s family was “notorious for murder. cooperate with the government”.
But police said “no one has the right to attack anyone.” No one has been arrested so far.
The family members deny that they have any relationship with the government. They also said that if her brother worked as a law enforcement officer, he would not come home. He is just a foot soldier, they say.
“We vowed that if the government doesn’t get justice, we will get justice for ourselves,” Ms. Abdo, 32, shouted, tears streaming down her face. She punched the carpet she and her sister washed for days to get rid of her brother’s blood. There was still blood in the kitchen and on some of the walls.
“We will not let his blood go unanswered,” he said.
Others use whatever means they can to avoid the feedback cycle.
Muhammad al-Asmar, the media officer of the new government, said that he sent a Google document to the residents of his hometown, Qabhani, in the province of Hama, to send complaints to his neighbors. Mr. al-Asmar said he took on the role after hearing that several people the government trusted to abuse and intimidate Syrians had returned home after Mr. al-Assad’s fall.
“No one responded,” he said, because “people say: ‘I will take justice into my own hands.'”
However, he hopes that such a method can be adopted at the national level to stop the trial.
Officials in the new justice ministry admit they were not prepared to take over the government for most of the country when the attacks began on November 27. for the imams who plead for the restraint of the people.
“Actually, we are under a great weight and there will be violations,” said Ahmad Hilal, the new chief judge of the Aleppo courthouse. People outraged by the crimes of the Assad era “don’t want to wait for the courts to act — they want to take the law and justice into their own hands.”
The war on justice is frightening because in every city and town, Syrians who may be accused of such crimes are returning home.
When Assad’s government fell last month, Alaa Khateeb returned to his village, Taftanaz, in the countryside of Idlib province. His family quickly began telling people that he had deserted the army for years and then deserted twice to declare that he was not participating in Mr al-Assad’s forces.
“I know I didn’t do anything,” said Mr. Khateeb, a 25-year-old father of three, on a recent day outside the city, working to renovate a relative’s house. one that the Syrian army took and removed.
Despite Mr. Khateeb’s protests, he faced a cloud of suspicion. Even lowly volunteers are blamed for committing crimes — whether it’s true or not.
One of Mr. Khateeb’s relatives, Salah Khateeb, 67, who owns a produce market in the town, was not sure he would even say “hi” when he heard that his son had returned to Taftanaz. second sibling.
“He is my relative and I asked if I should accept him or not,” he said. “Others may consider revenge.”
Muhammad Haj Kadour, Jacob Roubai SY Nader Ibrahim contributed to the report.
