1980 Tadmor prison massacre

Massacre in Tadmor prison in Syria 1980 Tadmor prison massacre Syria 1980 Tadmor Prison, Palmyra, Syria 34 33 32.00 N 38 17 7.01 E inline,title June 27, 1980 Islamist uprising in Syria Image of Rifaat al-Assad in CIA report (cropped).png Image of Rifaat al-Assad, who led the massacre, from a CIA report Flag of the Muslim Brotherhood.svg Prisoners associated with Muslim Brotherhood Massacre 500-1100 prisoners, 1 soldier 2 soldiers Defense Companies SSI.svg 18px Defense CompaniesFlag of the United Arab Republic (1958–1971), Flag of Syria (1980–2024).svg 40th Army CorpsFlag of the United Arab Republic (1958–1971), Flag of Syria (1980–2024).svg 138th Security Brigade Revenge for the assassination attempt on President Hafez al-Assad On June 27, 1980, a massacre was committed on the prisoners of the Tadmor Prison by the Syrian Defense Companies in revenge for an assassination attempt on Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, which took place the previous day.West Nigel https://books.google.com/books?id=SZMtDwAAQBAJ&dq=Tadmor+Massacre+1980&pg=PA29 Encyclopedia of Political Assassinations 2017-08-07 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 978-1-5381-0239-8 enDumper Michael Richard Thomas https://books.google.com/books?id=ob7OEAAAQBAJ&dq=Tadmor+Massacre+1980&pg=PA297 Cities of the Middle East and North Africa: A Historical Encyclopedia Stanley Bruce 2006-11-16 Bloomsbury Publishing USA 978-1-57607-920-1 enMikaberidze Alexander https://books.google.com/books?id=3RjOEAAAQBAJ&dq=Tadmor+Massacre+1980&pg=PT861 Atrocities, Massacres, and War Crimes: 2 volumes [2 volumes] 2013-06-25 Bloomsbury Publishing USA 979-8-216-05064-3 en After the assassination attempt, on orders from the president's brother, Rifaat al-Assad, fighters from the Defense Companies militia flew into the prison in helicopters and began indiscriminately killing prisoners, ultimately killing an estimated 1,000 people.PROCEEDINGS FOR WAR CRIMES AGAINST RIFAAT AL-ASSAD https://trialinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/20170925_H8_DP_EN_diff.pdf Tadmur Prison: A Special Report http://www.shrc.org/en/?p=25060 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20160709222100/http://www.shrc.org/en/?p=25060 July 9, 2016 www.shrc.orgKerry Pither. "Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror", 2008. Background Tadmor prison Tadmor Prison The buildings were first used as a prison for political prisoners in 1966. When Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970, the prison was greatly expanded.Taleghani R. Shareah 2015 Breaking the Silence of Tadmor Military Prison https://www.jstor.org/stable/24426583 Middle East Report 275 21–25 0899-2851 24426583 As a result, it gained a reputation as one of the most brutal and deplorable prisons on the planet, repeatedly causing outrage from media and law enforcement organizations, such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International.18 September 2001 SYRIA: TORTURE, DESPAIR AND DEHUMANISATION IN TADMUR MILITARY PRISON https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde24/014/2001/en/ 2016-07-10 www.amnesty.org Amnesty International2015-06-19 Inside Tadmur: The worst prison in the world? https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33197612 2025-08-21 BBC News en-GBSYRIA: Torture, despair and dehumanization in Tadmur Military Prison https://www.amnesty.org/es/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/mde240142001en.pdfSyria https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/Syria2.htm 2025-08-21 www.hrw.org Islamist uprising Islamist uprising in Syria thumb|338x338px|Official portrait of Hafez al-Assad, president of Syria (1971-2000) Beginning in 1976, Syria was in the grip of the so-called "Islamist uprising" against the neo-Ba'athist regime of president Hafez al-Assad, with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Fighting Vanguard carrying out attacks on targets associated with the government and security forces. In 1979, militants massacred Syrian cadets at an artillery school in Aleppo, marking the end of sporadic attacks in favor of a full-fledged campaign of urban warfare against the government.Seale Patrick Asad of Syria: the struggle for the Middle East McConville Maureen 1989 University of California press 978-0-520-06667-0 Berkeley Los Angeles The government's response to the massacre was aggressive, resulting in increased repression. Gradually, the situation escalated; the president's brother, Rifaat al-Assad, told the Ba'ath Party's regional congress in January 1980: "Stalin sacrificed ten million to preserve the Bolshevik Revolution and Syria should be prepared to do the same... I am personally willing to fight a hundred years, demolish a million strongholds, and sacrifice a million martyrs [to end Muslim Brotherhood]".Conduit Dara https://books.google.com/books?id=BKGeDwAAQBAJ&dq=Tadmor+Massacre+1980&pg=PA114 The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria August 2019 Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49977-4 en In addition to this statement, Rifaat, standing on a tank in March 1980, said that he was ready to "kill a thousand people a day to cleanse the country of the Muslim Brotherhood."Роган Юджин https://books.google.com/books?id=I0pmEQAAQBAJ&dq=%D1%82%D1%8E%D1%80%D1%8C%D0%BC%D0%B5+%D0%A2%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%80&pg=PT760 Арабы: История. XVI-XXI вв. 2023-05-03 Альпина нон-фикшн 978-5-00139-152-4 ru Earlier in 1980, prisoners in Tadmor began rioting, demanding better living conditions in the prison. Security forces responded by killing more than a hundred of them, whose bodies were dumped in mass graves.Amrahs Atina https://books.google.com/books?id=nw9DEQAAQBAJ&dq=Tadmor+Massacre+1980&pg=PT70 Most Dangerous Prisons in the World 2025-02-01 Mahesh Dutt Sharma en Attempted assassination of Hafez al-Assad Attempted assassination of Hafez al-Assad On 26 June 1980, Hafez al-Assad himself narrowly escaped death after a failed assassination attempt. The assailant fired a burst of rounds and threw two grenades, the first being kicked away by Assad and the second being covered by his personal bodyguard, Khalid al-Husayn, who died instantly. It was carried out by Muslim Brotherhood supporters.Moubayed Sami https://books.google.com/books?id=VfDIrQEACAAJ&q=failed+attempt+to+assassinate+assad Under the Black Flag: At the Frontier of the New Jihad I.B.Tauris 2015 9781784533083 38–39Seale, Patrick (1989), Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East, University of California Press, p.328-329Syria’s Tadmor Prison Massacre: Reliving Horrors of 32 Years Past JUNE 27, 2012 The very next day the government carried out its revenge. Massacre On the morning of June 27, 22 helicopters took off from Homs and Damascus towards Palmyra. On board were a total of 350 commandos of the "Defense Companies", 100 soldiers of the 40th Army Corps and 100 members of the 138th Security Brigade (a total of up to 550 people). At 6.30 am the helicopters arrived at their destination - 470 soldiers remained on site to guard the helicopters, while 80 began to move into the prison. They were divided into groups of 10 and were given orders to kill all prisoners who might be associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.Rogerson Barnaby https://books.google.com/books?id=FkxhDwAAQBAJ&dq=Tadmor+Massacre+1980&pg=PT154 The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East 2024-01-04 Profile Books 978-1-78283-294-2 en In essence, they could kill anyone - and they did. Prisoners were executed right in their cells, without any interrogation, simply on the grounds of suspicion of connections with the Muslim Brotherhood: they were shot at indiscriminately with machine guns and pelted with grenades. The massacre continued for several hours or less than an hour,Watch (Organization) Human Rights https://books.google.com/books?id=YVAZQxB2HacC&q=Tadmor World Report 2002: Events of 2001, November 2000-November 2001 Staff Human Rights Watch 2002 Human Rights Watch 978-1-56432-267-8 enMandaville Michael https://books.google.com/books?id=NrJS-t2_7qoC&dq=Tadmor+Massacre+1980&pg=PA44 Citizen-Soldier Handbook: 101 Ways Every American Can Fight Terrorism February 2009 Dog Ear Publishing 978-1-59858-671-8 enSaffour Razan Remembering Syria's Tadmur Prison Massacre, 44 years on https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/6/27/remembering-syrias-tadmur-prison-massacre-44-years-on 2025-08-21 Al Jazeera en with special forces soldier Isa Ibrahim Fayad, who partook in the massacre, describing the events as such:“The guards opened the doors for us. Six or seven of us went in and killed everyone in there, about 60 or 70 people. I shot about 15 people myself. In the neighboring blocks, you could also hear machine gun fire and the cries of the dying: “Allahu Akbar!” ... We killed almost 550 of these Muslim Brotherhood bastards."The massacre resulted in the killing of an estimated 500Commins David https://books.google.com/books?id=wpBWAgAAQBAJ&dq=Tadmor+Massacre+1980&pg=PA164 Historical Dictionary of Syria Lesch David W. 2013-12-05 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 978-0-8108-7966-9 en-600Taleghani R. Shareah 2015 Breaking the Silence of Tadmor Military Prison https://www.jstor.org/stable/24426583 Middle East Report 275 21–25 24426583 0899-2851 to 1,000Asaad Lava https://books.google.com/books?id=gz-DEAAAQBAJ&q=Tadmor%20Massacre In the Crossfire of History: Women's War Resistance Discourse in the Global South Hasanat Fayeza 2022-09-16 Rutgers University Press 978-1-9788-3021-9 en-1,100 people (almost all prisonersTadmor Archives https://trialinternational.org/judicial-body/tadmor/ 2025-08-21 TRIAL International en-US). Some prisoners tried to resist: for this reason 1 soldier was killed and 2 more were wounded. After the massacre, it took two weeks to clear the prison of blood and corpses.The Cell of Survival: Bara Sarraj https://web.archive.org/web/20160323180133/http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/3500/the-cell-of-survival_bara-sarraj, Jadaliyya The massacre was carried out in strict secrecy - the outside world only learned about it eight months later, when Syrian intelligence agents captured in Jordan exposed it and provided details. Aftermath thumb|254x254px|Hafez and Rifaat al-Assad, 1982 The massacre marked another escalation in government repression. At July 7, the government issued Law No. 49, which declared membership in the Muslim Brotherhood or the Fighting Vanguard a capital crime punishable by death. The burial site of those executed was never revealed, and the government released no information about the dead. In October 1981, Hafez al-Assad said: "We must completely eliminate any trace of this gang by effective revolutionary means, no matter how long it takes us". The massacre is well known throughout Syria.The multiple symbolisms of Palmyra: Stones that speak https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21652254-syrias-famous-ruined-roman-city-has-meant-many-things-many-people-stones-speak 30 May 2015 The Economist Syrian poet Faraj Bayrakdar, who was a political prisoner for many years, called Tadmor Prison a "kingdom of death and madness". The massacre and the prison in general have occupied a special place in Syrian literature written by opposition figures and even former political prisoners, and have become the subject of books, poems, novels and documentaries.Ufheil-Somers Amanda 2015-06-28 Breaking the Silence of Tadmor Military Prison https://merip.org/2015/06/breaking-the-silence-of-tadmor-military-prison/ 2025-08-21 MERIP en-US See also Presidency of Hafez al-Assad Ba'athist Syria Human rights in Ba'athist Syria Terrorism in Ba'athist Syria References Category:1980 murders in Syria Category:June 1980 in Asia Category:Massacres in 1980 Category:Massacres in Syria Category:History of Palmyra, Syria Category:Prison massacres Category:Massacres committed by Ba'athist Syria Category:20th-century mass murders in Syria Category:Attacks on prisons in Asia Category:Attacks on residential buildings in Syria Category:Attacks on government buildings and structures in Syria Category:Attacks on buildings and structures in 1980 Category:Islamist uprising in Syria