Fact check: Do these images prove violence in Syria?

Warning: This text contains depictions of armed violence and murder.

While the transition of government in Syria appears to be largely peaceful, the fall of former ruler Bashar Assad in Damascus to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group, considered a terrorist organization by some Western countries, has led to the mobilization of numerous other factions, especially in the north and the east of the country.

According to the United Nations, these include the Turkish-backed rebel group Syrian National Army (SNA), Kurdish militias and newly formed armed groups. At the Turkish-Syrian border, SNA is fighting with Kurdish groups, and Israel continues to launch airstrikes in Syria. 

Amid this unrest, many false or misleading posts are being shared online, accusing various groups of violence.

DW's Team Fact check examined three viral claims.  

Does this video show Syrian rebels executing soldiers? 

Claim: This video (archived here) allegedly shows Syrian rebels invading or storming a hospital, questioning patients about their association with the Syrian army, and then killing them. 

DW Fact check: Unproven 

The roughly two-minute video depicts graphic imagery: two severely injured men lying in hospital beds are questioned and later shot. Initial investigations suggest the perpetrators are unlikely to be Syrian rebels.  

The video bears a watermark, likely the source of the video: a Turkish Telegram channel called "Operasyon."

The video was published on December 10 on that Telegram channel. The accompanying text claims that two civilians, injured in a Turkish bombardment, were killed by a Turkish-backed group.

The assailants in the video address the injured men, speaking Arabic with a foreign accent and Uzbek among themselves. 

The armed men are heard questioning one of the injured men lying on the hospital bed about his military service and whether he had killed anyone from their group. The injured person responds that he has served in the army for five years but never shot at them, adding that "only Kurds shoot at you."

When asked if he "loves" Assad, he replies that the situation was difficult and that they had been controlled.

The second patient also confirms his affiliation with the army, mentioning it as "mandatory self-defense." Both men are then shot. 

Several media outlets claim the perpetrators are Turkish mercenaries who stormed a hospital in the northern Syrian city of Manbij after Assad's fall. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported such incidents in early December, in which soldiers were killed by Turkish-backed groups in Manbij. 

Whether this video is connected to those incidents cannot be confirmed. However, initial indications suggest that it is likely not Syrian rebels who are seen killing two individuals in this video. 

Were these scientists executed shortly after Assad’s fall? 

Claim: Hours after Assad's fall, nuclear microbiologist Zahra al-Homsiyeh and chemist Hamdi Ismail Nada were allegedly executed with gunshots to the head in Damascus. Some of the claims included portraits of the alleged scientistsas evidence. 

DW Fact check: False

Some users speculatethat Israel's secret service, Mossad, was behind the assassinations, as Israel has targeted Syrian locations since Assad's fall. 

But this claim is false.

Let's first analyze the case of Zahra al-Homsiyeh. A reverse image search reveals the woman in the viral claim is actually called Shadia Habbal and works as an astronomer at the University of Hawaii in the US. DW has found no records of a Syrian scientist named Zahra al-Homsiyeh. 

In the case of the alleged chemist Hamdi Ismail Nada, a search on social media led to the Facebook profile of an Egyptian man.

The man does exist, but he is not a Syrian chemist, nor was he murdered in Damascus. Nada clarifies on Facebook that the images and posts featuring his pictures are fabricated.

In an interview with the Arabic fact-checking website Tayqan, he said, "I am an Egyptian doctor from Cairo, 74 years old, and the last time I was in Damascus was nine years ago on a four-day business trip." 

According to DW's research, there is no evidence to suggest that scientists have been assassinated in Syria since Assad’s fall, neither by Israeli forces nor by other groups. 

Does this video show HTS rebels committing violence? 

Claim: The text shared in a post on X reads: "To those sharing Bashar al-Assad’s crimes these days: Here's the government of the Umayyads that now seeks to rule Syria!" The video is intended to show that HTS rebels are no better than the Assad regime. 

DW Fact check: False

In the 36-second clip posted without sound, dozens of men appear bound and lying on the floor in a large room. Uniformed men are seen walking around, apparently guarding them.

Some men were then escorted through a metal door resembling a prison gate into another room. This room appears to be a waiting area, where several bound men are seated on chairs.

At the end of the video, the camera pans to reveal more men lying on the floor in another part of the room. The lack of sound makes it difficult to put the video into context.

A reverse image search revealed an older version of the video posted on August 21, 2022. It includes sound and better resolution and was posted by the Turkish outlet OdaTV4 on X, then Twitter.

Its post says, "The current situation of Syrians who set fire to the refugee center." 

Another Turkish outlet, Aykiri, shared the same video on the same day describing it as "shocking images and information about the rebellion by immigrants at Kayseri Repatriation Center."

Media reports from that time confirmed a fire at a refugee centerin Kayseri, Turkey. 

The video is unrelated to HTS rebels or violence in Syria but instead shows events at a Turkish refugee center. 

Contributors: Samah Altaweel, Elyana Nikizad, Torsten Neuendorff, Sinem Özdemir

This article is part of a collaboration between ARD fact-checkers from BR24 #Faktenfuchs and DW Fact check.

Edited by: Jan Walter