Bashar Abd had just returned from his four-year stint in the Syrian army last month when a mob of neighbors armed with guns and knives stormed his family's front door, killing thugs from the ousted regime. He accused him of doing so.
His sisters and stepsisters tried to hold back the crowd as he hid. But people poured in and found 22-year-old Abdo in the kitchen. They stabbed him before dragging him outside, even as his sister Marwah clung to him. There he was shot.
The account was shared by Abdo's family and confirmed by local police in the northwestern city of Idlib. Video footage widely shared on Syrian social media and reviewed by The New York Times captured the horrific scenes that followed. As Abdo grabbed his lifeless body, the neighbors continued to kick him. She begged them to stop, saying he was already dead.
“This is your destiny,” one man shouted. Other verified video footage shows Abdo's body being tied by the neck to a car and dragged through the streets, followed by a crowd shouting abuse. It is not clear who shot the video.
Abdo recalled the incident four days later in an interview with the Times. She has vowed revenge, a sign of the growing threat of a cycle of violent retribution in the new Syria.
The country is suddenly and unexpectedly emerging after 13 years of civil war and more than 50 years of the Assad dynasty, which held power through fear, torture and mass murder.
Abdo's killing underscores the complex reckoning ahead in Syria, where the wounds are still fresh and anger is rising to the surface. Many Syrians want accountability for crimes committed during the civil war. Some seek revenge.
According to Syrian human rights groups, at least 500,000 Syrians have been killed during the war, most of them in airstrikes by Syrian military planes and helicopters, or in torture and mass executions in prisons. Many people remain missing.
Officials of Syria's new interim government, led by the Islamic rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, are rushing to set up courts and police to address decades of grievances. They are calling on people to forgive and not take matters into their own hands.
Ahmed al-Shara, the leader of the rebel alliance that ousted Assad, has said he will hunt down and prosecute its leaders for crimes such as the murder, false imprisonment, torture and gassing of their own citizens, but their rank and… .Conscripted soldiers will receive amnesty.
In a recent interview, Al Shara said, “Justice must be pursued through the judiciary and the law, not through individuals.”
“If the problem remains of everyone taking revenge, we will be left with the problem of taking revenge,” he said.
Some Syrians say al-Shara may choose to forgive, but they will not. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Domar, the mayor of the Damascus suburb, was killed last week by residents who accused him of tipping off people to arrests under the previous government.
Abdo was a conscripted soldier in the Syrian army for four years. However, his family said he did not return after being given a few days' leave and attempted to seek asylum twice. He ended up spending a month in a military prison for an escape attempt and was released when the rebels who toppled Assad took control of the prison as part of a lightning-fast internal clean-up operation, several family members said. Ta.
The family said they were initially afraid to go home, but felt safe enough after hearing al-Shara said that soldiers like him would be granted amnesty. Not long after he returned, a mob was at the door.
They accused him of informing on neighbors, who were then killed or imprisoned. The family said they meet many killers every day but do not confront them and are looking to move to another area.
Idlib police, which is affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the long-time ruler of Idlib province, said in a statement in response to questions about the killing that it was investigating the killing, but that the Abdo family was “notorious.” Ta. We are cooperating with the government. ”
But police said: “No one has the right to assault anyone.” No one has been arrested so far.
The family denied any ties to the regime. They also said that if their brother had worked as a bailiff, he would not have returned home. He was just an infantryman, they said.
“We swore that if the government didn't get justice, we would get justice for ourselves,” shrieked Abdo, 32, with tears streaming down his face. She slammed her fist on the carpet that she and her sisters had spent days washing to get rid of her brother's blood. There was still blood in the kitchen and some of the walls.
“We can’t let him bleed out unresponsive,” she said.
Some will do everything they can to avoid a cycle of retaliation.
Mohammed al-Asmar, a media official for the new government, said he had sent a Google document to residents of his home village of Kabani in Hama province, asking them to submit complaints against them. Al-Asmar said he took the initiative after hearing that several people the government had relied on to abuse and intimidate Syrians had returned after al-Assad's fall.
“There was no reaction because people were saying, 'I'm going to take justice into my own hands,'” he said.
Still, we hope to see such approaches adopted at the national level to thwart vigilante justice.
Officials at the new Justice Ministry admit that they were not ready to take over control of large parts of the country when they launched the offensive on November 27. For now, efforts to maintain calm appear to be in the form of public statements and sermon proposals for imams appealing for self-restraint among the people.
“To be honest, we are carrying a huge burden and there will be violations,” said Ahmad Hilal, the new president of the Aleppo court. Those angry about Assad-era crimes “don't want to wait for the courts to act. They want to take law and justice into their own hands.”
The mob's struggle for justice is daunting, as in every city and town Syrians who could be accused of such crimes are returning home.
After Assad's regime fell last month, Alaa Khatib returned to his home village of Taftanaz in rural Idlib province. His family soon began telling people that he had avoided the army for years and then deserted twice to show that he was no longer actively participating in al-Assad's forces.
“I know I'm not doing anything,” said Khatib, a 25-year-old married father of three, on a recent day as he renovated a relative's house, taken over and stripped by the Syrian army, on the outskirts of his village. He spoke while working.
Despite Mr. Khateeb's protests, he faces a cloud of suspicion. Whether that's true or not, even lower-ranking conscripts are accused of enabling the crime.
When one of Khateeb's relatives, Sara Khateeb, 67, who runs a farmers' market in the village, heard that her cousin had returned to Taftana's, she wasn't sure whether to say “hello.'' .
“He is my relative, so I was wondering if I should accept him or not,” he said. “Some may consider retaliation.”
Muhammad Haji Kadur, Jacob Louby and Nader Ibrahim Contributed to the report.
