Stuart Jones, the top USA diplomat for the Middle East, said Washington's information came from credible humanitarian agencies and from the United States "intelligence community" and it is thought that as many as 50 people per day are being hanged at Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes from Damascus.
" Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has carried out these atrocities and others seemingly with the unconditional support from Russian Federation and Iran, his main backers", he said in a special State Department briefing on Monday.
The Syrian government has built a crematorium near a prison to cover up "mass atrocities", a State Department official said Monday, according to a CNN report.
The State Department, which warns USA citizens against all travel to Syria, believes the Assad regime is responsible for killing as many as 50 detainees per day at Sednaya, Jones said.
Washington's information came from credible humanitarian agencies and from the U.S. "intelligence community" and that as many as 50 people per day are thought to be hanged at Saydnaya.
An estimated 5,000 to 13,000 prisoners were killed at the prison from March 2011 to December 2015, said a report called "Human Slaughterhouse" issued in February by the Amnesty International human rights organisation. Numerous bodies, it said, are then being burned in the crematorium.
The comments followed a uniquely horrifying briefing by the State Department's top Middle East diplomat, who laid out a devastating list of alleged regime atrocities over the past six years of the Syrian civil war.
Success for the SNP in recent council elections
She is expected to say: "Under the Tories and the SNP almost half a million emergency food parcels have been handed out to people across Scotland".
Support for Assad in Moscow and Tehran is "seemingly unconditional", Jones said.
Still, Jones said the State Department has not presented its evidence of the alleged crematorium directly to Russian Federation - and he said it is not prepared to signal much else publicly. Numerous bodies, it said, are then burned in the crematorium. The regime's track record of torture, sexual violence, air strikes, artillery strikes, barrel bomb, and improvised unguided bombs or air-dropped IEDs, as well as the denial of food, water and medical care, have all been well documented, Jones said.
And he added a warning to President Vladimir Putin's government: "Russia must now, with great urgency, exercise its influence over the Syrian regime to guarantee that horrific violations stop now".
Finally, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii Democrat, met with Assad earlier this year and came back with nothing critical to say about him, and in fact accused the United States of "supporting terror groups".
White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday reiterated the administration's line that Syria's future "should be decided by Syrians in a free credibly and transparent process".
Trump ordered airstrikes on a Syrian airfield last month after Assad used chemical weapons on civilians, including children.
Comments