Siege of Daraa
Part of the Civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War
Date25 April – 5 May 2011
(1 week and 3 days)
Location
Daraa, Syria
Result Protests suppressed
Belligerents

Syrian opposition

  • Opposition protesters
  • Defecting soldiers

Syrian Arab Republic

Commanders and leaders
Unknown Gen. Maher al-Assad
Gen. Suheil al-Hassan
Gen. Mohsin Makhlouf
Gen. Ahmed Yousef Jarad
Gen. Ramadan Ramadan[1]
Strength
Unknown 4th Division (42nd brigade)
5th Division (12th, 15th, 112th, 132nd brig, 175th reg)
Special forces (35th, 41st regiment)[1]
Casualties and losses
50[2]–220[3] protesters killed and 600[4]–1,000[5] arrested, 81 defected soldiers killed[6] 25 killed, 177 wounded[7]

The siege of Daraa occurred within the context of the 2011 Arab Spring protests in Syria, in which Daraa was the center of unrest. On 25 April 2011, the Syrian Army began a ten-day siege of the city, an operation that helped escalate the uprising into an armed rebellion and subsequent civil war.

The Syrian Army's siege involved tanks, helicopters, and up to 6,000 troops. More than 1,000 people were arrested[5] and more than 244 people were killed, many of them children.[6]

Background

Several Arab Spring demonstrations occurred across Syria in the early months of 2011. On 6 March, in the city of Daraa, between 12 and 15 teenagers were arrested for making anti-regime graffiti on 22 February. The students were tortured in the Political Security cells, headed by Atef Najib, a first cousin of President Bashar al-Assad.[8][9] On 18 March, protests erupted demanding the release of the imprisoned students, an end to corruption, and for greater political freedom. Security forces responded by shooting demonstrators with live ammunition, killing three people, with a fourth succumbing to their wounds the following day. This caused the protests to increase in size.[8][9][10][11]

On 20 March, the third consecutive day of protests, security forces opened fire once again, killing another person–bringing the death toll to five–and injuring dozens.[11] The protests subsequently turned violent, with demonstrators setting fire to the local courthouse and Ba'ath party headquarters, as well as the Syriatel building, owned by Rami Makhlouf–another cousin of President Assad.[12][13][14] The central Omari Mosque was turned into a field hospital for protesters fearing potential government reprisals targeting the hospital.[12] In order to calm the protests, the Syrian government sought to meet some of the protesters' demands by releasing the youths detained on 6 March, sacking the governor of Daraa, Faisal Khalthoum, and announcing a decrease of military service time from 21 to 18 months.[12][14]

On 23 March, security forces attacked thousands of demonstrators near the Omari Mosque, killing at least 37 people. Government authorities blamed the cause of the clashes on "an armed gang", accusing it of stockpiling weapons and ammunition in the mosque and killing four people.[15][16][17]

On 8 April, heavy clashes erupted in Daraa between protesters and security forces, in which 27 protesters were killed.[18] According to Al Jazeera, 100 demonstrators were killed during the 22 April "Great Friday" protests in Daraa.

Timeline

Between 25 April and 5 May 2011, the Syrian Army's 4th Armoured Division,[19] led by President Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher al-Assad, besieged and raided Daraa, then a city of 75,000-300,000 people.[20][14]

Monday, 25 April
According to residents, before dawn, eight tanks – their first use against protesters since 15 March – drove into the city accompanied by hundreds of soldiers, with some estimating up to 6,000 troops; the troops raided three smaller mosques and tried to capture the Omari Mosque which, since March, had served as a headquarters for demonstrators. Water, electricity, and phone lines were cut, snipers took positions on roofs of mosques–[20][21]–and a mix of soldiers and irregular militants armed with guns and knives[20][21] searched house-to-house for protesters.[20]
Hundreds of people were killed in the predawn raid.[22] Corpses were lying in the streets and could not be retrieved without risk of being shot at, a local resident told media over satellite phone; "they want to teach Syria a lesson by teaching Daraa a lesson", he said.[20] According to Arizona Daily Star, another resident said: "Let Obama come and take Syria. Let Israel come and take Syria. Let the Jews come. Anything is better than Bashar Assad."[23] According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and another opposition source, the second-in-command of the acting army brigade refused orders to storm the city and was arrested himself.[22]
Tuesday, 26 April
According to human rights groups, hundreds of people in Daraa were arrested by security forces.[21] A resident said over the telephone to Associated Press: "We are being subjected to a massacre; children are being killed".[21]
Thursday, 28 April
Al Jazeera, citing amateur video and pictures, suggested that soldiers in Daraa were possibly being injured by their fellow soldiers for refusing to shoot at demonstrators or defecting, after which they were helped by civilians; the government officially denied "any such reports".[24]
People in Daraa reportedly still could not leave their homes because snipers shot everything that moved, sources told Al Jazeera.[25] Al Jazeera and the Los Angeles Times estimated that between 25 and 28 April, 42 to 50 people were killed in Daraa by security forces.[25][26] According to the Los Angeles Times, a resident said that an entire army division or brigade had defected and was hiding among the people; the claim could not be verified due to foreign journalists not being granted access in Syria.[26]
Friday, 29 April
Thousands of protesters from outside Daraa attempted to enter the besieged city and were shot at by security forces, killing 15, sources told Al Jazeera.[27]
Daraa was now completely surrounded by tanks and armed troops, with snipers still perched on roofs and hiding in minarets of mosques, an eyewitness said to Al Jazeera over the phone. The eyewitness added that dead bodies remained rotting in the streets because collecting them was risking being shot; morgues contained 83 corpses, according to a prominent local lawyer, Tamer al-Jahamani.[27] Activists said a total of 33 people were reported killed in Daraa on 29 April.[28]
The government claimed it was battling "extremist and terrorist groups" in Daraa and that two soldiers were killed.[27] 156 people were arrested, according to the Syrian military.[28]
Saturday, 30 April
Syrian Army forces, supported by helicopters and around 20 tanks, fired tank shells and machine guns and dropped paratroopers on the Omari Mosque, capturing it; six people were killed in the operation,[29] one of them being the son of the mosque's imam, witnesses said.[30]
A witness told Al Jazeera that 300 soldiers had defected and joined the protesters, and that "there's no food, no medicine, no electricity, we are collecting rain water to drink".[28]
1 May
Daraa inhabitants were still confined to their homes with no water, fuel, or electricity and with communications still down.[30][31] Residents began chanting "God is Great!" to each other from their windows in the evenings, reportedly infuriating security forces.[31]
A source in Daraa told Al Jazeera that security forces were intensifying their house-to-house searches and that hundreds of people had been arrested.[30] The government confirmed that 149 people had been arrested.[30]
A resident claimed tanks fired shells into the city's ancient Roman quarter.[31]
4 May
A Syrian military official said that security forces had arrested members of an armed terrorist group in Daraa, where they had found weapons and ammunition hidden underground and in gardens.[32]
5 May
The Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies (DCHRS) reported that 244 dead bodies of civilians, many of them children, had been transferred from Daraa to the Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus along with 81 corpses of soldiers and army officers, most of them killed by a gunshot to the back, probably after refusing to shoot civilians, DCHRS added. An amateur video, reportedly from Daraa, showed dozens of people killed in the streets, with many apparently shot through the head. DCHRS referred to the Daraa siege as "10 days of massacres", and said army units had been using anti-aircraft weapons to attack houses in central neighbourhoods.[33] According to the BBC, almost 1,000 men had been arrested since 30 April.[5]
Syria's state run news agency and military officials announced that the military had "carried out" and completed "its mission in detaining terrorists" and restoring calm to Daraa[2][34] and that army units had begun a "gradual withdrawal".[5] An AFP correspondent witnessed 350 soldiers, 20 armoured personnel carriers and 20 lorries driving out of the city,[35] while local witnesses saw a column of around 30 tanks on armoured carriers heading north from Daraa. Army units remained deployed at entrances to the city.[34]
Trucks carrying drinking water, food, and first aid material and experts from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the International Red Cross delivered their first emergency relief supplies to Daraa.[35] 150 students at Daraa University held a brief sit-in.[36]

International reactions

In response to the siege, European Union countries, including United Nations Security Council members France and the United Kingdom, asked the council to condemn the Syrian government's use of violence, but it was unclear whether council members Russia and China would support that idea.[37] United States president Barack Obama said the U.S. was prepared to freeze Syrian officials' American assets.[38]

Aftermath

  • 6 May: Residents insisted the military still remained a force in Daraa with streets largely subdued and residents afraid to leave their homes.[39] Protesters gathered in Tafas, 12 km NNW of Daraa, and tried to enter the city but could not due to the military, according to witnesses.[40][41]
  • 9 May: According to the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, the Syrian army used schools and a soccer stadium as makeshift prisons for the hundreds of arrests of recent days.[42] A United Nations humanitarian assessment mission was not given permission to enter Syria and visit Daraa.[42]
  • 13 May: Protests erupted in and around Daraa.[43]
  • 14 May: Syrian officials announced that soldiers and tanks were being pulled out of Daraa.[44]
  • 16 May: The army allowed residents to venture outside their homes for two hours a day, a human rights activist said.[45] On the outskirts of Daraa, two mass graves were reportedly discovered with 24 and 7 bodies.[46][47] Within an hour the Syrian army reportedly took control of the larger site, started removing the corpses and confiscated mobile phones of witnesses.[47] The story could not be independently verified, partly because foreign reporters were not granted access into Syria.[47]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 ""By All Means Necessary!" - Human Rights Watch". Human Rights Watch. 15 December 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
  2. 1 2 Syrian troops start withdrawal from Daraa, Ynetnews.com, 5 May 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2014.
  3. ↑ "Civilian killings in Syrian demonstrations rises to 800". The Jerusalem Post. 7 May 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2014.
  4. ↑ "Five dead in 'Day of Defiance'". Archived from the original on 3 February 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Syria: Raid in Damascus suburb as crackdown defied". BBC News. 5 May 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  6. 1 2 "Syria protests: Rights group warns of 'Deraa massacre'". BBC News. 5 May 2011. Archived from the original on 6 May 2011. Retrieved 5 May 2011.
  7. ↑ "Syria troops crack down again". Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  8. 1 2 Hugh Macleod; Unnamed reporter in Syria (19 April 2011). "Inside Deraa". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  9. 1 2 Dominic Evans; Suleiman Al-Khalidi (17 March 2013). "From teenage graffiti to a country in ruins: Syria's two years of rebellion". Reuters. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  10. ↑ "Middle East unrest: Three killed at protest in Syria". BBC News. 18 March 2011. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  11. 1 2 "Syria: Government Crackdown Leads to Protester Deaths". Human Rights Watch. 21 March 2011. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  12. 1 2 3 "Officers Fire on Crowd as Syrian Protests Grow". The New York Times. Damascus. 20 March 2011. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  13. ↑ "Manifestantes sirios queman una sede del partido Baaz". El País (in Spanish). Damascus. 21 March 2011. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  14. 1 2 3 Martin Gehlen (21 March 2011). "Das syrische Regime lässt auf Demonstranten feuern". Zeit Online (in German). Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  15. ↑ "In Syrien eskaliert der Konflikt zwischen Regime und Demonstranten". Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). 23 March 2011. Archived from the original on 28 February 2020. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  16. ↑ "Syrie: au moins 15 morts dans des heurts à Deraa". L'Express (in French). 23 March 2011. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  17. ↑ "Syria unrest: 'Protesters killed' at Omari mosque". BBC News. 23 March 2011. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  18. ↑ "Syria: Security Forces Barring Protesters from Medical Care". 12 April 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
  19. ↑ Daragahi, Borzou (30 April 2011). "Thousands protest in Damascus after Syrian crackdown". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 Shadid, Anthony (25 April 2011). "Syria Escalates Crackdown as Tanks Go to Restive City". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  21. 1 2 3 4 Barry Neild and agencies (26 April 2011). "Syrian regime's attacks on protesters escalate". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 26 April 2011. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  22. 1 2 Carter, Chelsea (26 April 2011). "Deadly attack on protesters raises questions about Syria's stability". CNN. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  23. ↑ Syria crackdown on dissent harsher with troops, tanks, Arizona Daily Star, Tuesday, 26 April 2011
  24. ↑ Al Jazeera's correspondent Rula Amin, Damascus, in video clip at 12:59 pm, 28Apr2011, in:"Syria Live Blog – 28 April". Al Jazeera English. 28 April 2011. Archived from the original on 28 April 2011. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  25. 1 2 "Syria Live Blog – 28 April". Al Jazeera English. 28 April 2011. Archived from the original on 28 April 2011. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  26. 1 2 "Syria Party members quit; military defections reported". Los Angeles Times. 29 April 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2013.
  27. 1 2 3 "Scores killed on Syria's 'day of rage'". Al Jazeera English. 29 April 2011. Archived from the original on 29 April 2011. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  28. 1 2 3 "Fresh Violence Hits Syrian Town". Al Jazeera English. 30 April 2011. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  29. ↑ "Syrian forces kill 62 as America tightens sanctions". Gulf News. 30 April 2011. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  30. 1 2 3 4 "Syrian protesters stay defiant amid crackdown". Al Jazeera English. 1 May 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  31. 1 2 3 "Syria Forces Shell Restive Daraa". Newser. 1 May 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  32. ↑ "SYRIA: Security forces, officials attempt to head off protests". Los Angeles Times. 4 May 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  33. ↑ "Syria protests: Rights group warns of 'Deraa massacre'". BBC News. 5 May 2011. Archived from the original on 6 May 2011. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  34. 1 2 "Hundreds Held in Syria Protest Crackdown". Sky News. 5 May 2011. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  35. 1 2 "Syrian forces tighten grip ahead of protests". Al Jazeera English. 6 May 2011. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  36. ↑ "Tensions rise in Syria as ruling forces mass tanks in protest hotbed". The Australian. 5 May 2011. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  37. ↑ Charbonneau, Louis (25 April 2011). "EU powers push U.N. council to condemn Syria". Reuters. Retrieved 26 April 2011.
  38. ↑ Richter, Paul; Borzou Daragahi (25 April 2011). "U.S. prepares to impose sanctions on Syria". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 26 April 2011. Retrieved 26 April 2011.
  39. ↑ "Protests Across Syria Despite Military Presence". The New York Times. 6 May 2011. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  40. ↑ "Syria tightens control over more urban areas". Al Jazeera English. 8 May 2011. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  41. ↑ "Thousands of Syrians Amass Near City of Deraa". Sky News. 6–7 May 2011. Archived from the original on 9 May 2011. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  42. 1 2 "Syrian forces use soccer stadiums as prisons, human rights groups say". CNN. 9 May 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2014.
  43. ↑ "Syrian protests, expected to wane, grow stronger". Los Angeles Times. 13 May 2011. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  44. ↑ "Syria army 'pulls back' from Baniyas and Deraa". BBC News. 14 May 2011. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
  45. ↑ "Syria 'tightens security grip' in border area". Al Jazeera English. 16 May 2011. Retrieved 2 March 2014.
  46. ↑ "'Dozens killed' in Syrian border town". Al Jazeera English. 17 May 2011. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
  47. 1 2 3 "Shallow grave yields several bodies in Syrian city marked by unrest". CNN. 16 May 2011. Retrieved 29 September 2013.

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