Syrian forces launch assault on prison to end mutiny of 800 inmates

The mutiny at the jail in central city Hama began on Monday, with some guards taken hostage after an attempt to transfer detainees to the military-run Saydnaya prison near Damascus.

Syrians protest for opposition forces to unite in the rebel-held city of Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, on May 6, 2016. Mohammed Badra/EPA

BEIRUT // Syrian security forces began an assault on a prison in the central city of Hama on Friday to end a mutiny estimated to involve 800 inmates, an opposition monitoring group said.

“They fired tear gas grenades inside the prison after arresting the families of prisoners gathered outside the building concerned about their fate,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Video footage posted on social networks showed a corridor filled with flames and smoke as a voice is heard giving the date as May 6 and the location as the central prison in Hama.

The sound of bursting tear gas grenades can be heard as inmates chant “Allahu Akbar!” while others are heard coughing.

“There are reports of people becoming unconscious and cases of suffocation”, said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.

Earlier, he said security reinforcements had been sent to the jail “with a view to storming it in case negotiations fail”.

The mutiny began on Monday, with some guards taken hostage after an attempt to transfer detainees to the military-run Saydnaya prison near Damascus.

Syrian activist group the Local Coordination Committees said security forces had been surrounding Hama prison for several days, and that 800 prisoners were involved.

It said they were protesting against dozens of prisoners being sentenced to death and also against conditions inside the jail.

Mr Abdel Rahman, meanwhile, said the inmates were demanding trials and that they not be transferred to Saydnaya.

Authorities have released 46 prisoners since the protest began, but on Friday the Observatory said water and power supplies to the jail remained cut off.

In a statement earlier on Friday, Syria’s main opposition grouping had called on international organisations “to intervene to prevent an imminent massacre” of prisoners.

The High Negotiations Committee, which is representing the grouping at peace talks, urged the international community to “shoulder its responsibilities” and stop the regime from carrying out “reprisals against the detainees”.

France warned of “deadly reprisals from the regime” to end the mutiny and urged Damascus’s allies to exert pressure “to avoid another massacre in Syria”.

Meanwhile, Russian and Syrian officials denied on Friday that their aircraft had struck a refugee camp in northern Syria, after air strikes there killed 28 civilians, including children.

The denials came as UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said he was “outraged” by Thursday evening’s attack on the camp in Sarmada, Idlib province. The camp is home to about 2,000 internally displaced people who fled fighting in Aleppo and Hama provinces over the past year.

Mr Ban demanded once again that the UN Security Council refer Syria to the International Criminal Court so that The Hague-based tribunal can open up investigations of possible war crimes.

A Syrian military official denied the army had carried out strikes on the Sarmada camp, where dozens were also wounded, and said all reports about the attack were false.

In remarks carried by Russian news agencies, defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the Russian military had closely studied data from an air space monitoring system and determined that no aircraft had flown over the camp on Wednesday or Thursday.

Mr Konashenkov said the destruction seen on photographs and videos suggested the camp could have been shelled – whether intentionally or by mistake – by multiple rocket launchers that Syria’s Al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat Al Nusra, has been using in the area.

Elsewhere, opposition activists said a coalition of rebels and extremists, including Al Nusra, had seized a strategic village from pro-government forces near the contested city of Aleppo.

According to the Observatory, some 73 fighters – 43 on the opposition side and 30 pro-government troops – have died since Thursday afternoon in the battle for the village of Khan Touman. The advance signals a re-emergence of a powerful, ultraconservative coalition of opposition groups.

Jaish Al Fatah is an ultraconservative group led by Al Nusra, along with hardline groups Jund Al Aqsa and Ahrar Al Sham. The Observatory said more moderate factions were also fighting at Khan Touman on the side of the coalition.

Aleppo-area media activist Bahaa Al Halaby said opposition fighters took control of the village around 7am on Friday morning. Fighter jets, presumed to belong to either Syria or Russia, were launching strikes on opposition positions.

Jaish Al Fatah seized Idlib city, a strategic and symbolically important provincial capital, from government forces last year and threatened to make advances towards government strongholds on the Mediterranean coast and toward the capital, Damascus. Russia intervened militarily on the side of the government partly in response to that threat.

Khan Touman is just six kilometres from Aleppo, where a 48-hour truce went into effect early on Thursday. It overlooks the main route between Damascus and Aleppo, parts of which remain under opposition control.

“It is part of the government’s defensive line in south Aleppo,” said Mr Abdel Rahman.

* Agence France-Presse, Associated Press