The ISIS Prison at Mansura Dam

 العربية<< 

More than four years after the territorial defeat of ISIS, the fates and whereabouts of thousands of Syrians who disappeared in areas under the organization’s control remain unknown. At the same time, thousands of bodies pulled from mass graves and under the rubble of buildings destroyed in airstrikes lie unidentified. Tens of thousands of families are still in limbo, unable to grieve the loss of loved ones whom they still do not know are alive or dead.  

For the past three years, SJAC has worked closely with the Raqqa-based Syrian Missing Persons and Forensic Team (SMFT) to investigate these disappearances. To date, SJAC has conducted in-depth documentation of almost 600 missing persons in ISIS-controlled Syria while simultaneously working with the SMFT to conduct investigations on places of detention and burial. Through these investigations, SJAC and the SMFT are laying the groundwork for the identification of the missing.

SJAC’s approach to the search for missing persons prioritizes extensive field investigation, and this report demonstrates the utility of such efforts by summarizing the findings of an ongoing investigation into the victims of ISIS detention at the Mansura Dam prison complex, west of Raqqa City, and execution and burial at a gravesite near the village of Western Salhabiyya (see Figure 1 for a map of the area). Through testimonies with survivors of detention, insider witnesses, and families of the missing, as well as analysis of ISIS documents and satellite imagery, SJAC and the SMFT have constructed a timeline of detention at the facility, discovered details regarding the execution of prisoners, and begun to pursue the cases of six individuals last seen at the prison. These efforts not only shine a light on ISIS crimes committed, but also provide clues as to the final resting place of some of those who were last held at Mansura Dam.

Through close collaboration with the  Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) , SJAC is hopeful that these investigations can build towards identification of ISIS victims. By understanding which individuals were held at which facilities and linking those facilities to likely gravesites, SJAC aims to narrow the possible range of identities for remains recovered from specific sites and simplify future DNA identifications. Of course, families and investigators continue to hope that those missing may be found alive and are also searching in SDF detention facilities and among ISIS affiliates at Al Hol and other camps—where authorities often deny detainees any contact with the outside world. Ultimately, SJAC aims to identify all persons who went missing in areas of Syria formerly under ISIS control, reunite survivors with their families, and return the remains of the deceased to their families for proper burial. 

After a short section outlining methodology and key findings, the report begins by examining the physical and organizational evolution of the Mansura Dam complex—with a special focus on the clandestine security prison facility. In this section, SJAC also describes the profile of detainees, notable detention incidents, and execution patterns. The second section of the report moves to the Western Salhabiyya gravesite. It describes the layout of the site, explains how it developed over time, and briefly discusses key findings from the exhumation data. A short conclusion describes directions for future investigations and identification efforts.

This report is based on field and open-source documentation gathered by SJAC and the Syrian Missing Persons and Forensic Team (SMFT) over the last eighteen months. A previous SJAC publication, “ Unearthing Hope: The Search for the Missing Victims of ISIS ,” included satellite imagery analysis of the Mansura Dam prison complex and preliminary reports linking it to the Western Salhabiyya gravesite. Here SJAC features additional satellite imagery of both the detention facility and the gravesite, as well as new open-source documentation about events at both locations during the period of ISIS control (e.g., social media, local news reports, court judgements). It complements this open-source documentation with internal ISIS documents and information about remains exhumed from the gravesite. Finally, and most importantly, SJAC and the SMFT have obtained significant amounts of oral testimony after issuing public appeals for information and conducting field visits to both Mansura Dam and the Western Salhabiyya gravesite. The oral testimony comes from interviews and follow-up communication with SMFT personnel involved in exhumations at the Western Salhabiyya gravesite; almost two dozen families of missing persons who were allegedly held at Mansura Dam; six survivors of detention at Mansura Dam; two witnesses to ISIS detention practices at the dam; and a witness with firsthand knowledge about the creation of the Western Salhabiyya gravesite. Excerpts of this documentation, including a diagram of the gravesite as well as photographs from inside the Mansura Dam prison complex, are featured throughout the report.  

Through the analysis of this documentation, SJAC has confirmed that ISIS executed detainees whom it was holding at the Mansura Dam prison complex, often after subjecting them to torture and conducting summary trials. Furthermore, it has identified eleven detainees last seen at the prison between February 2014 and March 2015. Investigators have identified three separate gravesites suspected to contain the remains of prisoners who were held at Mansura Dam and later executed. Taken together, this documentation provides further evidence of ISIS crimes and a road map to identify the fate and whereabouts of some of those held at Mansura Dam. 

Just over 20 km upstream of Raqqa City along the Euphrates River lies Mansura Dam. In February 2013, multiple opposition armed groups (including Jabhat al-Nusra [JAN]) seized the dam and surrounding towns shortly before wresting control of Raqqa City from Syrian government forces. There are reports of detention at Mansura Dam at the hands of JAN in this period of early 2013, but SJAC has not documented this practice independently. ^[1]  It is clear that by July 2013, after splitting with JAN and pushing the group out of Raqqa, ISIS had claimed control of the dam and begun detaining both civilians and members of other armed groups here.  ^[2]   Furthermore, as the section below demonstrates, ISIS expanded detention practices at Mansura Dam.

The specific location and function of detention facilities at the Mansura Dam complex changed between 2013 and 2016. It should be noted at the outset that throughout this period the dam at Mansura continued to operate. Civilian staff at the dam primarily worked in the main building (see Building A in Figures 2, 3, and 5), but occasionally spent time in other parts of the facility. In 2013, detention took place very close by, in what SJAC refers to here as Building B (see Figures 2 and 3 for an image of the complex). Torture was reportedly routine and commonly included flogging of detainees. Building B had previously housed technical equipment and repair workshops (see Figure 4 for an image of the interior).

Open-source documentation from mid-2013 suggests that at this point ISIS was using Building B to hold people who may have first been arrested by all three main security entities in the organization: the Islamic Police, which oversaw civil and criminal issues; the Hisba Police, which enforced morality laws; and the clandestine Security Office, which targeted politically sensitive individuals such as members of armed opposition groups and civilian activists. ^[3]  Hence, although SJAC has previously emphasized the importance of determining which ISIS entity administered a given detention facility – in order to understand the types of detainees held there - it remains difficult to say which entity ultimately exercised jurisdiction over the Mansura Dam complex. Individuals associated with the Hisba Police predominate in SJAC’s own documentation on the site, but some documentation based on open-sources suggests that Security Office officials were ultimately in command. ^[4] 

In 2014, according to one insider witness, ISIS erected an additional facility in the same area of the Mansura Dam complex (Building C in Figure 3). Historical satellite imagery indicates that this newer facility was added between June 2014 and October 2015 (see Figure 3). At this point, it appears that Buildings B and C began to function as short-term holding facilities for relatively low-level detainees—likely those arrested by the Hisba Police and Islamic Police.

In addition to the short-term detention facilities, by early 2014 ISIS had installed a checkpoint on the elevated road leading across the dam reservoir and—somewhere in the Mansura Dam complex—a training camp for child fighters.  ^[5]   The checkpoint gave ISIS control over a key access route to the M4 highway, the primary road connecting cities along the Euphrates River.

Finally, by early 2014 ISIS had converted a former military barracks in the Mansura Dam complex into a clandestine facility and begun to hold high-profile security detainees on a long-term basis. SJAC considers this facility as particularly important for the search for the missing, because typically when ISIS transferred detainees to security prisons these individuals were never seen again—and often believed to have been killed. Located about 700m southwest of the main area of the Mansura Dam complex and directly next to the dam reservoir, the barracks had previously housed a detachment of the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) Hajjana Division as well as technical equipment related to the operation of the dam (see Figure 5). The prison comprised two or three single-story barracks structures. ISIS erected a barbed wire fence along a 20m perimeter that civilians working in the dam complex were forbidden to approach. ISIS also tortured detainees at the Hajjana Barracks clandestine security prison, including by flogging, and subjected them to sexual humiliation.

Family interviews indicate that the security prison at the Hajjana Barracks was in operation as of March 2015, and one insider witness believes the facility had closed down by 2016. At this point, the Mansura Dam complex only housed an Islamic Police center—though this entity may have continued to hold people on a short-term basis.  ^[6]   Global Coalition forces targeted the dam with airstrikes during this period, and finally pushed ISIS out of the area in June 2017. 

Survivor and insider witness testimony indicates that by 2014 Buildings B and C were primarily holding Islamic Police and Hisba Police detainees on a short-term basis, whereas detention in the Hajjana Barracks clandestine security prison was long-term. Buildings B and Cheld between 15-20 detainees at any given time, usually for a period lasting between a single day and several weeks.  ^[7]   Of the two survivors of detention in these facilities whom SJAC interviewed, one had been arrested for a morality code violation and the other on minor charges of battery after engaging violently in a public dispute. The latter only encountered civilians among his fellow detainees, and they had likewise been arrested on relatively minor grounds (although some were later accused of collaboration with the Syrian government).  ^[8]   By contrast, the Hajjana Barracks facility seems to have held at least several dozen detainees at any given time for as periods as long as six months. Survivors from one incident of mass arrest, which we elaborate upon below, recall that they were among 80-90 detainees held together in multiple rooms of the Hajjana Barracks. ^[9]  This aligns with the testimony of an insider witness who recalls that, on one exceptional occasion in 2014 or 2015, he witnessed between 50 and 60 detainees taken out from the barracks structures.  ^[10]   

Through family, survivor, and insider witness interviews, SJAC has independently documented the names of 25 people whom ISIS detained at the Mansura Dam complex, i.e., across both Buildings B and C as well as in the clandestine security prison in the Hajjana Barracks. Additionally, the interviews through which SJAC gathered these names referenced dozens of others who were also detained at the site—although currently there is not sufficient information to identify these individuals. This number makes it one of the most widely-used ISIS detention facilities that SJAC has documented, bearing in mind that the relatively limited geographic scope of SJAC field documentation coordinators.

SJAC has documented seven cases of missing persons being transferred, often with other detainees, to the Mansura Dam prison complex from elsewhere in Raqqa governorate. The sites they were transferred from included checkpoints (specifically the Mansura Dam checkpoint), courthouses, and other detention centers. Nevertheless, SJAC has not found that the Mansura Dam security prison exercised a clear geographic jurisdiction. In fact, internal ISIS documents show that on two occasions a detachment of Islamic Police in the town of Mansura transferred people whom it had arrested to the nearby city of Tabqa. On one of those occasions, the Mansura Islamic Police transferred the detainee to the Security Office in Taqba, even though the Mansura Security Office operated a clandestine security prison at the dam (see Figure 6). The documents do not indicate if the Islamic Police initially held these detainees in the short-term facilities at Mansura Dam, or in another center elsewhere in the town of Mansura. In any case the documents do not positively indicate that ISIS regularly transferred detainees from the short-term holding facilities in Buildings B and C to the security prison in the Hajjana Barracks.

What kinds of detainees were held at the Mansura Dam prison complex, and what types of incidents occurred in relation to this facility? As noted above, the Mansura Dam prison complex as a whole hosted detainees who came from a range of backgrounds and whom ISIS had held for a variety of reasons. The clandestine security prison at the Hajjana Barracks specifically seems to have held detainees of specific ethno-linguistic and religious backgrounds whom ISIS often arrested en masse in incidents that targeted these specific groups. This differed from the detention of individuals in Buildings B and C, which held people whom ISIS had often arrested individually on a range of charges related to violations of ISIS criminal and civil law as well as the morality code.  

Of the 11 people whom SJAC found through its own family and survivor interviews to have been held in the Hajjana Barracks clandestine security prison, all were Kurdish or affiliated with other ethno-linguistic and religious minorities. This was very likely the case with the dozens or more people who were reportedly held in the barracks but whose names SJAC has not completely and independently identified yet. This stands in contrast to the social background of survivors and missing persons whom SJAC or open-source documentation indicates were held in Buildings B and C; these individuals appear to have been Arab, as were many of those civilians whom the Hisba Police and Islamic Police arrested on a daily basis often for short periods of time. The prevalence of Kurdish detainees in the Hajjana Barracks clandestine security prison is not surprising for at least two reasons. First, at the onset of the Syrian conflict this area of the country was predominantly Kurdish. Second, clashes between ISIS and Kurdish forces were intensifying from 2013 onward, and hence ISIS often took Kurdish civilians and fighters captive for the purpose of future prisoner swaps.

In the largest incident that SJAC studied for this report, ISIS detained approximately 100 Syrian Kurds at the Mansura Dam security prison between late February and late May 2014. The detention of this group at the Mansura Dam security prison was actually one stage in a longer chain of reported arrests, transfers, executions, and eventual releases. (see Figure 9). 

On 19 February 2014, a mobile ISIS patrol halted a convoy of minibuses near the village of ʿAliya in Hasakeh governorate. Most of the passengers were Kurdish men who had left their homes around the area of Kobani/ʿAyn al-Arab to find work in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, although there were also some women and children. After releasing the latter as well as a few of the convoy drivers, ISIS detained approximately 160 of the men at a nearby grain silo (see Figure 8) before moving them to a subterranean detention facility in Tal Abyad.  ^[11]   Families of the passengers heard about the initial arrest after some of the drivers, women, and children returned to Kobani/ʿAyn al-Arab, while at least one family heard directly from ISIS affiliates who perpetrated the arrest.  ^[12]  

In Tal Abyad between 20 February and 28 February, ISIS took about half of the detainees to another location because they did not demonstrate sufficient knowledge of Islam.  ^[13]   It is unknown if this location was also housed in the same Tal Abyad detention facility, or in another facility entirely: one survivor heard at the time that this group of detainees was to be released, while another heard that they would be held in a facility where ISIS delivered morality courses.  ^[14]   In any case, the members of this group were not reportedly seen again. By 5 March, ISIS transferred those detainees whom it deemed to have sufficient knowledge of Islam, roughly 95 in total, to the Mansura Dam security prison. Of this group, for which SJAC has only collected a portion of the names of detainees, as many as 30 individuals were last seen at the Hajjana Barracks clandestine security prison. This group is therefore of special interest in SJAC’s ongoing investigation efforts into the Mansura Dam complex. SJAC arrived at this number after collecting testimony from three survivors and families of 20 missing persons, although further documentation is necessary to verify the identities of this group.

The roughly 95 detainees who were transferred to the Mansura Dam security prison were initially held in two adjacent rooms or structures in the Hajjana Barracks. Within several days, however, ISIS had separated from this group approximately 32 detainees whom it again considered to have insufficient knowledge of Islam. At the time they were separated, a survivor saw two individuals from this group executed in the barracks perimeter and recalls hearing the voices of the remaining 30 from an adjacent room throughout the period of his detention at the Mansura Dam security prison. He and other survivors were transferred to Manbij by late May and eventually released in Manbij in November 2014.  ^[15]   Through interviews with families of missing persons SJAC has identified six individuals who were among the group of 30 that appear to have been kept separately at the Mansura Dam security prison until at least late May 2014.  ^[16]   This is their last known location, and survivors of the incident speculate that these individuals were executed—but SJAC has not verified this fact. It should be noted that four individuals from this group may have been exhumed from a mass grave located elsewhere in Raqqa governorate.

Detainee executions occurred regularly at the Mansura Dam complex throughout the period of its operation under ISIS control (i.e., from mid-2013 to at least mid-2015). Some of these executions have already been reported publicly. In mid-2013, for example, Amnesty International learned from survivors of detention in the short-term holding facilities (Buildings B and C) that in this period ISIS was issuing execution orders for detainees for several times a week, including for two specific individuals whose names are known publicly.  ^[17]   The same survivors reportedly heard from guards and newly-arriving detainees that the executions actually took place in public squares in the town of Mansura. It is not clear how ISIS disposed of the bodies of Mansura Dam detainees whom it executed in 2013, although at the time prison wardens told detainees that they were throwing bodies into the dam reservoir.  ^[18]   Given that at this point, according to survivor testimony, the reservoir water reportedly became contaminated, it is reasonable to speculate that in subsequent months and years ISIS chose other sites to dispose of the bodies detainees whom it executed.

SJAC documentation has shed light on detainee executions that occurred from 2014 onward and were not previously known. Some of this documentation aligns with what Amnesty International previously found in terms of the location of executions. One survivor told SJAC, for example, that after his release from the short-term detention facility in mid-August 2014 he witnessed two people who had been detained with him executed in the marketplace of the nearby town of Mansura after being accused of collaboration with the Syrian government.  ^[19]  

SJAC also learned that ISIS executed detainees whom it was holding at the long-term security prison in the Hajjana Barracks. In 2014 and 2015, an insider witness repeatedly heard the sound of gunshots emanating from this area, and at one point when he approached the barracks itself he saw a detainee thrown to his death from the top of one of the structures.  ^[20]   In addition to the February 2014 executions mentioned above, in early March 2015 a security detainee reported to family members that ISIS had executed four Christian detainees as well as the prison warden who had agreed to smuggle them out of the Mansura Dam complex. The same family members later heard from an ISIS official at the security prison that ISIS had issued execution orders for all Christian detainees then held at the facility though this information came from a single source that SJAC has been unable to corroborate.  ^[21]   

SJAC’s interviews with survivors, insider witnesses, and families of the missing have also clarified how ISIS disposed of the bodies of Mansura Dam security detainees. Based on their testimony, SJAC has identified at least three areas where ISIS may have buried those whom it detained at Mansura Dam and later executed: the Hajjana Barracks itself, where in 2014 multiple insider witnesses saw ISIS dig trenches of the kind it used as mass graves; the village of ʿAkirshi, where four individuals who had been detained in the aforementioned mass Kurdish arrest were later executed and exhumed; and the village of Western Salhabiyya, where ISIS was reportedly burying Christians and Kurdish detainees it had held at Mansura Dam. 

The next section outlines findings on the Western Salhabiyya gravesite, which SJAC has studied in-depth in the context of prior SMFT work at the site.

About 7 km north of Mansura Dam, on the edge of the village of Western Salhabiyya, lies a hill pockmarked by a series of open holes and trenches. Agricultural fields and an informal IDP camp surround the hill, which is known locally as Tal al-Shaykh Khudr. Four years ago, the SMFT exhumed over a hundred remains from the holes and trenches scattered across the hill. Some of these remains were bodies of people who appeared to have died in airstrikes and military clashes, but the vast majority bore the marks of detention and field executions: blindfolds, gunshot wounds to the head, and decapitation. As Figure 10 indicates, there were at least three distinct sections of the gravesite: 

• Section I: A series of individual graves north of the access road on the lower slope of the hill, just beneath an east-west trench; contained bodies wrapped in plastic bags and buried in accordance with Islamic rites

• Section II: two north-south trenches perpendicular to the access road; contained decapitated bodies and severed heads which had been buried in separate sections of one trench in particular

• Section II: three east-west trenches running parallel to the access road along the south side of the hill; divided into sections, with one section containing intact bodies as well as decapitated bodies wrapped in plastic bags and cloth blankets—and a smaller section containing some severed heads 

To whom did these remains belong, and how did they get to the hill at Western Salhabiyya? Obtaining answers to such questions begins with determining when, how, and for whom the gravesite was established. The section below clarifies this process, indicating how the Western Salhabiyya gravesite developed over several years and why it is believed to contain the remains of people who died in several different contexts.

Analysis of satellite imagery provides a general date range for the period in which graves may have been created in Western Salhabiyya. SJAC’s external partners, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, analyzed 39 images covering a period between 22 August 2011 through 28 April 2020. Most of these images showed little appreciable change, but analysis of four images between 7 June 2013 and 22 January 2015 revealed changes in the terrain that researchers determined to be consistent with the potential creation of mass graves.  The available imagery indicates that by 6 March 2014 a series of mounds had appeared on the south side of the hill, just above an access road that circles the base of the hill (see Figure 11). The mounds are clearer in imagery from 19 June (see Figure 12), possibly the result of the angle of the sun at the time the photo was taken.  ^[22]  

 The graves at the Western Salhabiyya site were exhumed in late 2019 and early 2020 by the First Responders Team (a predecessor to the current SMFT), as part of a larger effort to clear the remnants of ISIS crimes from the area. While these efforts were well-intended, they did not aim at identification of remains. While SJAC and SMFT are using the documentation collected during those exhumations, currently exhumations are paused while SJAC and the SMFT work with forensic partners to build skills and a clear strategy for exhumation. The bodies recovered at Western Salhabiyya were reburied in individual graves, and are accessible to the team when the time comes for further analysis and DNA testing.

Imagery from 18 December 2014 reveals how, in the intervening six months, trenches and other earthworks appeared south of the agricultural access road (see Figure 13). A clear image from 22 January 2015 shows the extent of terrain modifications, which include more trenches on the northern slopes of Shakykh Khudr Hill (see Figure 14). These appear to be the trenches now known to have contained decapitated bodies and severed heads. No further modifications to the terrain on the hill in a manner consistent with the potential creation of mass graves are visible in satellite imagery from subsequent periods. Thus, the satellite imagery suggests that the various section of the gravesite developed at different points within the overall period lasting between June 2013 and January 2015.

Figure 10 [left]: Western Salhabiyya site on 6 March 2014, with the area of the mounds circled

Figure 11 [right]: Western Salhabiyya site on 19 June 2014, with the mounds more visible,

Direct eyewitness testimony sheds light on how the modifications to the terrain occurred, and aligns with what SJAC found through satellite imagery analysis. Grave digging happened in several discrete instances between late 2013 and late 2014. Among the first graves to be dug were the individual graves in Section I of the gravesite, i.e., the the mounds highlighted in Figures 11 and 12. They primarily held military personnel who had been killed in armed clashes and field executions around Raqqa. And, indeed, in mid-January 2014 local media outlets reported that the Syrian Red Crescent had buried some 41 members of armed groups near the village of Western Salhabiyya. These fighters may have belonged to several armed groups, and had reportedly died either in combat with ISIS or subsequently in field executions. ^[23]  At least several weeks passed between the time of death and burial, with Red Crescent staff bringing these bodies to Shaykh Khudr Hill preserved in trucks (see Figure 15). ^[24]  However, the SMFT also received reports that not all who were buried in Section I were dead at the time of their arrival to the site: another eyewitness claiming to have seen a nighttime execution and burial in this section following an ISIS sweep through the area of the village. ^[25] 

Figure 12 [left]: Western Salhabiyya site on 18 December 2014

Figure 13 [right]: Western Salhabiyya site on 22 January 2014

ISIS arranged for victims of executions to be buried at the Western Salhabiyya site on at least two separate occasions in 2014. It should be noted that ISIS frequently relied on members of local communities to bury its victims (often because they had access to machinery for grave digging or because they already worked as medical practitioners). At the Western Salhabiyya site, in both cases in 2014 ISIS personnel—apparently local affiliates and not foreign fighters—brought batches of bodies and remains in the same trucks that the Red Crescent had used. The bodies and remains had apparently not begun to decompose by the time of their delivery at the Shaykh Khudr Hill, but given the use of trucks it is not clear if this is because they had been preserved following executions. ^[26]  ISIS first delivered victims of executions in July or August 2014, and buried them in what would become Section II of the gravesite. Although the exact number of victims who were brought in this batch is not known, there were likely between 53 and 86 distinct remains bearing the signs of execution (specifically decapitation). The second batch of bodies and remains arrived in late 2014, probably November or December, and was buried in what would become Section III of the gravesite. There were likely between 32 and 37 distinct remains in this batch. Some remains bore the signs of execution, while others appear to have been people who were killed in airstrikes.  ^[27]   Eyewitness testimony thus indicates that as many as 123 people were buried in mass graves at the Western Salhabiyya gravesite, with most of these victims of ISIS executions. Although the maximum range exceeds the number of remains that the SMFT later exhumed and identified as pertaining to ISIS executions, it should be noted that some graves at the Western Salhabiyya site remain unopened (see below).  

No new graves were dug in 2015 and beyond, according to eyewitness testimony. The modifications to the terrain that occurred on the northern and eastern slopes of Shaykh Khudr Hill from December 2014 onward were apparently the result of ISIS personnel digging for valuable objects rumored to be buried in the earth.   

The origin of the bodies and remains delivered to the Western Salhabiyya site is not clear from eyewitness testimony. On one occasion ISIS personnel reportedly claimed that some had had been brought from public executions at the Naʿim Roundabout in Raqqa City. ^[28]  Analysis of the widespread open-source documentation of ISIS executions at the Naʿim Roundabout may shed light on the origins of these bodies. ^[29] 

Nevertheless, eyewitness testimony strengthens SJAC’s preliminary hypothesis about the likely connection between the Mansura Dam complex and the Western Salhabiyya gravesite. It confirms that the specific areas of the grave which held victims of ISIS execution were dug in the same period of time in which ISIS was holding a number of detainees at the clandestine long-term security prison at the Mansura Dam complex. Eyewitness testimony also clarifies how the Western Salhabiyya gravesite developed over time to hold remains of people who were killed in several different contexts—not only ISIS executions, but also armed clashes and airstrikes. Further clarity on remains can be gained by examining the forensic data that the SMFT collected during the exhumation of the Western Salhabiyya gravesite, as seen below.  

Five years after the graves at the Shaykh Khudr Hill were dug, as local communities began to return following the territorial defeat of ISIS, residents asked authorities in the area to exhume the site. They did so because animals were digging up remains around the hill and obstructing agricultural and pastoral work. The local authorities in turn asked the SMFT to exhume the graves and rebury remains elsewhere, although they had little idea as to who was buried within. The team worked at the Western Salhabiyya site between November 2019 and February 2020, exhuming 115 remains from both trenches and individual graves (see Figure 16).  It should be noted that, according to eyewitness testimony, some graves remain unopened (specifically in Section I of the site).

The SMFT found that 87 remains clearly bore the marks of execution or death in armed clashes, and suggested that airstrikes were the cause of death for the other 28 remains. Preliminary forensic analysis indicates that all of the remains associated with execution were associated with male bodies, whereas the eight female remains exhumed at the gravesite were associated with airstrikes (see Figure 17 for an example of the forensic data from the Western Salhabiyya gravesite). This suggests that no female detainees whom ISIS had executed were buried at the site. Civilian clothing was attached to most of the decapitated bodies, although notably there was military attire attached to three of them —including in one case a SAA uniform. ^[30]  While these remains may pertain to individuals who were military personnel, it is also possible that they were civilians whom ISIS dressed in military attire. As mentioned above, in August 2014 at the time the grave was being dug there were unconfirmed media reports that ISIS had dressed detainees at the Mansura Dam complex in the uniforms of a local SAA detachment. ^[31] 

None of the 115 remains have yet been identified. However, the SMFT has independently received unconfirmed reports about the general profile of those who had been buried at the site. These reports broadly align with what SJAC has found. Upon undertaking exhumation work, for example, multiple people from the local community approached the SMFT with the claim that politically sensitive victims of ISIS executions had been buried at the Western Salhabiyya gravesite (including Kurds, prominent journalists, and so on). In fact, there were social media posts to this effect circulating long before the exhumation, some as early as February 2014. ^[32]  However, in the case of one particular missing person whom the SMFT investigated, preliminary forensic analysis failed to suggest a link between any of the postmortem data taken from the exhumed remains and that of the antemortem data provided to the team. ^[33]  On the other hand, such matches might come to light upon further analysis or if the SMFT exhumed those graves that are still unopened.

The documentation and analysis that features in this report demonstrates the concrete outcomes that SJAC’s approach to the search for the missing has already begun to yield. Whereas many assume that exhumations of gravesites are the most critical step in discovering the fate and whereabouts of people who go missing in contexts of armed conflict, this report has shown the importance of all the investigatory work that must accompany forensic efforts. After just eighteen months of targeted investigatory work, for example, SJAC and the SMFT have identified the period in which a detention facility and a gravesite were in operation, as well as the profile of detainees and remains documented at both locations. On the basis of this analysis, SJAC believes that ISIS was executing and burying some though certainly not all Mansura Dam detainees at the Western Salhabiyya gravesite. SJAC has furthermore identified the specific sections of the site where those victims would have been buried, as well as specific missing persons who may have been among the group subject to these executions.  

This report also indicates directions for future investigation and identification efforts that SJAC might pursue in collaboration with the SMFT. In light of the claim that some graves at the Western Salhabiyya remain unopened and even unknown to the SMFT for example, further site surveys is necessary to determine the location of any trenches, holes, or graves previously unknown to the team; similar investigation should be done at the sites of mass graves which witnesses identified as being near the Mansura Dam security prison itself and outside ʿAkirshi village. Moreover, given that SJAC has found that 30 Kurdish detainees from one particular incident were last seen at the Mansura Dam prison complex—with at least two more seen being executed within the perimeter of the security prison—there is a discrete pool of DNA references against which skeletal samples from remains recovered at Western Salhabiyya might be tested. The identities of the members of this group remain to be determined. Identification of these individuals should be done alongside an investigation into public executions that took place in Raqqa City in the period when the Western Salhabiyya witness received remains, given the possibility that victims of such executions may have been previously held at Mansura Dam and then subsequently buried at the Shaykh Khudr Hill. Additional reference sample pools might be identified through targeted investigations into other incidents that involved the Mansura Dam prison complex in the same period as the Western Salhabiyya gravesite developed. ^[34]  In either case, however, SJAC and the SMFT may encounter political, logistical, and social obstacles to the collection and testing of antemortem and postmortem DNA samples; addressing such obstacles requires further planning over the coming months and years. 

In the meantime, in view of the clear utility of contextual investigations, SJAC and the SMFT are continuing to study the dozens of other detention facilities and gravesites they have identified in territory formerly held by ISIS. By doing so, SJAC is leading efforts that are rapidly generating clear and positive outcomes for families on the ground in Syria still searching for their loved ones.

[1] See the 2021 judgement of the District Court of Rotterdam in the case of Fatah A., available at  https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/#!/details?id=ECLI:NL:RBROT:2021:9058&showbutton=true&keyword=&idx=6 

[2] Amnesty International, Rule of Fear: ISIS Abuses in Detention in Northern Syria (London: Amnesty International, 2013), 2, 6.

[3] In 2013, for example, Amnesty International found that detainees included both civilians who had been arrested for theft, while one survivor of detention from this period had been a prominent civil activist. See Amnesty International, Rule of Fear, 10; and Ahmad Ibrahim, “Shahr ʿan ʿItiqal Daʿish,” Aljumhuriya, 14 January 2015,  https://aljumhuriya.net/ar/2015/01/14/33015/ . On the different wings of the ISIS security apparatus, see Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, Unearthing Hope: The Search for the Missing Victims of ISIS (Washington, D.C.: Syria Justice and Accountabiltiy Centre, 2021), 6-10.

[4] Interviews with families of missing persons who were seen at Mansura Dam refer consistently to the role of Abu ʿAli al-Shariʿi from the Hisba Bureau, whereas a publicly-available survivor account named Security Office official Muhammad al-Najm as the head of the facility in mid-2013; see Ahmad Ibrahim, “Shahr ʿan ʿItiqal Daʿish,”

[5] Interview conducted by SJAC on 3 August 2023; Interview conducted by SJAC on 3 January 2022.

[6]  Interview conducted by the Syria Missing Persons and Forensic Team (SMFT) on 14 September 2023; interview conducted by SJAC on 18 October 2023.

[7]  Interview conducted by SJAC on 3 August 2023.

[8]  Interview conducted by the SMFT on 4 May 2023; interview conducted by SJAC on 27 April 2023.

[9]  Interview conducted by SJAC on 19 April 2021.

[10] Interview conducted by the SMFT on 14 September 2023.

[11] The exact location of the Tal Abyad detention facility is unknown. Possible locations include: the Tal Abyad Courthouse, according to an interview conducted by SJAC on 25 August 2023 and an interview conducted by SJAC on 17 February 2022 ); the former headquarters of the Political Security Branch, according to an interview conducted by SJAC on 24 November 2021, as well as Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Deaths in Detention in Syria,” United Nations, February 4, 2016, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/A-HRC-31-CRP1_en.pdf, 14; and a school building in Tal Abyad, according to an interview conducted by SJAC on 19 April 2021.

[12] Interview conducted by SJAC on 28 March 2022; interview conducted by SJAC on 4 April 2022.

[13] There is some discrepancy around the dates. An interview conducted by SJAC on 19 April 2021 suggests that ISIS transferred a batch of around 80 detainees on Friday, 21 February 2014, whereas an interview conducted by SJAC on 20 June 2022 indicates that detainees spent a week in Tal Abyad (i.e., until approximately 28 February) before being taken to Mansura Dam.

[14] Interview conducted by SJAC on 20 June 2022; interview conducted by SJAC on 19 April 2021.

[15] Interview conducted by SJAC on 19 April 2021.

[16] According to a publicly-available survivor account, the transfer to Manbij did not occur until 16 June; see https://vdc-nsy.com/archives/41621.

[17] The individuals being Khalil Ibrahim al-Shawwakh and Hassan Sharida; see Amnesty International, Rule of Fear, 13-16 similar testimony can be found in Ahmad Ibrahim, “Shahr ʿan ʿItiqal Daʿish.”

[18] Amnesty International, Rule of Fear, 6.

[19] Interview conducted by the SMFT on 4 May 2023; the two individuals who had been accused of morality code violations (specifically illegitimate sex acts) were from ʿAyn Isa originally.

[20] Interview conducted by SMFT on 14 September 2023.

[21] Interview conducted by SJAC on 28 September 2022.

[22] Interview conducted by the SMFT on 8 June 2022.

[23]  Akhbar Alan, “Al-ʿAthur ala 41Jutha li-Ashkhas tam Iʿdamihim bi-Rif al-Raqqa [Bodies of 41 people killed in executions are discovered in Raqqa countryside],” YouTube video, 0:30, 18 January 2014, https://www.akhbaralaan.net/news/arab-world/2014/1/11/regain-raqqa-syria-isis-fighting-battle-free-army-presence. Akhbar Alan claimed that some of those who had been executed were members of Islamic Front, while social media posts from the same period suggest that they belonged to Ahrar al-Sham; see Gire Spi/Tal Abyad, “Akhbar Tal Abyad,” Facebook, 4 February 2014,  https://www.facebook.com/GireSpi.news/posts/pfbid02SqGMMTem1LAFB7bu2oGZZfUmF213mFmtNhShwfnyuXTTvybeFWGWN2mb7epjEoul .

[24]  Akhbar Alan, “Al-ʿAthur.” According to this report, fear of ISIS reprisals stopped families from reclaiming the bodies of those fighters who had been killed. Another, slightly earlier report indicates that the bodies were already at the National Hospital as of 11 January 2014; see Akhbar Alan, “al-Jabha al-Islamiyya Tastaʿid Zamam al-Umur fi al-Raqqa wa Takhud Marʿikat Wujud Dudd Daʿish,” 11 January 2014,   https://www.akhbaralaan.net/news/arab-world/2014/1/11/regain-raqqa-syria-isis-fighting-battle-free-army-presence .

[25]  SMFT Team Lead, Personal Communication, 5 October 2023. The SMFT Team Lead believes that the bodies of these individuals were buried in the individual graves in Section III, and hence that the victims of the executions were military personnel.

[26]  It should be noted that ISIS seized Red Crescent vehicles after taking control of Raqqa, and it is not clear if any local SRC staff remained active at this point. In any case, at Western Salhabiyya ISIS seems to have used these vehicles bring severed heads or decapitated bodies before disposing them in trenches wrapped in plastic tarp material or blankets.

[27] Interview conducted by the SMFT on 8 June 2022.

[28] Interview conducted by the SMFT on 9 October 2023.

[29] For example, there remains publicly-accessible executions of SAA personnel at Naʿim Roundabout in August 2014 on platforms including Facebook.

[30] Western Salhabiyya Remain #41. See also Western Salhabiyya Remain #75 and Western Salhabiyya Remain #114.

[31] Shabakat Akhbar Barri al-Sharqi, “Ham Madinat al-Tabqa.”

[32]  Gire Spi/Tal Abyad, “Akhbar Tal Abyad,” Facebook, 4 February, 2014,   https://www.facebook.com/GireSpi.news/posts/pfbid02SqGMMTem1LAFB7bu2oGZZfUmF213mFmtNhShwfnyuXTTvybeFWGWN2mb7epjEoul .

[33]  SMFT Forensic Physician, Personal Communication, 7 September 2023.

[34] Among such incidents is from February 2014 one in which ISIS personnel stopped a minibus carrying three Kurdish passengers at the Mansura Dam checkpoint. It held these passengers somewhere in the Mansura Dam prison complex before claiming in August 2014 to have executed at least one of these passengers.