FRANKFURT: When Daesh captured the inhabited areas of the Shayt tribe in eastern Syria, the terrorist group committed unspeakable brutality.
One of its commanders has now been arrested in Berlin and will be put on trial. A Syrian Witness now living in Germany remembers what else happened.
When protests against the Syrian regime began in 2011, many were filled with hope. Hesham Ali – not his real name – was one of them.
Belonging to the Shayt clan, the 40-year-old in the Abu Hamam region of Deir al-Zor province, lives in three villages. Before 2011, their number was 180,000.
“We are well-known and we are very proud of our roots,” Ali told Arab News. After spending several years in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, he returned to Syria in 2010.
They wrote anti-government slogans on the walls, believing that the courage of the people would bring about a positive change.
The change actually happened, but not in the way they expected. In the ensuing years, large parts of Iraq and Syria were thrown into chaos by Islamic groups, the most prominent of them being Daesh.
Its former leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in an airstrike in 2019, declared a caliphate in July 2014. What happened next was a nightmare from which the region is still struggling to recover.
For Ali, people like Daesh dashed all hope of positive change. “The revolution was going to be successful,” he said. “Then they came, and took away the property of the people, and declared the others heretics.”
The Sunni tribe refused to accept Daesh rule, but their resistance was unsuccessful: the province was annexed in August 2014.
Daesh was determined to set an example for anyone who dared to face it by killing 700-900 men, women, children and the elderly.
When al-Baghdadi declared the caliphate, Ali – who had been covering events in the region and publishing photos and videos on social media – was arrested and imprisoned by Islamists.
After his release, he returned home and helped his wife and children escape across the Euphrates River.
Determined to cover up the events, he returns home again – a move that almost cost his life.
“When they saw a member of the Shait clan, they would kill him,” Ali said. Then Daesh’s fighters captured him.
A man stabbed a knife to the neck. Thankfully Ali survived. “I told them I was a car salesman from somewhere else,” he said.
They placed a bag over his head and took him to a local prison, where they kept him for weeks. The bag will become his luck and misfortune at the same time.
“Seeing people with their heads beheaded on the streets, I knew that whenever they were carrying a prisoner, they cut his throat or behead him,” he said. “But since I won, I couldn’t see him do it with my own eyes.”
Although his life was hanging by a thread, Ali survived and was released. He managed to rejoin his family and flee the country. In 2015, he settled with them in Germany.
Last week, authorities arrested a man named Red E, an alleged former Daesh commander, in Berlin. Ali misses her.
“I had seen him from afar at Abu Hamam, but I didn’t know him personally,” he said, adding that being himself a member of the Shayt clan, Rayad is his aristocratic relative.
Three years ago Ali’s relatives recognized Raed E in Berlin and consulted Ali on what they should do.
He and his relatives informed the authorities, who issued a warrant against Red E. He fled to Turkey, but when he felt safe he returned to Berlin and was later arrested.
Red E is not the first of its kind to face trial in Germany. Since 2014, authorities have charged more than 50 people with crimes in relation to Daesh.
Ali has full confidence in the German courts: “Red E will receive a life sentence, the worst sentence in this country.”
But returning home soon seems almost impossible. Ali is afraid of being recognized for his activities on social media. “Sleeper cells are still active there, I can’t go back.”