Syria’s government ordered troops to guard a mass grave used to conceal atrocities under Bashar Assad and opened a criminal investigation after a media report that detailed a yearslong scheme by the former regime to hide thousands of bodies at the remote desert site.
The site, in the Dhumair desert east of Damascus, was used during Assad’s rule as a military weapons depot, a former Syrian army officer with knowledge of the operation told Reuters.
It was later emptied of personnel in 2018 to ensure secrecy for a plot that involved unearthing the bodies of thousands of victims of the dictatorship buried in a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus and trucking them an hour’s drive away to Dhumair.
The plot, orchestrated by the dictator’s inner circle, was called "Operation Move Earth."
Soldiers are stationed at the Dhumair site again, this time by the government that overthrew Assad.
