By Samah Abdul Fattah and Pishtaz | 2025-02-10

Mass graves containing the remains of more than 100 people have been unearthed near former Iranian and Syrian regime positions in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor province, rights monitors and local sources said.

The primary site, in Deir Ezzor city's al-Sinaa (industrial) district, is adjacent to a camp previously operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Syrian regime's 4th Division, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The 4th Division, commanded by Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher, was notorious for its role in the production and smuggling of Captagon, a lucrative trade that turned Syria into a narco-state, and its control of a number of border crossings.

Maher al-Assad fled to Russia via Iraq after the Syrian regime's collapse.

At the al-Sinaa site, bodies were methodically arranged in four 20-meter trenches, with numbered tombstones marking each unidentified victim, indicating systematic executions at the site, the Observatory said January 8.

In a separate discovery, residents of Sabikhan in Deir Ezzor's al-Mayadeen district uncovered six bodies in a mass grave in the desert near a former Fatemiyoun Division base, North Press Agency reported February 1.

The victims, some of whom were teenage boys around the age of 15, had been kidnapped by Iran-aligned militias while herding sheep approximately one year earlier, according to Observatory sources.

The militias had forced impoverished local children -- particularly scrap collectors -- to take part in drug trafficking operations.

They also used the children as test subjects to gauge the potency of Iranian-manufactured illegal drugs, and many of them died from overdoses.

Local activists are documenting militia and al-Assad regime violations in Deir Ezzor for submission to international legal bodies, Syrian activist Ayham al-Ali told Pishtaz.

"These mass graves, both discovered and yet to be uncovered, provide undeniable evidence of how the IRGC and its proxies dealt with Syrians who openly opposed the Iranian project," he said.

Legacy of terror

Since the fall of the al-Assad regime, 17 mass graves containing the remains of 1,632 people, including women and children, have been discovered in areas it controlled across Syria, the Observatory said February 3.

The International Commission on Missing Persons has found evidence that points to 66 potential mass graves.

The IRGC and its militias and allies -- Lebanese Hizbullah, the Fatemiyoun Division, and various Iraqi factions -- have maintained a significant presence in Deir Ezzor, which borders Iraq, al-Ali said.

In addition to establishing a military presence, these militias expanded Iranian hegemony by establishing cultural centers that sought to indoctrinate local youth and groom them for recruitment, he said.

They also sought to win over the impoverished local population via the distribution of humanitarian aid.