It already has millions of views. Since Tuesday, a particularly violent video, claiming to show the execution by hanging of a man presented as a cousin of Bashar al-Assad, has been circulating on social networks. Shared by numerous X accounts, we see in this video a partially undressed man, hoisted by a crane above a cheering crowd.
This summary hanging would have taken place, according to video comments, in the public square of the city of Latakia, one of the fourteen governorates of Syria. The man hanged in these images is presented by some accounts as Sulaiman Hilal Assad, the son of Hilal al-Assad, former leader of the Latakia paramilitary group and cousin of the former Syrian president. Different sources claim that it is Amar al-Assad, another cousin of the dictator.
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This video does not actually show any members of the “butcher of Damascus” family. It is the Misbar site, specialized in the fight against disinformation in the Middle East, which will be the first to publish a denial. This video, which was broadcast for the first time on December 7 on Facebook, was apparently filmed, according to the caption, in Khirbet Ghazala, in the Daraa governorate in southeastern Syria.
Still according to this legend, the images actually show “the execution, by the military factions of the opposition, of Ammar el-Asaad and Diana Buteh”. These two individuals were allegedly found guilty of the murder of the latter's husband, Muhammad Ziad Hajj Ali, and sentenced to death by hanging. According to Misbar journalists, everything suggests that the man in the video is actually a namesake of members of the al-Assad family, which could have led to confusion.
Massive disinformation
On the videos broadcast on X and Facebook we can also see what appears to be the portrait of a man, presented by Misbar as being Muhammad Ziad Hajj Ali. Signs which would indeed confirm the execution of his alleged assassins and not that of a member of the fallen presidential family.
Our file on the fall of Bashar al-Assad
If Bashar al-Assad and his “inner circle”, namely his wife Asma and his three children (Zein, Karim and Hafez) have indeed obtained asylum in Moscow according to confirmation from the Kremlin, the fate of the rest of his clan remains still pending. This is particularly the case of his brother Maher al-Assad, who cannot be found to this day. The one who was particularly useful to his brother during the suppression of the Syrian revolt in his role as general of the two most powerful units of the Syrian army had an important network of tunnels under his palace, which may have been used for his escape.
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Since this weekend and the entry into Damascus of Islamist rebels, social networks have been teeming with diverted videos or images generated by AI. This is particularly the case of the numerous rumors which have circulated about Sednaya prison, deciphered here by the Fake Off service of 20 Minutes. But also videos of grieving mothers finding children imprisoned decades earlier by Bashar al-Assad, also false, as the Misbar site once again points out. Massive disinformation which began at the start of the Syrian civil crisis and which still bears its share of responsibility for the outcome of the conflict today according to several NGOs.
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