Investigation

The Battar Battalion Prison: A Site of Mass Executions for the Shaitat Tribe

No matches

 

Introduction

 

In 2014, ISIS seized a two-story house in the Hawi area of Kishkiyya in the Deir ez-Zor countryside, and converted it into a prison. This facility was used primarily to detain men and children over the age of 11 from the Shaitat clan.

The owner of the house was a member of the Shaitat clan who had fought against ISIS. After sustaining injuries in battle, he fled the area. The Battar Battalion – an ISIS contingent manned primarily by North African fighters – subsequently confiscated his house, converting it into a base and then establishing a prison there. ISIS made minimal alterations to the structure, as the house was located in an area where fighting was ongoing.

The ISIS Prisons Museum (IPM) conducted a comprehensive study of the prison based on testimonies by three former prisoners who were detained there in 2014 and 2015. It also carried out a thorough documentation of the prison, comparing forensic evidence with the accounts provided by survivors. Following this, it performed an architectural analysis. Additionally, the IPM utilized open source material to gather and cross-reference data regarding the Battar Battalion and its movements during that period.

This investigation is part of the IPM’s effort to gain a deeper understanding of what happened in the Shaitat region under ISIS rule. ISIS killed many members of the Shaitat clan, accusing them of being ‘apostates’. The IPM’s investigative report, “The Shaitat Massacre: Documenting the Events and Reshaping the Narrative”, provides a detailed study of these events.

The investigation examines dozens of documented mass graves, which were often located near ISIS prisons. Some were discovered in the vicinity of the Battar Battalion Prison. The testimonies collected by the IPM indicate that prison officials did indeed execute many of the prisoners at a point approximately 100 meters from the prison, as well as in other nearby locations. Those executed were men judged to have fought against ISIS.

This report details the Battar Battalion Prison’s architectural design and the site’s use for detention and torture. It also includes information on the interrogation and torture methods applied in the prison, along with witness testimonies that corroborate evidence of mass killings committed in the area. An additional section explains the structure of the Battar Battalion and its brutal nature, which was manifested in the abuses committed in this prison and the surrounding area.

 

Establishment and Overview

 

Starting on August 10, 2014, as its battles against the Shaitat clan intensified, ISIS established several prisons for the detention of clan members and other opponents. The IPM estimates that there were around 25 prisons located in various villages and towns of the area, including Hajin, Shafa, Bahra, Abu Hamam, Tayyana, Baloum (Mayadin), Halawa, and Kishkiyya. Additionally, there were prisons located close to nearby oilfields, including the Omar Oilfield.

This prison was known among Kishkiyya residents either as the Battar Battalion Prison or the Hawi Prison, due to its location in the Hawi area on the northeastern edge of Kishkiyya, approximately five kilometers from the center of town, near Field Road/Cemetery Road. In the colloquial dialect of Deir ez-Zor, the word ‘Hawi’ refers to homes located near the desert.

Photo of the house (ISIS Prison Museum)

 

After ISIS seized the house, the 450-square-meter first floor was converted into a prison, since its windows were already fortified with iron bars. The second floor was used for rest and recreation by ISIS members.

Conforming to the traditional architecture of homes in Deir ez-Zor, the house contains a “diwan,” a large detached hall in which the owner receives male guests. This hall is typically separated from the living room, bedrooms, and kitchen used by the family. In the house that is the topic of our investigation, the first floor consisted of a diwan, three other rooms, a kitchen, and a large terrace that connected the diwan to the rest of the house.

 

2D reconstruction of the Battar Battalion Prison

 

Despite damage sustained to the building during battle, ISIS did not invest significant effort in equipping or fortifying the house. Former prisoner Hamdan Allawi Abdullah told the IPM that the lock was broken on the door of the room in which he was detained in August 2014. ISIS members appeared to have shot it open when they stormed the house, and later closed the door with a chain.

ISIS retained the glass windows of the various rooms. This practice differed from the security measures taken in other prisons, where glass was removed lest it were used as a weapon by the prisoners. ISIS prisons in the Deir ez-Zor countryside were set up in a hurry amidst ongoing battles. Some former prisoners from other ISIS prisons in the Hawi area reported to the IPM that they had in fact escaped through the windows of those buildings.

 

Testimony of Abdul Jawad Kassar al-Ali, a former prisoner in an ISIS prison in the Shaitat areas

 

The Battar Battalion Prison consisted of two detention cells, a torture room, an investigation room (in the diwan), and a kitchen which was used to store ammunition. The procedures for recording prisoners’ personal information and taking their personal belongings were mostly performed on the terrace. This was where prisoners were divided according to the charges brought against them, and were accordingly sent to one of the two detention cells.

 

The Battar Battalion: Notorious Combatants

 

Al-Battar Battalion Flag

 

Before elaborating on the methods of detention and torture used in Battar Battalion Prison, it is necessary to provide an overview of the battalion that ran the prison, its role in the Shaitat area, and the nature of its fighters.

The core of the Battar Battalion comprised fighters from Libya, in particular from the mountainous town of Derna and from Benina[1] in the Benghazi region of northeastern Libya. Large numbers of Tunisians as well as European citizens of North African descent are reported to have joined the group.

There is insufficient information available to determine the facts of its establishment and the nature of its early operations. However, it is believed to have been founded in Syria at some time in late 2012. In a video of the period, the battalion’s spokesman thanks two Libyan charities for their support: the Misrata Martyrs Association and the Hamza Martyrs.[2] Some reports indicate that the battalion’s initial actions were focused on the countryside of Latakia in northwestern Syria.

The battalion declared allegiance to ISIS in mid-2013. From then on, it moved between Syrian provinces according to the tasks assigned to it. It was regarded as a commando force or special operations unit.[3] Later it fought and perpetrated acts of terrorism for ISIS in various countries, including Syria, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, and in European cities.

The battalion fighters were known for their ferocity and their readiness to carry out suicide operations. They were also called Ubat al-Daim (those who refuse humiliation) and the Barefoot Battalion. They adopted the latter name because they often walked barefoot and sometimes fought barefoot in battle, as they considered the land of Sham (the Levant) to be holy, and because they wanted to burnish their image as fierce and ruthless fighters capable of enduring harsh conditions.

The Battar Battalion’s first documented appearance in Deir ez-Zor occurred on August 5, 2014, which was the sixth day of fighting between ISIS and the Shaitat clansmen. The battalion fought alongside Kazakh, Uzbek, and Chechen fighters. These foreign fighters played a crucial role in shifting the battle in ISIS’s favor, and the Battar Battalion’s fearsome reputation was useful in the psychological warfare against ISIS’s adversaries.[4]

Researchers believe that the Shaitat battles, and the massacres of civilians that accompanied the battles, caused rifts within ISIS. The Battar Battalion was apparently disbanded as a result, and its members were transferred to other battalions such as Dabeq and Jund al-Khilafa. It is thought that the battalion left Deir ez-Zor on September 17, 2015. Reports published in 2015 indicate that some members of the battalion returned to Libya and fought in Benghazi.[5] Later, various operations were attributed to the battalion in Kirkuk, Iraq; Ben Guerdane, Tunisia; and other locations. This raised doubts as to whether ISIS had truly disbanded the battalion.

 

Raids and Arrests

 

An illustration of the process of dragging detainees into the Battar battalion prison (ISIS Prison Museum)

 

 

Between 2014 and 2017, ISIS carried out widespread arrests of Shaitat clansmen. In many cases, simply being a member of the Shaitat clan was sufficient grounds for arrest, even if the clansman in question was a civilian who had not participated in any battles.

For 12 days in the summer of 2014, battles were fought between Shaitat fighters and ISIS. The fighting started after a series of disputes which followed the ISIS takeover of the entirety of Deir ez-Zor province. ISIS faced strong resistance from the Shaitat clansmen, who rejected the ISIS “caliphate.” The fighting ended with a massacre of the Shaitat clansmen and a significant portion of the local population displaced.[6]

Former prisoner Hamdan Allawi Abdullah, who was detained by ISIS in August 2014, says he was arrested in Bahra village after fleeing there from Kishkiyya when the fighting intensified. He was detained for around a week in the Battar Battalion Prison. Hamdan was stopped by Libyan ISIS members after they noticed his striped dress, which is typically worn by Shaitat clansmen. After checking his ID – which indicated that his place of birth was Kishkiyya, Hajin – the ISIS members arrested him.

 

List of prisoners detained by the battalion (a copy of the document is kept at the IPM archive)

 

Hamdan’s arrest exemplifies how ISIS targeted civilians fleeing to villages in the Bukamal area on the Syrian-Iraqi border. ISIS fighters exposed Hamdan’s shoulder to check for the mark of a rifle belt. He was also asked questions to test his religious knowledge. Another crucial question was: “When did you leave your village?” For ISIS, the ‘Municipality Incident’ of July 30, 2014 was a pivotal event that they used to identify individuals who had resisted them.

The Municipality Incident was an attack on the Kishkiyya municipality building, which ISIS had converted into a military base. The attack was conducted by approximately 50 civilians and fighters from the Shaitat militias, and came in response to ISIS breaching the agreement reached on July 8, 2014, which declared ISIS control over the Shaitat villages and mandated the surrender of militia weapons. In return, residents were allowed either to leave their villages safely or to stay and pledge allegiance to ISIS.

According to the agreement, ISIS pledged not to establish military bases within the villages or to conduct raids or arrests of locals without informing the area’s elders. However, ISIS quickly violated the first provision by transforming the municipality building into a military base. It also violated the second provision by killing two locals from Abu Hamam and mutilating one of their bodies. These actions enraged the Shaitat clansmen and provoked the attack on the Kishkiyya municipality building, sparking a series of bloody battles.

This explains the conclusion reached by the IPM’s investigation team, after cross-referencing witness testimonies, that ISIS squads responsible for raids and arrests, including those at the Battar Battalion Prison, divided prisoners into two categories. The first category included those who left the Shaitat villages after the Municipality Incident; it is likely that ISIS killed a significant number of people in this category, and buried them in mass graves. The second category included those who had left before the incident. Those in the second category were subjected to further investigations that tested their religious knowledge and determined whether they had participated in any anti-ISIS activities. Then the decision was made either to kill or to release them.

Asking those arrested religious questions right after their arrest can be understood in the context of the infamous fatwa issued by Abu Abdullah al-Kuwaiti, the ISIS sharia officer in the western countryside of Deir ez-Zor at the time, which considered the Shaitat clansmen “apostates and non-believers” who ought to be killed. The fatwa provided ISIS fighters with a religious justification for the widespread killing of civilians and Shaitat fighters.

The fatwa led to sometimes indiscriminate arrests and killings, and this chaos later led to disputes between ISIS judges and interrogators, some of whom believed that certain commanders, and members of the Battar Battalion in particular, had been excessive in their treatment of Shaitat civilians.

Testimonies gathered by the IPM from people detained in early 2015 indicate that the patrols responsible for raids and arrests consisted of members from multiple nationalities, but the reasons for arrest remained constant. Khalaf Ahmad al-Muhammad (born in 1989) and Merawwah Ahmad al-Jasem (born in 1988), both arrested on the charge of providing medical care to injured Shaitat clansmen at the Khalaf al-Alyan Hospital, noted that the ISIS members who raided their homes at night spoke dialects from Deir ez-Zor, Aleppo, and Iraq.

The two were arrested after ISIS obtained a video showing them at the hospital during the battles. Khalaf was detained for 23 days, while Merawwah was detained for 35 days, with a significant portion of that time spent in a solitary cell.

 

Change in the Prison Administration

 

Former prisoner Hamdan Allawi Abdullah says that most of the jailers at Battar Battalion Prison during his detention were from North African countries, including Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco, and they were of different ages, including teenagers, young men, and older men. One of the jailers was a 13-year-old named Qaswara. He was accompanied by other teenagers, which led Hamdan to believe that the battalion members were mainly relatives from the same family.

Hamdan describes the jailers as unorganized fighters, noting a lack of organized administration within the prison. The jailers were constantly changing, and often they would suddenly storm the detention cells, beating prisoners with rifles, sticks, and water hoses as a form of vengeance for losing friends or relatives in the ongoing fighting against the Shaitat during the prison’s establishment.

Hamdan describes the battalion members as follows: “They practiced strange rituals and screamed loudly. They wore linen clothes and rode motorbikes seized from the local area. They were savages, and their speech was strange and unintelligible to us.”

The emir in charge of the battalion was called Abu Abdullah al-Libi (the Libyan). The interrogator who questioned the prisoners, however, spoke in a Syrian dialect, and was in his 30s.

Testimonies from prisoners detained in 2015 indicate that changes were made to the prison administration, suggesting that the battalion either transferred control of the prison to a different group or that its administrative role was diminished.

Former prisoner Khalaf Ahmad al-Hamad says that the administration in 2015 consisted of jailers, logistics officers, and interrogators. He thinks that most of the logistics officers were from Aleppo; the jailers were locals responsible for conducting raids due to their familiarity with the local area; and the interrogators were Iraqis. Khalaf says that Abu Qarib al-Banyasi was in charge of the prison during that time.

Merawwah al-Jasem, however, who was detained at the same time, says that Libyan and Tunisian ISIS members were still present at the prison during his detention. The divergence between Merawwah and Khalaf’s testimonies regarding the prison staff may be due to Merawwah being detained in a solitary cell, separate from the group cells. In addition, the shifts and tasks assigned to the jailers were constantly changing.

 

Interrogation and Torture

An illustrated scene of the Scorpion Hanger torture (ISIS Prison Museum)

 

Hamdan Allawi Abdullah states that the interrogator, who spoke in a Syrian dialect, repeated the same questions he had been asked upon his arrest, inquiring specifically about when he had left the Shaitat villages. The interrogator attempted to manipulate those he questioned into informing on others who had fought against ISIS. He asked about what weapons people owned and the possible hiding places they used. These questions aligned with ongoing developments in the field. The effort to locate and seize weapons hidden by the Shaitat was a critical issue for ISIS during that period

Hamdan Allawi Abdullah describes the torture accompanying interrogation as arbitrary. For example, if a prisoner did not provide the required answer to a religious question, he was beaten with a rifle butt or whipped with cables.

Hamdan also states that he witnessed around 40 individuals being taken outside the prison, after which he and those with him heard the sound of shooting. After his release, he was able to identify several bodies located approximately 100 meters from the prison, and he believes they had most likely been prisoners at Battar Battalion Prison.

The testimonies of Merawwah al-Jasem and Khalaf al-Muhammad, who were detained in 2015, offer differing accounts of interrogation and torture. Both were accused of providing medical care to the Shaitat fighters and both were asked similar questions regarding their presence in the hospital, the nature of their work, and whether they had participated in the fighting. Although both men had volunteered to help the injured, they denied this, stating they had been in the hospital to seek medical help for their relatives.

Merawwah states that because he was able to display some religious knowledge, the interrogators considered keeping him alive rather than executing him. The decision was made to hold him in prison for some time until his fate was decided.

In 2015, there was a dedicated torture room in the prison. The most common torture method involved suspending prisoners in the ‘scorpion position’ and flogging them. In this position, the prisoner’s hands are tied behind his back, with one arm passed behind the shoulder and the other behind the waist, and then he is hung from these bindings, with his body about one meter above the ground. Prisoners subjected to this torture report that their body weight fell on their shoulders, causing lasting damage. Typically, prisoners were unable to move their arms for many hours afterwards.

 

An illustrated scene of the Scorpion Hanger torture (ISIS Prison Museum)

 

The most shocking experience Merawwah al-Jasem had in prison was when he was taken from his solitary cell and led outside to a bloodstained hole, where an ISIS jailer led him to believe he was going to be killed. After cutting Merawwah’s neck, the jailer took him back to the prison and placed him in a group cell.

Khalaf al-Muhammad says that during his detention he saw prisoners being taken from the prison to unknown locations. These prisoners never returned, leading him to believe that they may have been executed.

Eventually, Merawwah al-Jasem and Khalaf al-Muhammad were brought separately before a judge who ordered their release due to a lack of evidence. Both received treatment characterized by false kindness when they were transported to their homes. This unexpected gentle treatment may have been an attempt by some within ISIS to manage the fallout from the Shaitat massacre, reflecting the internal rift regarding this issue.

 

Daily Life in Prison

 

An illustration of the Battar prison (ISIS prisons museum)

 

Prisoners in Battar Battalion Prison lived in constant fear of death. This was a state shared by all those detained by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but it was especially the case for Shaitat clansmen. As prisoners were taken to the Battar Battalion Prison in 2014, they saw the corpses of their relatives and other locals that ISIS had left along the road. Their awareness of the tension between ISIS and the Shaitat heightened their fear and made it seem far less likely that they would survive.

Hamdan Allawi Abdullah states that the number of prisoners at the prison during his detention in 2014 was around 60. He says that one was a 13-year-old from Hajin. The boy had gone out to buy bread for his family when he was detained by ISIS as part of a mass arrest campaign in which 101 individuals were rounded up. Despite his young age, he endured severe torture at the hands of the jailers, who did not believe he had been going to buy bread, but insisted he had attempted to circle around ISIS members in order to join the Shaitat fighters.

A comparison of testimonies regarding life in Battar Battalion Prison in 2014 and 2015 reveals differences in the types of activities and regulations imposed on prisoners in these two periods.

In 2014, a key feature of daily life in the prison was the performance of tasks assigned to prisoners by the Battar Battalion. Hamdan Allawi Abdullah and others with him were forced to fetch water from nearby wells as a result of disruptions to the water supply in the prison. They were also ordered to tend livestock on nearby farms seized by ISIS after the locals had fled, to carry ammunition to the storeroom in the prison, and to repair ISIS vehicles. Hamdan says the prisoners did not consider running away while working outside the prison because the area was remote and under complete ISIS control. The sight of corpses lying on the roads around the prison reinforced their belief that escape was impossible. They hoped that compliance with the jailers’ instructions would improve their slim chances of survival.

Hamdan Allawi Abdullah says that many of the prisoners with him were young and did not have sufficient religious knowledge to satisfy the jailers. Therefore, he and another prisoner who had a university degree tried to provide the younger prisoners with enough religious knowledge to save them from torture or execution. In distinction to the practice in other ISIS prisons in Syria and Iraq, however, prisoners here were neither forced to perform the five daily prayers nor permitted to make their ablution before prayer. This was because the Shaitat clansmen were considered ‘apostates,’ according to the fatwa issued by Abu Abdullah al-Kuwaiti. As a result, prisoners in the Battar Battalion Prison performed tayammum (dry ablution) before prayer.

The prisoners took the opportunity to wash themselves and their clothes when they were at the wells watering the livestock or drawing water to carry back to the prison. Their meals consisted of dry bread and leftovers from the meals of ISIS members.

In 2015, on the other hand, Khalaf Ahmad al-Muhammad and Merawwah al-Jasem were not forced to perform tasks. It seems that the number of prisoners had decreased from the previous year. Khalaf estimates their number was around 10, and he says they spent most of their time sleeping. They were likely consumed by their fears and anxieties about their uncertain fate. They were not allowed to shower, which led to the spread of lice.

 

 

The Building After ISIS

The residents of Kishkiyya, who had fled en masse during the fighting between ISIS and the Shaitat, began returning on December 16, 2014.

Very quickly they began discovering mass graves. Multiple mass graves were discovered in Kishkiyya alone, most of them near ISIS prisons, including the Battar Battalion Prison. Photographs of the victims found in some of those mass graves are held in the IPM archive. Many were handcuffed and blindfolded, suggesting they had been killed shortly after being arrested.

The information gathered by the IPM indicates that the Battar Battalion Prison, like other ISIS prisons in the vicinity, continued to terrorize local people until the ISIS withdrawal from the Shaitat areas on January 25, 2018. After that the owner of the building reclaimed his property. More recently it has been repurposed as a storehouse for wheat and grains.

 

 

 

 

  1. Video footage showing members of the Battar Battalion in Benghazi, Libya. ↑

  2. “After Expulsion from Tamaskat, Battar Battalion Executes Libyan Prisoner Held for Years,” akhbarlibya24.net, June 5, 2015, URL. ↑

  3. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh) Part 2: Formation, Discourse and Practice, Arab Center for Research and Public Studies, 2018. ↑

  4. “The Shaitat Massacre: Documenting the Events and Reshaping the Narrative,” The ISIS Prisons Museum. ↑

  5. YouTube video purporting to show the Battar Battalion. ↑

  6. “The Shaitat Massacre: Documenting the Events and Reshaping the Narrative,” The ISIS Prisons Museum. ↑