Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Palmyra oasis surrounded by bleak desert.
We had seen this trend elsewhere. One in particular was Aqaba where entire neighbour-
hoods were being built outside the city, so that people residing in the old town could be
moved to facilitate restoration of the ancient sites.
Unknown to us the darker side to Palmyra, with its date palms, oasis location and spectac-
ular ruins. It appears that in the 1980's, the Syrian regime slaughtered approximately 1000
Islamic detainees as they sat within their cells in the desert prison of Tadmor (the Aramaic
name for Palmyra). It is believed this occurred in conjunction with the massacre at Harma.
At the time the prison housed thousands of Syrian prisoners, both political and criminal.
The massacre was initiated by Rifat al-Asad, after the Syrian branch of the Islamist Muslim
Brotherhood had attempted to assassinate his brother, President Hafez al-Asad.
It is claimed that this massacre was not the only one carried out and the numbers of those
who have vanished through this prison has reached 17,000. It also seems that whoever at-
