Assad regime prefers barrel bombs to target civilians: report

THE SYRIAN Human Rights Network (SNHR) reported on Friday that the Bashar Assad regime dropped barrel bombs 81,916 times in attacks on civilian settlements under opposition control over the last nine years.

Documenting the violations of civilians in Syria, SNHR published its report on barrel bomb attacks organized by the Assad regime between July 2012 and April 2021. According to the information, regime forces used barrel bombs 81,916 times in indiscriminate attacks in which 11,087 civilians, including 1,821 children and 1,780 women, were killed.

Regime forces used the bombs 2,314 times in 2012, 14,976 times in 2013, 19,654 times in 2014, 17,318 times in 2015, 12,958 times in 2016, 6,243 times in 2017 and 3,601 times in 2018. Barrel bombs were used by the regime 4,378 times in 2019 and 474 times in 2020; for 2021, however, there are no records on barrel bomb usage so far.

Since 2012, the regime has attacked civilians with 93 chemical weapons containing poisonous gas, as well as the barrel bombs dropped by helicopters.

While the provinces most targeted by barrel bombs were listed as Damascus, Aleppo, Dera and Idlib, the most number of casualties caused by the barrel bombs were recorded in Aleppo.

Health centers in Syria were targeted 104 times, schools targeted 188 times, mosques targeted 205 times and market places targeted 57 times with barrel bombs. It was emphasized that the Assad regime used barrel bombs as a weapon to displace civilians, and it was stated that millions of civilians were displaced as a result of the attacks of the regime and its supporters. The report also shared a list of individuals who are responsible from these attacks. The list was headed by Bashar Assad himself and included the Syrian Defense Minister Ali Abdullah Eyyüb and several others, most of whom are intelligence officials.

The regime prefers barrel bombs because of the low cost (around $50) and the massive destruction effect.

The regime, which mostly targets civilian areas with these bombs, aims for the highest loss of life and the greatest amount of destruction.

Depending on the amount of explosives filled into the bombs, they can cause destruction in an area of 50-200 meters. Barrel bombs, which are defined as “free fall” in military terminology, force civilians to flee because of the damage they cause to settlements.