A probe supported by a British advocacy group into attacks by Syrian government forces that left 700 people dead in Darayya, Syria 10 years ago has revealed Iranian and Hezbollah militias’ involvement.
A team of investigators from Syria, or of Syrian descent, backed by the Syrian British Consortium (SBC) advocacy group, tracked down survivors and witnesses from around the world to analyze their testimonies, and published their findings on Thursday, hoping that UN bodies and other legal institutions use the report to prosecute some of those responsible.
The report said investigators were able to identify government forces and Iranian and Hezbollah militias involved in the attacks by their uniforms, insignia and weaponry, including types of tanks, as well as how members of the units addressed each other.
The team also identified some individuals responsible. “This investigation reveals that the Assad Government and supporting Hezbollah and Iranian militias engaged in a systematic attack against the civilian population of Darayya from August 20 to 26, 2012”, as they advanced against the town from multiple directions and indiscriminately attacked neighborhoods by shelling and airstrikes, and deliberately targeted hospitals.
Reports regarding the involvement of Iranian troops grew after August 5, 2012 (two weeks before the Darayya massacre), when a Free Syrian Army brigade captured 48 active-duty members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the southeastern part of Damascus, a few kilometers away from Darayya.
One witness told researchers that the scene at the hospital after one attack was “horrific, like doomsday”. “Everyone was looking for their loved ones, trying to get them treatment. People were running and hiding.”
Vice Admiral Mahmoud Mousavi, the spokesman for the drone exercises, said Thursday that during the second day of the drills a set of mock targets modeled from “sensitive and vital” facilities were destroyed by actual weapons.
He added that Kaman, Mohajer, Ababil, Karrar, and Bavar drones used homegrown weapons, including Qa’em bombs, Almas missiles and MK-82 bombs, to target positions ranging from command-and-control centers to fuel tanks, ammunition depots, and radar and missile systems.
Mousavi said various types of combat drones operated by the four units of the Army, namely the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force and Air Defense Force, hit the designated targets in the area of the exercises — which covers almost all the Iranian territory and strategic southern waters.
Iran’s Army started a large-scale drone drill on Wednesday, featuring its reconnaissance and combat drones in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, as well as all over its territory.
Deputy Chief of the Iranian Army for Coordination Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said on Tuesday that more than 150 new advanced drones will be flown in the drill.
Earlier in the month, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard confirmed that it held joint drone exercises with Russia at the Kashan Air Base, adding that Belarus and Armenia are also partaking in the drills.
Point-to-point inflation compares prices in a particular month to the same period in the previous year. However, annual inflation, which compares pries in the last 12 months to the previous 12 months rose to 41.5 percent according to the report.
Although the inflation rate increase slowed slightly from the previous Iranian month, overall the pace of inflation has accelerated since May.
The report says rents, medicine, and restaurant food, as well as snack cakes and biscuits had the highest jump last month, but prices of chicken and hydrogenated cooking oil dropped slightly.
The crucial problem for Iran is the high rate of inflation in the food sector this year. The overall nationwide point-to-point annual food inflation rate in June 2022 compared with the same period in 2021 was 87 percent but the rate reached 100 percent in parts of Iran.
Most price increases happened since early May when the government scrapped a food import subsidy to save around $15 billion in foreign currency annually. The move, which the government called a ‘great economic surgery’ immediately triggered a massive rise in prices for basic food staples, such as bread, pasta, dairy products, cooking oil and meat.
Until further notice, President Ebrahim Raisi said in a televised interview following the announcement of the new policy, the government would pay monthly around 4 million rials (about $15) to 30 percent of the population at the lowest-income groups, and around 3 million to 60 percent of the population. The 10 percent at the highest income level would receive no cash handouts, he said.
Some experts have argued that if the government continues to pay the cash handouts it would reach $10 billion annually, which would mean printing more money and creating more inflation. The previous food import subsidy was based on disbursing cheaper dollars among importers, with less risk of inflation.
Economists say lower income people experience a higher rate of inflation as they spend more of their income on essential foods and often forsake anything deemed as luxury. With back-to-back high inflation since 2018, many missile class people have dropped to low-income status.
The rate of inflation for food items including staples like bread, pasta, eggs, and cooking oil affect the contents of the shopping basket of the lower income families more than those with higher income.
For instance, the two lowest income percentiles spend more than 40% of their money for food whereas this amounts to less than 17% for the highest income percentile. The discrepancy in the way that higher and lower income classes experience inflation widens the gap between the poor and the rich, economists say.
“The overall purchasing power has dropped because of [the government’s] economic reform in May. There is [an abundance] of goods in the market but people can't buy as much as they did before. Many items in people’s shopping baskets have been eliminated, reduced, or replaced with cheaper similar essential goods,” Alireza Heydari, economist, explained to Tejarat News.
The point-to-point inflation rate affecting the lowest income percentile in comparison with the highest income percentile has increased by 1.2% in the past month from 5.7 to 6.9 in the calendar month ending August 22 due to the higher share of foodstuff in the shopping basket of the lower income percentiles which includes fewer ‘non-essential’ items.
