Barbara Koeppel reports:

As rebel forces poured into Syria’s capital and President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, Syrians surged to the streets to celebrate. Some rushed to Sednaya, the military prison they tagged “the human slaughterhouse” to search for missing family. Sadly, few were found. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, more than 30,000 people died there from 2011 to 2013 “either by execution, torture or starvation” and “at least 500 more died from 2018 to 2021.” Other disappeared earlier, since Syria’s prisons perfected their torture tactics over decades.

However, the global coverage about Syria’s prisons overlooks their role 20 years ago as one of the go-to places for the US to send terror suspects to be interrogated.

Ignored in the ignominious details of horrific torture is the rather nasty fact that even before 9/11, as the US hunted for terrorists, the CIA launched “extraordinary rendition”—an ingenious scheme to interrogate “high-value” suspects outside the country and thus avoid US laws on torture. The first suspects were taken to Egypt as early as in the mid-1990s and the program continued until 2007.

How many did the CIA render? A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report noted that exact numbers can’t be known because “then-CIA director, Michal Hayden, repeatedly gave the Committee misleading information, from the effectiveness of waterboarding to the number of detainees the CIA was holding.”

But according to a December 26, 2002, Washington Post article, “thousands were arrested and held with US assistance in countries known for brutal treatment of prisoners.” [Continue reading…]