--- title: A Syrian Soldier Claims to Have Witnessed Atrocities | TIME description: A purported Syrian Army solider says he fled atrocities he witnessed back home in Syria canonical: https://time.com/video/ttOACDXV/ og:title: A Syrian Soldier Claims to Have Witnessed Atrocities og:description: A purported Syrian Army solider says he fled atrocities he witnessed back home in Syria og:url: https://time.com/video/ttOACDXV/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ttOACDXV/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Syrian Soldier Claims to Have Witnessed Atrocities twitter:description: A purported Syrian Army solider says he fled atrocities he witnessed back home in Syria twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ttOACDXV/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # A Syrian Soldier Claims to Have Witnessed Atrocities > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: A Syrian Soldier Claims to Have Witnessed Atrocities [Watch (HLS stream): A Syrian Soldier Claims to Have Witnessed Atrocities](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ttOACDXV.m3u8) (2:46)  _Published 2012-03-08. A purported Syrian Army solider says he fled atrocities he witnessed back home in Syria_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:22 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Watch: Syrian Children Talk About Life As Child Soldiers](/video/oV3FKOa9/) ### Watch: Syrian Children Talk About Life As Child Soldiers [The Witness - Trailer](/video/xMlKnvaz/) ### The Witness - Trailer [Inside Cyberwar and the Syrian Electronic Army](/video/t5aFiA2z/) ### Inside Cyberwar and the Syrian Electronic Army --- ## Transcript On a freezing cold afternoon, Abdullah, a Syrian Kurd wanders through a refugee camp in northern Iraq haunted by what he says he did in the city of [ INAUDIBLE ] three months earlier. [ FOREIGN ] I was a tank driver. That was my job. They took us out from our bases to launch shells at Baba Amr. We used explosive shells. Specifically to destroy the city's infrastructure. They were fragmentary shells intended to kill as many as possible and maim the rest. To protect his family who are still in Syria, Abdullah has asked to use an alias and to mask his face. [ FOREIGN ]. We were in a group of tanks outside of Baba Amr. And we were shelling indiscriminately. We weren't shooting at selected targets. We were shooting indiscriminately. The targets weren't specified for us to be either civilian, opposition, or Free Syrian Army. Nothing was specified. There were a lot of civilians in Baba Amr being killed. Horrified by what he says he seen and done. Abdulla says he crossed the border into the semi autonomous region of Iraqi Kuridstan. Where he found refuge in a camp outside the city of Dohuk. This small camp was built to house refugees who fled the 2004 Kurdish uprising in Syria. Today it has over 70 Kurdish Syrian soldiers. Who have deserted the military and sought refuge in Iraq. According to Iraqi Kurdish authorities, there are 106 Syrian soldiers who have fled into the region, with more arriving every day with stories of massacres and mass graves. There were a lot of civilians in Baba Amr being killed. [ CROSSTALK ] There was a massacre in an olive grove. We have a lot of olive trees there, so we call the area Alzea- Toom, which means olive. They buried a lot of people there to hide them. Abdula is physically safe now, but it's the memories that trouble him these days. It is always on my mind, I cannot forget. Nobody could forget the killings. But the killings that happened in front of me, my firends, Syrian people, I cannot forget that. It's always on my mind. There are things I cannot forget. My friends here ask me about it, but I don't wanna talk about it because I just simply can't. My heart isn't strong enough to say it, because there are too many things that have happened. Like the other Syrian soldiers who fled to this camp, Abdulla seems haunted by the indiscriminate torture, killings and mass graves back home. For Time Videos, Sebastian Meyer, in Dohuk, Iraq. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A Syrian Soldier Claims to Have Witnessed Atrocities","description":"A purported Syrian Army solider says he fled atrocities he witnessed back home in Syria","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ttOACDXV/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2012-03-08T14:32:32.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ttOACDXV.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/ttOACDXV/","duration":"PT2M46S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/ttOACDXV/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```