Damascus Dossier
After 13 years of searching, a Syrian man learns his brother’s fate
A trove of leaked records provides new evidence of thousands of Assad regime killings — and a chance for closure for families.
Damascus Dossier
Tens of thousands of secret photos and intelligence files expose the Assad regime’s killing machine.
In this investigation
Damascus Dossier
Assad’s archive of death
Photographs of more than 10,000 regime victims capture a campaign of torture and mass murder in haunting, meticulous detail.
By Nicole Sadek | December 4, 2025
UNITED NATIONS
United Nations paid $11M to Syrian security firm owned by Assad intelligence services, documents show
For over a decade, U.N. aid agencies poured millions into the company despite warnings from human rights advocates.
By David Kenner | December 4, 2025
About Damascus Dossier
Featured investigations
Damascus Dossier
After 13 years of searching, a Syrian man learns his brother’s fate
A trove of leaked records provides new evidence of thousands of Assad regime killings — and a chance for closure for families.
Damascus Dossier
Assad’s archive of death
Photographs of more than 10,000 regime victims capture a campaign of torture and mass murder in haunting, meticulous detail.
UNITED NATIONS
United Nations paid $11M to Syrian security firm owned by Assad intelligence services, documents show
For over a decade, U.N. aid agencies poured millions into the company despite warnings from human rights advocates.
Damascus Dossier
About the Damascus Dossier investigation
An exposé into Assad’s vast system for the detention, torture and murder of Syrian citizens — and the international forces that financed his regime.
Key findings
1
Analysis of more than 134,000 leaked files from Syria’s Air Force Intelligence, General Intelligence Directorate and other security services provides remarkable new evidence of a state-directed program involving mass detention, torture and killing.
2
Photos of more than 10,200 corpses show how Syrian authorities methodically catalogued the murder of civilian detainees from 2015 through 2024, contradicting Bashar Assad’s denials of mass atrocities.
3
Interviews by ICIJ and NDR with seven families whose loved ones’ deaths are verified in the records, provide personal verification of the regime’s abuses.
4
Review of documents reveals that United Nations agencies paid at least $11 million to a Syrian private security company responsible for guarding U.N. facilities — a company that was owned and controlled by Assad’s intelligence services.
