Civil war: dpa photographer Alkharboutli killed in Syria

The dpa photographer Anas Alkharboutli was killed in Syria. He was 32 years old. Alkharboutli died in an airstrike while working near the Syrian city of Hama. Colleagues from other media were there and reported on his death. Alkharboutli photographed the advance of the rebel alliance Haiat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Fighter planes fire on a group with Alkharboutli

It happened at a bridge in the town of Morek – about 28 kilometers north of Hama. The town is on the highway between Aleppo and the Syrian capital Damascus. The Rebel Alliance’s attacks have been going on for a week. They began in Idlib, in the northwest of the country. The HTS units are marching towards Aleppo. Alkharboutli is there as a rapporteur.

In Morek he and colleagues are waiting for approval from the HTS. Then – presumably Syrian – fighter planes bomb their position twice. The journalists throw themselves to the ground. After the attack, they stand up and call out to each other. Alkharboutli did not respond. He remains lying there, as his colleagues describe. He was injured in both legs. They would have seen him die. Alkharboutli is buried in Idlib on the same day.

“His journalistic legacy is an obligation to us”

The news hits colleagues at the German Press Agency worldwide hard. Editor-in-chief Sven Gösmann says: “All of us at dpa are in shock and are infinitely sad about the death of Anas Alkharboutli. His journalistic legacy is an obligation to us. With his pictures he not only documented the horrors of war, he always stood for the truth worked.”

He began working as a photojournalist in 2015 and joined dpa in 2017. Alkharboutli had studied engineering at the University of Damascus.

International awards for Alkharboutli’s photographs

His images from the Syrian civil war are internationally recognized and honored. In 2020, Alkharboutli will receive the Young Reporter Trophy from the prestigious French Prix Bayeux for war reporting. He won the sports category at the Sony World Photography Awards in 2021 with a series of images of children training in karate.

The Syrian civil war back in focus

The jihadist rebel alliance HTS took Aleppo over the weekend. The front then shifted towards Hama. There, rebel units are fighting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government troops. The Syrian and Russian air forces carried out dozens of attacks against the rebels in the surrounding area. Assad forces began a counteroffensive. According to government sources and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Assad’s troops pushed the rebels back a good ten kilometers north of Hama.

The Observatory is based in London and has a network of local informants who follow the war. According to these findings, more than 570 people have now been killed in the fighting, including almost 100 civilians.

2011, when the civil war began

First there were peaceful protests for more democracy against al-Assad, then a civil war began in 2011. The country is deeply divided. Assad’s government controls about two-thirds of the country. Assad receives military support from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran.

Russia has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine since February 2022. Iran and Israel attacked each other directly for the first time this year. Tensions continue. Open war in the Middle East is possible.

Rebels are clearly taking advantage of Russia’s efforts in the Ukraine war

Analysts believe the rebels are taking advantage of the fact that Russia and Iran are each militarily distracted in other theaters.

The offensive is led by the Islamist group Haiat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is considered the successor to the Al-Nusra Front, a former offshoot of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda in Syria.

According to terrorism experts and security agencies in the United States and Australia, HTS changed its name in 2016 and officially broke with al-Qaeda. However, the group continues to be described as a terrorist organization whose activities are focused on Syria. The US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) emphasizes that despite the secession, HTS pursues a Salafist-jihadist ideology. The group aims to overthrow Assad and establish an Islamic system of rule in Syria.