On the eve of December 8, 2024, as Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed, marking the end of five decades of oppression, Damascus celebrated the liberation of Syria. There was jubilation and uncertainty as an embattled population experienced what they thought would never happen.
But amid the historic upheaval, the city’s National Museum faced a grave threat: looters descended upon it, putting priceless antiquities at risk.
On the night of Syria’s liberation, 59-year-old Mahmoud Al-Khatib, known as Abu Khalil, guard at the museum, found himself alone, defending the building — and millennia of heritage — against looters, with nothing but a rifle and his quick thinking.
Initially joined by several police officers, Abu Khalil was left alone when they learned of Assad’s escape. They took off their uniforms to avoid being identified as policemen, and blended in with the crowds, leaving Abu Khalil behind.
“I consider myself a son of this place,” he told The New Arab. “I had a responsibility to protect the museum, and I decided that day to either live and protect it or die trying.”
the museum with nothing but a rifle
Syria’s rich cultural heritage has long been a target for both theft and destruction, particularly since the onset of the civil war in 2011.
The National Museum of Damascus, established in 1919, houses relics from ancient Mesopotamia, Roman and Byzantine civilisations, and the Islamic world. Overlooking the Barada River in the Al Hijaz neighbourhood, it is one of the most famous museums in the Arab world.
During the war, the museum also became a sanctuary for artefacts that the Assad regime sought to protect from further damage. Had the museum been looted or destroyed that night, it would have marked a severe loss to Syria’s heritage, and Abu Khalil was well aware of that.
A long night for Abu Khalil
Mohamed Nazir Awad, the head of Syria’s General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums, reported leaving the museum at 10 pm that night, checking all the doors and entrusting Abu Khalil to defend the premises.
“I was sure that he would not leave the museum,” he told The New Arab, describing Abu Khalil as courageous and patriotic.
As Abu Khalil walked the grounds, he heard gunfire and commotion outside the walls at around 3:30 am. He found a group of looters outside the door of the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums building, adjacent to the museum, and addressed them from the museum’s window.
“I asked them to leave, but none of them responded to me,” he recalled. “So I fired shots into the air with my rifle and pretended to have backup by calling out instructions loudly.”
The bluff worked, and the intruders changed their course — only to light a fire in the wooden garage of the Directorate of Antiquities.
Panicking and fearing that the fire would spread, Abu Khalil had to act quickly, struggling to extinguish the fire alone, risking suffocation and suffering severe burns to his hands. He claimed that he used 20 fire extinguishers to stop the blaze and did not stop working until a museum supervisor came in the morning.
Damage to Damascus
While many Syrians took to Damascene streets to celebrate the ousting of Assad after the Turkey-backed Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) captured Damascus, theft, looting, and random gunfire were reported across the city.
In total, Mohamed said, eight cars were stolen from the General Directorate and the garage was burned. Despite the riots, the directorate reported that only the Damascus Citadel suffered damage, losing some antiquities and equipment.
Following the turmoil, Mohamed contacted Syria’s military operations authority, who immediately set up round-the-clock guards at the museum. They also sent guards to the Al-Azem Palace, a 17th-century Ottoman-era monument, the Museum of Arabic Calligraphy, Khan As’ad Pasha, and the Museum of Medicine and Science.
Since 2011, antiquities in Syria have not been spared from the fire of combatants, the hands of thieves, and the vandalism of extremists.
Currently, there are six UNESCO World Heritage sites in Syria: the ancient cities of Aleppo, Bosra, and Damascus, the ancient villages of Northern Syria, Crac des Chevaliers and Qal’at Salah El-Din, and the site of Palmyra.
A 2014 United Nations report reported that many of these sites were damaged — in some cases beyond repair — and subjected to looting, as the illegal trade of cultural artefacts has reached an all-time high.
Antiquities in the heart of the fire
In 2015, Dartmouth College’s Middle East Archaeology bulletin reported that 1,300 of Syria’s 8,000 archaeological sites had been looted and vandalised, primarily by the Islamic State group (IS/ISIS), as well as by Kurds, regime forces, opposition groups, and other actors.
According to the report, most severe and moderate damages done to artefacts happened in IS-held and regime-controlled regions, whereas minor damages were more common in areas under YPG and opposition control.
The Islamic State group, in particular, systematically looted and destroyed historical sites throughout the country, often for ideological reasons — aiming to erase the pre-Islamic past — or for economic gain, smuggling antiquities for millions of dollars.
Finally, a 2020 report from the Gerda Henkel Foundation and the Syrian Association for the Protection of Antiquities revealed that more than 40,000 artefacts had been looted since the war began, generating millions of dollars in revenue for IS, other factions, and the Assad regime.
However, according to journalist Waed Almhana, a fierce defender of Syrian antiquities and heritage, the damage cannot be accurately estimated yet.
“One of the problems with the issue of Syrian antiquities is that people exploited the chaos and secretly excavated throughout the country, along with the spread of mafias to sell these finds and smuggle them to neighbouring countries and then to various countries of the world,” he explained, noting the challenges of retrieving these looted treasures.
He particularly mourned the loss of the 16,000 Ebla tablets from the Idlib countryside, the earliest written documents in Syria, dating back to the 3rd millennium BC.
Waed pointed out that the situation is equally dire in other areas in Syria. Since 2011, Raqqa has seen widespread antiquities theft, including the looting of gold from the Deir Atiyah Museum, as well as similar plundering at the Daraa Museum and others.
“Any damage done to the National Museum of Damascus would have added to the immense cultural tragedy of Syria’s lost artefacts,” Waed concluded.
Abu Khalil, for that one night all alone amidst the chaos, ensured that this did not happen.
Mawada Bahah is an independent Syrian journalist with bylines in local, regional and international outlets
Follow her on X: @MawadaBahah
This piece was published in collaboration with Egab
