Syria secures Assad-era mass grave revealed by Reuters and opens criminal investigation

December 29, 2025 3:12 PM

Syria secures Assad-era mass grave revealed by Reuters and opens criminal investigation

Syria’s government has ordered soldiers to guard a mass grave created to conceal atrocities under Bashar al-Assad and has opened a criminal investigation, following a Reuters report that revealed a yearslong conspiracy by the fallen dictatorship to hide thousands of bodies on the remote desert site. The site, in the Dhumair desert east of Damascus, was used during Assad’s rule as a military weapons depot, according to a former Syrian army officer with knowledge of the operation. It was late...

DNA from mass grave reveals pathogens that beset Napoleon’s army in 1812

October 27, 2025 7:54 PM

DNA from mass grave reveals pathogens that beset Napoleon’s army in 1812

The retreat from Russia by Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Grande Armée in 1812 was a cataclysmic event that marked the beginning of the end for his empire and personal dominance in Europe, with about 300,000 soldiers perishing in a force that originally numbered roughly a half million. A new study involving DNA extracted from the teeth of 13 French soldiers who were buried in a mass grave in Lithuania's capital Vilnius along the route of the retreat is offering a deeper understanding of the...