WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday accused the Syrian government of carrying out mass killings of thousands of prisoners and burning the bodies in a large crematorium outside the capital.
The State Department said it thought about 50 detainees a day were being hanged at the Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes from Damascus. Many of the bodies, it said, are then being burned in the crematorium.
"We believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Saydnaya prison," said Stuart Jones, the top US diplomat for the Middle East.
The department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it said was a building in the prison complex that had been modified to support the crematorium. The photographs taken over several years, beginning in 2013, do not definitely prove the building is a crematorium, but they show construction consistent with such use. One photograph taken in January 2015 shows one area of the building's roof cleared of snow because of melt.
In presenting the photographs, Jones said Syrian President Bashar Assad's government "has sunk to a new level of depravity" with the support of Russia and Iran and called on the two countries to use their influence with Syria to establish a credible cease-fire and begin political talks.