The conflict in Syria had an immense impact on the urban fabric. Many cities suffered severe damage during the war. Destruction is the act of damaging something to a point beyond repair: until it no longer exists¹. In the cases of Qaboun and Marota City the indiscriminate destruction of homes and impact on civilians living in the area could be defined as ‘domicide’. Writer and researcher Ammar Azzour delineates this definition as ‘deliberate destruction’ or ‘killing of the city or home’. Among Destruction, Dispossession and Development, Destruction was used as the first action to shape the narrative of necessary reconstruction.  Destroyed, or cleared, areas obscure civilians’ land rights and enable systematic Dispossession. Obfuscation means areas remain unclaimed, opening up opportunities for investment by other actors and encouraging commercial and luxury developments at the expense of civilians. It was in Marota city that Decree 66 of 2012 was first executed, dictating the creation of two new regulatory zones in the Damascus Governorate, meant to “redevelop areas of unauthorised housing and informal settlements”². Demolition was followed by the establishment of Damascus Cham Holding³ and from 2015⁴ – 2017⁵ houses were further demolished and the cultural history of Basateen al-Razi erased. Like Basateen al-Razi, the area of Qaboun was a site of resistance movements which too were quashed by its destruction at the benefit of Damascus Cham Holding amongst other actors. We look at Qaboun as a key study due to the intensity and scale of the destruction which suggest unjust profiteering.

Qaboun, formerly a mix of industrial sites and a combination of informal housing and planned residential areas⁶, was bombed during the civil war. From 2017 to 2023 – by use of Law 10 – the area was cleared and materials were collected to be repurposed in redevelopment projects in Syria. According to the Lighthouse Report, iron extracted from the rubble was processed in the Adra Industrial City factories owned by Mohammed Hamsho and used to construct the first tower blocks built in Marota City⁷. Many Syrians were forcibly displaced and prevented from returning to their homes⁸.

This immense level of destruction is not only the result of war related damage, but lies at the intersection of enforcement of lawmaking connected to regional planning, forced displacement of people and elite control. We ask ourselves – why has Qaboun faced continued destruction from 2011 onwards, and why demolish an entire area to the ground?

Territory

In order to understand why Qaboun was targeted, it is necessary to understand the geographic location and its importance within a broader history. Qaboun is located between central Damascus to the west and the Eastern Ghouta region to the east, on the main corridor that splits toward the Old City and the ring road and ties into the M5 to Homs and Aleppo. This makes Qaboun a key strategic location in terms of infrastructural control for goods and people entering and exiting Damascus.

Despite Qaboun being close to Damascus, its history separates it from the city. Qaboun’s origin as a settlement, with administrative boundaries that included the surrounding agricultural land was originally considered part of rural Eastern Ghouta, with a total population of 3500 people in 1935. After the French Master Plan included the settlement within the greater Damascus, its population began to increase. The Syrian Government’s plans for industrialisation in the 1950s led to the establishment of two important industrial complexes in Qaboun. These industrial areas were developed on agricultural land between Qaboun (which at that time was still a small village)and the neighbouring settlement of Jobar. They were strategically located along the main transport route leading north to Homs and took advantage of the cheap labour force that began to transition from agricultural activities and to adapt to the new industrial sector contributing to a further increase in the population of Qaboun⁹.

Qaboun was — and continues to be — surrounded by numerous government and security agency facilities, including military and intelligence headquarters and the Damascus Police College to its west part and two more military installations south of the M5 highway, making it a key point within the state’s security apparatus. At the same time, it was a crucial transport node, hosting the long-distance bus terminal at the capital’s northern entrance¹⁰. In short, Qaboun could be understood as a liminal strategic threshold: urban and rural at once, a conduit for goods and people, and a sensitive belt adjacent to state installations beneath the slopes of Mount Qasioun – who controls the land matters.

Forced demographic politics

As peaceful protests erupted across Syria in 2011, some of the first demonstrations seen in the Damascus region commenced in Qaboun¹¹. The residents called for democratic reform and an end to decades of emergency law. 

As protests grew the Syrian Government began to retaliate violently and in June and July of that year, residents of Qaboun were killed by Government security forces who used live ammunition to quell further protests in the district. What began as peaceful demonstrations were soon met with state violence and infrastructural punishment¹². Around the same time the district started experiencing interruptions in electricity service, as well as the provision of fuel to some parts of Qaboun, reportedly in an effort by the Government to force compliance. This instead led to a civil disobedience campaign where residents stopped the payment of their utility bills. By 2012 Qaboun’s siege had effectively begun, a method later described by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria as a weapon of war designed to “encircle, starve, surrender, and evacuate” civilian populations¹³.

While armed clashes intensified between 2012 and 2017, the government’s actions went beyond military containment. Testimonies and independent analyses suggest that Qaboun was deliberately targeted not only for its opposition presence but for its symbolic resistance as it was a district known for quiet defiance and strong local organisation¹⁴. Siege tactics were used as a form of infrastructural warfare: one report states electricity as well as provisions of fuel were interrupted in  some parts of Qaboun¹⁵.

In January 2017, prior to the Government’s 2017 military campaign over Qaboun neighbourhood, there was a total population of 30,513 (16,194 in Qaboun neighbourhood, 14,319 in Tishrine neighbourhood, and zero in al-Masaneh’). By the end of the campaign in May 2017, the total population of Qaboun District had decreased to 216 people. After the Government regained control and the district’s almost total depopulation in May, there was a gradual low level of return to the district. In the months that followed, there were still fewer than 500 people living in the area. Towards the end of 2018 the population stood at a total of 4,112. The most recent population estimate, in July 2019, stood at 3990, which included 804 IDPs from other areas, including nearby Eastern Ghouta¹⁶.

After the forced evacuations of 2017, large portions of the district were levelled. Qaboun’s erasure thus served dual aims: quelling one of Damascus’s earliest centers of dissent while opening its territory for speculative urban investment and elite enrichment¹⁷.

The destruction of Qaboun, therefore, cannot be disentangled from its political geography. It was a form of retribution against a district that had resisted both economically and symbolically, an assault that turned the landscape itself into a tool of governance and control.

Profiting from the Scraps

Testimonies indicate that the war and so-called de-mining served as an excuse to erase working-class areas with little regard for displaced residents, echoing what occurred in Marota City, where neoliberal policies and speculative real-estate ventures flourished¹⁸. According to the Middle East Institute, the regime repeatedly used demolition and delayed return of residents as tools to reshape Damascus’s urban and socio-economic fabric¹⁹.

As researcher Joseph Daher argues in Syria After the Uprisings: The Political Economy of State Resilience and as quoted in The Guardian’s reporting on Syria’s post-war reconstruction the Syrian regime used the war to accelerate pre-existing plans to restructure Damascus, attract investor capital, and reward its patronage networks: “War is used to deepen neoliberal policies and austerity measures, as well as to realise schemes it would not be able to do in a period that wasn’t a war or a crisis.”²⁰ 

Beyond redevelopment, there were clear signs of profiteering through material extraction. Demolition crews, operating under agreements between the military’s Fourth Division and private contractors such as Mahmoud Al-Amr (‘Al-Hout’), stripped rebar and building materials from destroyed homes. These were reportedly transported to Mohammad Hamsho’s iron factories in Adra Industrial City, re-processed, and even reused in luxury developments like Marota²¹.

In Qaboun, reconstruction became a continuation of war through legal and economic means. Law No. 10 of 2018 enabled the state to seize partially damaged²² land, transfer it to regime-linked developers, and displace former residents under the guise of renewal. What followed was not recovery but extraction of land, labour, and materials turning destruction itself into a source of profit.

Meanwhile, industrialists were incentivised to relocate to Adra Industrial City under Samer Al-Dibs, head of the Damascus Chamber of Industry, with plots larger than their original provided they rebuilt their factories from scratch²³.

This alignment of legal, military, and economic power entrenched a pattern of displacement, profit, and exclusion, turning Qaboun into a site of domicide rather than recovery.

Mapping the connection between Qaboun, Marota City and Adra Industrial City through the recurring legal structures materials and actors

In Qaboun, this dramatic and extensive level of demolition cleared the space for the new Zoning Plans to be proposed and approved. Discussions about the plans were re-emerging at governorate level, and processing related to Law 10/2018 came into play. Zoning Plan No. 104 which was approved in June 2019,  granted a public joint-stock company owned by the Damascus Governorate, Damascus Cham Holding, the authority to appoint its management subsidiaries to oversee, manage, and execute the rezoning of the Qaboun industrial area reclassifying the area to residential and commercial²⁴. Notably, Damascus Cham Holding is the same company responsible for the Marota City project and has in the past been connected to Assad’s cronies Rami Makhlouf²⁵ and Samer Foz²⁶.

Zoning Plan 104 in comparison with the Destroyed areas before and after its approval

[Images used: Emmar Syria (إعمار سورية), “معلومات هامة عن تنظيم القابون الجديد مدخل دمشق الشمالي بما يخص مقاسم مالكي أسهم تنظيم القابون الجديد,” Facebook, photo, 04 May 2024  & Google Earth Pro (Windows), imagery date June 2019, Qaboun, Damascus, Syria, 33.549° N, 36.300° E.]

Consequently, the Damascus Governorate subsequently announced Detailed Plan No. 105 in June 2020 for the residential section of Qaboun, under the Urban Planning and Cities Law No. 23 of 2015. This plan excluded the zoned residential area of Abu Jarash (which remained under regime control during the war) and the informal settlement of Tishreen, heavily damaged during the conflict. Although the governorate approved the plan in July 2020 and opened a one-month window for public objections. The objections were to be reviewed, and Plan No. 105 was expected to be approved and issued through a special decree, similar to the industrial Qaboun plan. However, this did not occur and no justification has been provided for the delay²⁷.  

Zoning Plan 105 in comparison with the Destroyed areas before and after its approval

[Images used : “Qaboun & Jobar, new planning,” plan, 2018, in “Enab Baladi publishes al-Qaboun neighborhood’s regulatory plan amid calls for residents to object to planning proposal,” Enab Baladi (English), July 14, 2020 & Google Earth Pro (Windows), imagery date July 2020, Qaboun, Damascus, Syria, 33.549° N, 36.300° E.]

According to population movement data previously mentioned, only a small number of original Qaboun residents (that is residents of Qaboun prior to 2011) had returned by the time Zoning Plans 104 and 105 were announced and during the window for public objections. Thus, suggesting that the needs and objections of the former residents of Qaboun were not the guiding principle in defining the Zoning Plans 104 and 105. Additionally, we can only further question which actors profit from the extensive changes  to the urban fabric and character in Qaboun. Not only have the industrial areas of Qaboun been turned into commercial and residential zones but also the character of the new housing developments have little similarity to the housing units in Qaboun prior to its destruction.

Ending Remarks

The destruction of Qaboun cannot be seen only as the consequence of war, nor entirely as an act of renewal. What unfolded was a gradual transformation where military violence merged with planning, and the language of reconstruction masked deeper logics of control and speculation. Through frameworks such as Law No. 10 of 2018, Qaboun’s ruins were reclassified as zones of investment, shifting ownership and access under the guise of rebuilding. The result was not simply redevelopment, but a reordering of territory, memory, and belonging.

To ask why and by whom was Qaboun destroyed is to trace how destruction can serve multiple aims at once: to punish, to profit, and to reimagine the city in another image. Qaboun becomes a site where the boundaries between war and reconstruction blur where loss and opportunity, ruin and renewal, coexist uneasily on the same ground.

1. “Destruction,” The Britannica Dictionary, accessed November 2, 2025. ↩︎
2. Ammar Azzouz, “Domicide: The Destruction of Homes in Gaza Reminds Me of What Happened to My City, Homs,” The Conversation, October 26, 2023. ↩︎
3. The Syria Report, “Profile: Damascus Cham Holding, the Company at the Heart of the Marota City Project,” The Syria Report, July 6, 2022.  ↩︎
4. Reham Toujan, and Tariq Adely. “‘Damascus Dream’ Project to Rebuild Means Eviction Notices for Slum Residents,” Syria Direct, March 29, 2017. ↩︎
5. Habib Shehada, “‘Fake Houses’: Decree 66 Breaches Its Promises and Expels Syrian Families.” Siraj, April 4, 2020. ↩︎
6. UrbAN Syria, Qaboun District Case Study, Urban Analysis Network, 2020.  ↩︎
7. Mais Katt et al, “The Rubble King,” Lighthouse Reports, December 3, 2023. ↩︎
8. The Syria Report, “Qaboun: From Systematic Demolition to Urban Planning,” January 20, 2025.  ↩︎
9. UrbAN Syria, “Qaboun District Case Study.”   ↩︎
10. ibid ↩︎
11. Omar Alaa Eldin, “Al-Qaboun: Back to Square One,” Enab Baladi (English edition), March 3, 2025. ↩︎
12. UrbAN Syria, “Qaboun District Case Study.”  ↩︎
13. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, Sieges as a Weapon of War: Encircle, Starve, Surrender, Evacuate, 29 May, 2018.   ↩︎
14. Ahmed, Kaamil, et al., “‘It’s a Kind of Revenge’: Damascus Suburb Demolished as Assad Builds a ‘New Syria’,” The Guardian, March 23, 2025.   ↩︎
15. UrbAN Syria, “Qaboun District Case Study.” ↩︎
16. ibid ↩︎
17. The Syria Report, “Qaboun: From Systematic Demolition.”  ↩︎
18. Mohammad Bassiki et al, “Syria’s Russian-Backed Demolition Campaign,” Lighthouse Reports, March 22, 2022. ↩︎
19. Munqueth Othman Agha, and al-Rish, Muhannad, “Inside Damascus’s Reconstruction Lab: Navigating the Framework of Return and Recovery,” Middle East Institute, October 31, 2024. ↩︎
20. Ahmed, “It’s a Kind of Revenge.”  ↩︎
21. The Syria Report, “Qaboun: From Systematic Demolition.” ↩︎
22. The Syria Report, “Syria Plans to Build New Administrative City.”  ↩︎
23. The Syria Report, “The End of the Qaboun Industrial Zone,” July 15, 2020.  ↩︎
24. The Syria Report, “Qaboun: From Systematic Demolition.” ↩︎
25. “Rami Makhlouf,” OpenSanctions, last modified April 3, 2025 ↩︎
26. “Samer Foz,” OpenSanctions, last modified March 31, 2025. ↩︎
27. The Syria Report, “Qaboun: From Systematic Demolition.” ↩︎