Hayan Hadid was 18 when soldiers arrested him in his pyjamas and took him for execution in Syria's Hama in 1982, during one of the darkest chapters of the Assad clan's rule.

"I've never really talked about that, it was a secret. Only my family knew," said Hadid, now a father of five.

In light of the December 8 ouster of Bashar al-Assad, "we can talk at last", he said.

On February 2, 1982, amid an information blackout, Assad's father and then leader Hafez launched a crackdown in Hama in central Syria against an armed Muslim Brotherhood revolt.

The banned movement had tried two years earlier to assassinate Hafez, and his brother Rifaat was tasked with crushing the uprising in its epicentre.

Survivors who witnessed extra-judicial executions told AFP that the crackdown spared no one, with government forces killing men, women and children.

The death toll of the 27 days of violence has never been formally established, though estimates range from 10,000 to 40,000, with some even higher.

"I had no ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, I was at school," said Hadid, now in his sixties.

But "my father was always very afraid for me and my brother", he said.

Hadid's cousin Marwan had been an influential figure in the Fighting Vanguard, an armed offshoot of the Brotherhood.

After days of battles, soldiers turned up in Hadid's neighbourhood and arrested around 200 men, taking them to a school.

When night fell, around 40 were called by name and forced into trucks, their hands tied behind........

© Al Monitor