Washington: The Trump administration is accusing the Syrian government carrying out mass killings of thousands of prisoners and burning the dead bodies in a large crematorium outside the capital.
The State Department says about 50 detainees a day are being hanged at Saydnaya (Said-nay-ah) military prison, about 45 minutes from Damascus. It says the crematorium is being used to hide evidence of the extent of the killings.
The department is releasing newly declassified photographs showing what it says is a building in the prison complex that has been modified to support the crematorium.
In presenting the photographs, the top US diplomat for the Middle East, Stu Jones, said Monday that Syrian President Bashar Assad's government "has sunk to a new level of depravity" with the support of Russia and Iran.
Meanwhile, Syrian government called US claims as are unfounded and disconnected from reality. "These allegations are totally unfounded, they are nothing but the product of the imagination of this administration and its agents," state news agency SANA quoted the foreign ministry as saying.
"Successive US administrations have repeatedly fabricated lies and allegations to justify their aggressive and interventionist policies in other sovereign countries," the ministry said.
