Researcher Annsar Shahoud works quietly, away from the spotlight and from social media. She operated in a sort of ghost like status, her name is well known amongst many, but there are no photos of her online.
Shahhoud, an academic specializing in genocide and mass violence studies, intentionally maintains a low public profile because of the risk associated with her research. She focuses on individuals involved in the perpetration of violence within Bashar al Assad’s military, paramilitary, and medical sectors. She focuses on the institutionalization and hierarchy of violence in order to understand how the Assad regime eliminated thousands of civilians through its vast bureaucratic apparatus.
Annsar Shahhoud’s was first introduced to the public in 2022, when the Tadamon massacres were exposed. Back then (Al-Jumhuriya, New Lines, and The Guardian) published detailed investigation into the mass violence orchestrated by the Assad regime’s Military Intelligence agency (Branch 227), alongside with pro-regime paramilitary group, particularly the National Defence Forces (NDF), locally known as shabbiha.
The articles outlined how one of the perpetrators was identified and tracked down, an effort primarily led by Annsar, as well as Dutch-Turkish scholar Uğur Ümit Üngör and their team.
When the investigations were published, Syrians and the world were confronted with video evidence of massacres committed by men in the Assad military uniforms. The footage showed a mass execution in which dozens of civilians were thrown into a pit in a residential neighborhood. The perpetrators are seen in the video laughing and joking throughout the process, as if performing a routine task. Their task was complete after bodies piled up in that pit were set on fire .
The psychological and physical transformations of Annsar Shahhoud—and the experience endured by part of the team behind the Tadamon investigation—is explored in Killing Anna, a documentary directed by Sam Benstead.
The Film premiered this year at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX) and later screened at Sheffield DocFest in the UK. It follows the intertwined trajectories of a massacre, a war criminal, academic research, and investigative journalism as Shahhoud’s alter persona, “Anna”, gradually eclipsed her before vanishing altogether into the ashes alongside images of the Assads.
The film, which was 4 years in the making, reveals how Annsar documented the confessions of Amjad Youssef, the main person in the video. It witnesses the moment she gazed into his eyes during the video call, as he was interrogating her to verify her identity, and explores how she managed to reach him. Yet the film raises a deeper question: was it truly Annsar who looked into the eyes of the war criminal as he confessed to her his crimes, or the persona she had constructed, Anna?
Searching for “Assad’s Men”
The film opens with Shahhoud discussing “Anna”; the alter-ego she created in 2018 to communicate with Assad’s perpetrators via social media. Anna was a way for Annsar to break through the wall of silence around Assad’s men. She was Annsar’s vehicle to study the men who worked as security officers upholding the Assad regime, particularly those who were part of the National Defense Forces. Disguising herself as a pro-regime academic seeking to convey “the other side of the story” to Western audiences, Anna gradually gained access to individuals operating in the shadow of the state.
This unconventional methodological approach and psychological experiment became necessary in getting to the core of an opaque regime well versed in concealing its crimes, and any evidence that could expose it. The regime was structured in a way that made it impenetrable, but its agents maintained a visible presence on social media; sometimes posting images of themselves on duty. That was Annsar’s window in.
In 2019, a contact approached Üngör with footage of what would later become known as the Tadamon massacre. At that time, neither he nor Annsar knew the details of the massacre’s location or what had happened. After the videos were archived at the university of Amsterdam and authorities were notified, and then Annsar began the painstaking process of analysis.
She counted the people in the videos, noting down victim by victim; there were 288 of them. Counting death is a central theme in the documentary. Shahhoud describes the sound as the most difficult element: the gunfire and the final breaths of blindfolded victims before their bodies fell into the pit
And then “Anna” emerged …
A distinctive facial scar above the perpetrator’s left eyebrow became the key to identifying the perpetrator . His face haunted Annsar. At the time, Amjad Youssef was someone unnamed to Annsar or her team.
Hours turned into months as Annsar scoured social media platforms going through photographs, looking for the man who appeared in the video. On screen we see an endless stream of portraits showing armed men posing proudly with their weapons.
Looking through the photos and the archives conjures up questions that need to be asked: why take photos and publish them on social media? Did they have nothing to fear?.These are the questions posed by Shahhoud and Ungor until suddenly, the long-sought account appeared: Amjad Youssef. but could they confront Amjad with evidence, and would he admit to his role?.
Establishing the crime scene and investigating violence further required sources on the ground to pinpoint the exact location of the massacre in the neighborhood.
It was not enough to know the victims and the perpetrators; it was also necessary to identify the soil that had received the bodies of those who were murdered. The team succeeded in doing so. Yet the question remained: would Amjad Youssef answer a video call with Anna?.In short: Yes.
Answering this questions represents a rare moment; very few people are able to achieve as they study mass violence. Confessions and conversations with perpetrators typically emerge either through survivors’ testimonies or within the contexts of judicial proceedings and forensic psychiatry, or after those perpetrators are convicted. It is exceedingly rare for such a conversation to occur outside those settings.
As she began speaking with Assad’s perpetrators, Shahhoud gradually begins to disappear, As we witness throughout the film, her appearance and voice slowly change making “Anna” omnipresent. She is the persona who accumulated a long list of “friends” on social media, a network exposing the hierarchy and chain of perpetrators and suspects.
The film takes us on a journey as Annsar Shahhoud slowly turns into “Anna,” a persona that borrows from Annsar, at times eclipsing her altogether.
Among men, Annsar is alone, her only counterparts are Anna and the female victims in the videos . Here, Anna emerges as a mediator between two worlds. Through her virtual network of relationships, she traces perpetrators and suspects, engaging them in carefully controlled and methodical conversations designed to uncover the machinery of killing operated by the Syrian regime from the perspective of those who upheld it.
In doing so, she earns their trust, a process that culminates in a lengthy conversation with Amjad Youssef, where he admits to taking revenge, and killing many people. He also confirms to her that he was indeed the man she saw in the video.
The film reveals terrifying layers of violence, death,and imprisoned souls within the screens. This horror effect is transmitted primarily through the gaze of the one who filmed the killing; then we find ourselves adapting Anna’s gaze upon the killer through the webcam; there is also the gaze of the filmmaker himself. To these is added the stare of the viewer.
Between all these gazes drift the spirits of the victims. Most chilling of all, however, is the gaze of the killer himself. In one scene, we suddenly find ourselves looking directly at Anna from Amjad Youssef’s point of view, a moment that sends a shiver through the body.
At the same time, we witness Annsar herself changing. At this point, Anna occupies an ever greater “presence” and appears increasingly “alive”. She is unafraid to confront one of the perpetrators directly, accusing him and the National Defense Forces of theft and looting. What unfolds before us is a dangerous exercise in self-erasure before the camera, especially since Anna’s existence is confined to the frame of a laptop screen that traps both her face and that of the perpetrator. In an almost out of body experience, Annsar is silently watching.
Annsar’s commitment to disguising her identity and to role play as a technique to extract information is one that requires commitment and discipline. At the same time, it becomes a source of erosion of her original identity. At some point a new question arises, when will Annsar return and reclaim her place?
Then Annsar Shahhoud Reclaimed Her Face…
After the story was published, exposing the Tadamon massacre and the identity of Amjad Youssef as the perpetrator, Annsar became the target of threats, most notably from Amjad Youssef himself who vowed to kill her. As a result, she had to disappear digitally. Around that period, Annsar and Uğur issued a statement advising families of victims of Tadamon to contact the unit specializing in war crimes at the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany (BKA) , as the case had entered the realm of international judicial proceedings.
Yet the shadow of Anna remained. The persona is still attempting to occupy a place in the consciousness of Anssar beyond the confines of her Facebook account. In 2022 Annsar made a decisive decision : she would reclaim her own “presence”. But that resolution took years to achieve. Finally, in 2025, Annsar gathered Anna’s belongings and dismantled the corner of “performance” where that invented persona had once lived, with images of the Assads included, then set all to fire. At that moment Annsar reclaimed a possession of herself as a whole—her own being and her own breath.
When the massacre was exposed, Amjad Youssef and his commanders are still alive and free, and their threats remain present, extending even to Annsar’s family. Yet the scandal unleashed by the publication of the investigative reports dealt a serious blow to the Syrian regime. A massacre had been exposed, with the documentation of when, where and how it was committed- accompanied by confessions from someone who participated in it, exposing the chain of command.
Despite the enormity of the scandal, however, the work of Shahhoud and Ungor ultimately became part an archive of regime crime, for there was no possibility of holding Amjad Youssef or his commanders accountable while the Syrian regime remained in power—except for those who reached Europe, such as the “Tadamon excavator driver” affiliated with the National Defense Forces militia, who was eventually tried in Hamburg.
The film documents the investigative methodology adopted by the team: following suspects, tracing evidence, and marking repeated attempts to identify perpetrators and expose a war crime. Yet what they confronted was an overwhelming tragedy capable of threatening the psychological integrity of anyone who witnessed it in the most literal sense.
This becomes evident in the team’s own relationship with the subject of their investigation. The extreme violence contained in the Tadamon recordings required a carefully structured methodology. Every member of the team—which included journalists, researchers, field sources, and open-source investigators—handled only a specific part of the material. Not everyone watched the recordings, whose sheer brutality can shatter one’s sense of self, especially for Syrians watching other Syrians kill own people. not merely as enemies, but as though they were unworthy of humanity, as if they were “abjects”.
Perhaps it was precisely this violence that made “Anna” possible and, in turn, protected Annsar herself. Anna communicated with the perpetrators and looked directly into their faces as they proudly recounted their “heroic deeds.” In the end, however, she had to disappear. She was only a temporary spectral presence, a double that dissolved the moment Annsar decided to step out from behind Anna’s gaze and look directly back at her.
Amjad Youssef’s “Confessions”
The film captures the moments of the Assad regime’s collapse and the liberation of its prisons and detention centers. Yet Annsar was not “safe”; the threat remains, and Amjad Youssef himself was still nowhere to be found. The documentary ends with the testimonies of survivors of the massacres he committed, while those who helped identify the massacre site finally reveal their faces after spending the entire film concealed behind masks. Only Annsar remains hidden. The joy that accompanied the regime’s fall and the sense of relief shared by Syrians did not represent an ending for her, because many of the people she interviewed are still at large.
Then, suddenly, news spreads that Amjad Youssef has been arrested. Annsar is now partially relieved, at least because the immediate had been apprehended . But Amjad’s commanders and some of his superiors remain free, and some of them now hold positions within the new government in Damascus.
The arrest of Amjad Youssef opened a new set of questions, particularly after the Ministry of Interior of the new government decided to broadcast his confessions. Later, Al-Jumhuriya published an investigation entitled “The Internal File of the Tadamon Massacre,” revealing the inquiry conducted by Syrian intelligence with Amjad Youssef after news of the massacre first became public.
Today, we have witnessed multiple confessions by Amjad Youssef: Amjad’s confession to Anna, his confession before Syrian intelligence during the Assad era, and his confession before the camera of the Interior Ministry under the new government. Each of these confessions differs from the others in significant ways, particularly the latest version where he claims that he acted entirely on his own accord, and had not received orders from anyone.
The repercussions of the Tadamon Massacre did not end with Amjad Youssef’s arrest. After obtaining the massacre recordings, the National Commission for the Missing in Syria managed to identify the children of Rania al-Abbasi and officially declare them dead years after they were missing. At the same time, the effort to identify and locate the remains of all the victims of Tadamon is still ongoing, and extends beyond those who appeared in the recordings. There were many at Tadamon who faced the same fate as the victims in the recordings, but their fate was not captured on screen.
