Jun 11 2012
Syria Violence Dramatically Rises
Violence continues to intensify in Syria this week as government forces bombarded the central province of Homs, and the towns of Deraa and Al-Heffa. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 52 people have been killed since Sunday including women and children. The incident is the latest in a string of clashes that have shocked the world as the uprising that began nearly a year and a half ago drags on. Nearly 80 people were killed in the village of Mazraat al-Qubeir last week, prompting the arrival of United Nations monitors into the area. And in late May, more than a hundred people were killed in Houla, including 34 women and 49 children. What is being called the “Houla massacre,” has been linked to pro-government militias. The Syrian government claims Al Qaeda was responsible.
There has been a UN truce in effect in Syria since April 12th but the hundreds of international monitors present in the country have been unable to implement it. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has warned of an imminent civil war, adding that “the Syrian people are bleeding.” In fact the UN has counted 10,000 civilians killed by government forces since January 2011. Russia and China have vetoed UN resolutions aimed at transitioning Syrian president Bashar Al Assad out of power, and have particularly decried the use of foreign military intervention.
Meanwhile, the Syrian National Council, which is considered the opposition’s main group in exile, has elected a new leader – a Kurdish professor named Abdelbaset Sieda who has been living in Sweden for the past 17 years.
GUEST: Reese Erlich, veteran freelance foreign correspondent who has traveled widely across the Middle East. He has written a number of books and his latest is, “Conversations with Terrorists: Middle East Leaders on Politics, Violence, and Empire.”
Find more about Reese at www.reeseerlich.com
3 Responses to “Syria Violence Dramatically Rises”
http://www.voltairenet.org/Russian-Warning-Shots
The nature of the Syrian crisis has changed. The process of destabilization that was to open the path for legal military intervention by the Atlantic Alliance has failed. Removing its mask, the United States has publicly announced the possibility of attacking Syria without the approval of the Security Council, as it also did in Kosovo. Washington must be pretending not to have noticed that the Russia of Vladimir Putin is not that of Boris Yeltsin. After being assured of Chinese support, Moscow literally fired two warning shots in the direction of Washington. The continuing violations of international law by NATO and the GCC threaten to unleash a global conflict.
http://www.voltairenet.org/The-Houla-Massacre-Opposition
The massacre in Houla was not carried out by the Syrian government, but by terrorists supported by the US/NATO/GCC.
First interview of an eye witness to Houla massacre
http://www.syrianews.cc/marat-musin-anna-news-syria-report-houla-707.html
Q: What happened on May the 25th and the 26th in your village of Taldao? What did you see?
A: I’m a citizen from Taldao, right now I live in Taldao, on the first day of the events, on Friday, the bandits mortared army checkpoint, the army returned fire an injured many of the bandits that attacked the army. The other armed men moved the injured and the man who fired the mortar to the field hospital and he’s now alive and well and his name is Said Fayez Talha Al-Aksh, his family lives in Taldao. Two days earlier the terrorists’ assistants told us that the Zero Hour is coming soon. We heard this with local terrorists, always talking about how they should create a fuss. I didn’t expect it would be this way. Until this event, they (armed terrorists) used to attack army checkpoints every Friday after the prayers (Friday prayers). They attack for several hours then things go back to normal. Some armed men carried cameras and taped everything, others carried radio telephone (walkie talkie) and we heard their conversations from inside our houses.
On Friday, May the 25th, at 2 pm right after Friday prayers, an army checkpoint and the army repelled this attack. The armed group was led by Nidal Bakkour. Shortly after that, another armed group attacked another checkpoint. This second group is from a family called Al-Hallak, also locally called Al-Hassan. They attacked the checkpoint located at the mountain. The plan was that they take over the checkpoint at the mountain and the other one located at the village because they wanted to position themselves at an elevated place that allows them to easily control the checkpoint located at the village. Somebody called Nidal Bakkour and asked him to send an armed group of strangers; he called him right when the attack started. When the armed men attacked the checkpoint, 25 of them were killed.
Q: how could you know the number of dead armed men?
A: When the UN Observers came, the armed men gathered the bodies in front of the observers and claimed that they’re civilians killed by the Syrian Arab Army, I heard that personally from them when they said it to the observers and they claimed that they found the bodies inside the houses.
At around 3:30 pm they secured the elevated checkpoint. They cut off the throat of one soldier and threw him from the 3rd floor. Before he died, he told them that he’s from Kafar Batna, Reef Dimashq and that he’s a Sunni like them, they told him: “now you remember you’re a Sunni?”. Then they kidnapped two soldiers one is called Abdullah he’s a Bedouin (here exact word is Shawy) from Deir Azzour and burned him alive. I didn’t see them burn him but I heard them howling that they burned a soldier, that was around 6:00 pm. As for the other soldier, I have no idea what happened to him but I heard one armed man called Akram Al-Saleh saying we won’t kill him and we will show how he joined us, i.e. defected. Shortly afterwards, they secured the army checkpoint and the police station in the city.
Just against this police stations are the families’ houses. The residential buildings against this police stations are the where all those children and families that were killed. They killed all the children of Al-Sayed family; they were 3 families and 20 children. They also killed people from Abdulrazak family, 10 persons; they killed them because they support the authorities. Of Al-Sayed family they killed the family of the brother of Abdullah Al-Mashlab, the 3rd person in the Syrian parliament. He was elected on May 24th, the next day they killed his wife and 3 kids and his brother and his family as well.
At 7:00 pm, Al-Farouq brigade, led by Abdulrazak Tlass, of the so-called “Free Syrian Army” arrived. He had more than 250 armed men with him from the city of Rastan, he also had 2 other groups with him one from Al-Qabo village, led by Yehya Al-Yusef, and another from Falla village.
At the time of the attack, the leaders always instructed the armed men to intensify the fire during their calls to Al-Jazeera. At night, the shooting stopped.
On the second day we heard them talking to each other on walkie talkies that some of the armed men should wear the Syrian Arabi Army’s uniform before the observers arrive so that they claim they’ve defected from the army and joined the armed men, and the others should dress like civilians and come to with us to the mosque, where the bodies and the observers are.
They burned some farms and houses to accuse the army of shelling the area in front of the observers.
I only saw the observers from far, they were surrounded by armed men who put on the Syrian Arab Army’s uniforms. A lot of people were there and saw all of that, they were of chosen families and they were calling “we want to bring the regime down” and everybody knows they’re the armed men’s relatives.