Tanks in Der Ezzour:
Livestream out of Syria
- Thread starter ooeat0meoo
- Start date
A very important video this one, based on the bravery and life risking moments of some Syrian:
A very important report by Al-Jazeera about the situation in Homs:
Washington coordinates arms supplies to Syrian rebels: US officials
The US has coordinated the climbing number of illegal shipment of more advanced weapons to anti-Damascus Syrian rebels paid for by Persian Gulf Arab states, US and foreign officials say.
President Barack Obama administration officials, however, claim that American support is limited to ‘expanded contacts with opposition military forces’ to provide ‘credibility assessment’ of rebel forces and command-and-control infrastructure to US-sponsored Persian Gulf dictatorships that fund the purchase and shipment of lethal weapons to anti-Damascus armed gangs, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, American officials also met and negotiated in Washington this week with a delegation of Kurds from sparsely populated eastern Syria, where little violence has occurred. The talks, says an Obama administration official, included discussions about the likelihood of opening a second front against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in efforts to compel him to move resources from the west.
“We are increasing our nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, and we continue to coordinate our efforts with friends and allies in the region and beyond in order to have the biggest impact on what we are collectively doing,” said a senior State Department official, one of several US and foreign government officials who discussed the developing efforts on the condition of anonymity.
Many officials, the report adds, now consider an expanding military confrontation to be inevitable.
The American military, the paper notes, has also prepared options for Syria “extending all the way to air assaults to destroy the nation’s air defenses.” However, US officials describe such scenario as unlikely, claiming instead, that the United States and its allies are increasingly focusing on coordination of intelligence and the supplying weapons to anti-Damascus rebel groups.
Moreover, the new weaponry for the Syrian rebels are being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border, according to the report, with the rebels claiming that their supplies of arms and ammunition has significantly increased following a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf Arab kingdoms to provide millions of dollars in funding each month.
Furthermore, anti-Syrian rebel leaders say they have been in direct contact with the State Department officials to “designate worthy rebel recipients of arms and pinpoint locations for stockpiles, but US officials said that there currently are no military or intelligence personnel on the ground in Syria.”
The paper also emphasized that the despotic Persian Gulf Arab regimes would take pleasure in the fall of President Assad’s government “as a blow against Iran” and would welcome further US assistance to such end.
Syria will reportedly be on the agenda at this week’s NATO summit, due to be held in the US city of Chicago.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011 and more than 6,000 police forces, army troops, security forces and pro-government people have been killed in the unrest.
While the West and the Syrian opposition say the government is responsible for the killings, Damascus blames “outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups” for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.
The US has coordinated the climbing number of illegal shipment of more advanced weapons to anti-Damascus Syrian rebels paid for by Persian Gulf Arab states, US and foreign officials say.
President Barack Obama administration officials, however, claim that American support is limited to ‘expanded contacts with opposition military forces’ to provide ‘credibility assessment’ of rebel forces and command-and-control infrastructure to US-sponsored Persian Gulf dictatorships that fund the purchase and shipment of lethal weapons to anti-Damascus armed gangs, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, American officials also met and negotiated in Washington this week with a delegation of Kurds from sparsely populated eastern Syria, where little violence has occurred. The talks, says an Obama administration official, included discussions about the likelihood of opening a second front against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in efforts to compel him to move resources from the west.
“We are increasing our nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, and we continue to coordinate our efforts with friends and allies in the region and beyond in order to have the biggest impact on what we are collectively doing,” said a senior State Department official, one of several US and foreign government officials who discussed the developing efforts on the condition of anonymity.
Many officials, the report adds, now consider an expanding military confrontation to be inevitable.
The American military, the paper notes, has also prepared options for Syria “extending all the way to air assaults to destroy the nation’s air defenses.” However, US officials describe such scenario as unlikely, claiming instead, that the United States and its allies are increasingly focusing on coordination of intelligence and the supplying weapons to anti-Damascus rebel groups.
Moreover, the new weaponry for the Syrian rebels are being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border, according to the report, with the rebels claiming that their supplies of arms and ammunition has significantly increased following a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf Arab kingdoms to provide millions of dollars in funding each month.
Furthermore, anti-Syrian rebel leaders say they have been in direct contact with the State Department officials to “designate worthy rebel recipients of arms and pinpoint locations for stockpiles, but US officials said that there currently are no military or intelligence personnel on the ground in Syria.”
The paper also emphasized that the despotic Persian Gulf Arab regimes would take pleasure in the fall of President Assad’s government “as a blow against Iran” and would welcome further US assistance to such end.
Syria will reportedly be on the agenda at this week’s NATO summit, due to be held in the US city of Chicago.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011 and more than 6,000 police forces, army troops, security forces and pro-government people have been killed in the unrest.
While the West and the Syrian opposition say the government is responsible for the killings, Damascus blames “outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups” for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.
Here's a link to all the protests that happened today, 778 protests counted until now, with some small protests in Damascus(except some huge protests like in Barzeh, Kafarsouseh, Al-Midan, Al-Qadam, Al-Tadamoun, Joubar, Al-Qaboun and others), because of the big presence of security forces everywhere in Damascus, huge protests everywhere else:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ApmYuUKngxu9dDV1b3VNV2tuSEM0UHJ6MjFSNkNYUnc&output=html
Edit1:783 and still counting.
Edit2:796 in 623 places.
Edit3:815 in 628 places.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ApmYuUKngxu9dDV1b3VNV2tuSEM0UHJ6MjFSNkNYUnc&output=html
Edit1:783 and still counting.
Edit2:796 in 623 places.
Edit3:815 in 628 places.
When will the Saudis get fecked up? Assad is a saint compared to them.
Very true.. It looks to me like Saudi Arabia is trying to rule the region, and when you see what kind of system is running it, it won't be the best thing that could happen to the region, or the world.
And answering your question, probably when they run out of oil.
I still don't know what brings Saudi to the discussion, do you think the people would let Saudi rule? As if they would accept a dictator after getting rid of the other! and no he is not a saint compared to anyone, not even compared to the devil, also people in Saudi at least have a lot of money and are happy with their lives.
What bring Saudi Arabia into the conversation? this does....
As for why Assad is a saint compared to the Saudis...because what he does only concerns you Syrians. What the Saudis do, has an effect on the entire world.
Their money has funded extremist movements, clerics, and political parties, who are starting to cause havoc across even historically moderate muslim countries like Bangladesh.
So while, my statement might seem insensitive...in the long run, it is quite simply fact.
Syria: 9 dead; 100 injured in Deir el-Zour blast
Syrian state TV reports military buildings in eastern city of Deir el-Zour targeted 'by terrorists'; says over 500kg of explosives used
Nine people were killed and over 100 wounded in a suicide bombing that struck the town of Deir el-Zour on Saturday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said.
The explosion took place in a parking lot connected to a military complex, the pro-government Ikhbariya TV station reported. According to Syrian officials the car bomb contained "500 kg of explosives."
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the explosion, which it also identified as a car bomb, took place near where the city branches of the Military Intelligence Directorate and Air Force Intelligence are located. Amateur videos posted online showed thick black smoke hovering over the city.
Security agency compounds in several Syrian cities have been targeted by a wave of explosions in the past months. The blasts raise fears that al-Qaida-linked Islamist militants, possibly including fighters from neighboring Iraq, have made strong inroads into Syria's rebel movement.
The most recent bombing targeted an intelligence building in Damascus on May 10. It struck during morning rush hour and the high death toll – some 55 people – made it the deadliest such attack since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March of last year.
Some of the tactics used in Damascus – a small blast drawing attention prior to a larger one – were reminiscent of al-Qaida attacks during Iraq's insurgency.
Deir el-Zour is about 60 miles from the Iraqi border. Saturday's blast came a day after the state-run news agency SANA reported that authorities foiled an attempt to blow up a car rigged with explosives in the city and detained those involved.
On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he believes that "alarmingly and surprisingly," al-Qaeda must have been behind the May 10 attack in the Syrian capital.
"The recent terrorist attacks in Damascus suggest that these attacks were carefully orchestrated," he said. "Having seen the scale and sophistication of these terrorist attacks, one might think that this terrorist attack was done by a certain group with organization and clear intent. I have strongly condemned these terrorist attacks."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4231107,00.html
Syrian state TV reports military buildings in eastern city of Deir el-Zour targeted 'by terrorists'; says over 500kg of explosives used
Nine people were killed and over 100 wounded in a suicide bombing that struck the town of Deir el-Zour on Saturday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said.
The explosion took place in a parking lot connected to a military complex, the pro-government Ikhbariya TV station reported. According to Syrian officials the car bomb contained "500 kg of explosives."
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the explosion, which it also identified as a car bomb, took place near where the city branches of the Military Intelligence Directorate and Air Force Intelligence are located. Amateur videos posted online showed thick black smoke hovering over the city.
Security agency compounds in several Syrian cities have been targeted by a wave of explosions in the past months. The blasts raise fears that al-Qaida-linked Islamist militants, possibly including fighters from neighboring Iraq, have made strong inroads into Syria's rebel movement.
The most recent bombing targeted an intelligence building in Damascus on May 10. It struck during morning rush hour and the high death toll – some 55 people – made it the deadliest such attack since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March of last year.
Some of the tactics used in Damascus – a small blast drawing attention prior to a larger one – were reminiscent of al-Qaida attacks during Iraq's insurgency.
Deir el-Zour is about 60 miles from the Iraqi border. Saturday's blast came a day after the state-run news agency SANA reported that authorities foiled an attempt to blow up a car rigged with explosives in the city and detained those involved.
On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he believes that "alarmingly and surprisingly," al-Qaeda must have been behind the May 10 attack in the Syrian capital.
"The recent terrorist attacks in Damascus suggest that these attacks were carefully orchestrated," he said. "Having seen the scale and sophistication of these terrorist attacks, one might think that this terrorist attack was done by a certain group with organization and clear intent. I have strongly condemned these terrorist attacks."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4231107,00.html
Yeah feck Syrians, lets be more concerned about the world as a whole were people are living their daily lives normally and happily while Syrians are dying, and as for the money for the rebels, the regime said that Saudi and Qatar are funding them, while the truth is some Syrian millionaires from Aleppo and Damascus are funding them, and the weapons of the rebels are still some Ak-47 the biggest of their weapons are RPGs.
Do you care about the Bahrainis who are dying?
Yes I do, why shouldn't I? What does that have to do with Syria?
Who is arresting people? can you just have a look at this videos?
Who is shooting at them?
I don't even know why I'm still posting in this thread, seems like all the videos I post are bullshit to the people who post in this thread, and I don't even know how you can say that you know better than me while am the only one living in Syria and seeing with my own eyes here, seems like no one is interested but those who support Bashar, and all they talk about is Saudi, Qatar, and Bahrain which doesn't interest me and not worthy of my time to talk about, so I'm quitting posting here and I'll only post in the rest of the forum threads, also want to thank the mods for unlocking this thread and letting me say what I got, but I got nothing left to say.
How old are you?
Not sure where I or anyone else for that matter said...'feck syrians' - I simply pointed out, in the big picture, the Saudi authorities were a bigger threat to the world than Bashar.
Bashar to me in the context of my comparison is a lesser evil, but that doesn't mean he isn't evil.
As for the funding, grow up. This isn't about Bashar inspired propaganda, everyone knows Sunni arab states are arming the rebels, and for them Syria is another chance to fight a proxy war with Iran.
EVERYONE KNOWS THIS - EVERYONE.
I thought perhaps this could get your side some support with the tough crowd on here:
Israel To Remain an Enemy, Says Syrian Rebel Leader
hmmm...so Obama is plotting the downfall of Assad so AQ can take on Israel across the Golan border. feck me, he must have taken that famous cartoon too seriously...
Looking for someone within Syria to PM me a livestream link ~ The people at http://www.livestream.com/syrianfreedom?t=410001 are looking for more live-feeds
Breaking Syrian News:
Blast reported in an upscale neighborhood of Damascus
Activists: Bomb hits security vehicle in Syria
By BASSEM MROUE | Associated Press – 14 mins ago
BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say that a bomb has struck a security vehicle in the Syrian capital of Damascus, causing casualties.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees say Sunday's blast occurred in the upscale neighborhood of Mazzeh.
The LCC said the blast occurred near a military airport in the neighborhood. The Observatory said the explosion caused casualties but did not give a breakdown.
A video posted online by activists showed thick black smoke billowing from what it said was Mazzeh.
Damascus is tightly controlled by regime forces but has been hit by a wave of blasts over recent months that claimed the lives of scores of people. Most of the blasts have targeted Syrian security agencies.
Blast reported in an upscale neighborhood of Damascus
Activists: Bomb hits security vehicle in Syria
By BASSEM MROUE | Associated Press – 14 mins ago
BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say that a bomb has struck a security vehicle in the Syrian capital of Damascus, causing casualties.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees say Sunday's blast occurred in the upscale neighborhood of Mazzeh.
The LCC said the blast occurred near a military airport in the neighborhood. The Observatory said the explosion caused casualties but did not give a breakdown.
A video posted online by activists showed thick black smoke billowing from what it said was Mazzeh.
Damascus is tightly controlled by regime forces but has been hit by a wave of blasts over recent months that claimed the lives of scores of people. Most of the blasts have targeted Syrian security agencies.
Syria: Assad regime accused of renewing attack on Houla
Opposition activists told The Daily Telegraph the regime had positioned gunmen on government buildings and at six check-points around the town with instructions to fire on any civilians who tried to venture out to speak to United Nations observers.
Meanwhile armed men from the Shabiha, or "ghost militia" – who are accused of carrying out Friday's night massacre of at least 108 people at the behest of the Assad government – were also attacking those trying to flee and setting their houses on fire. The scale of the Houla massacre, and the harrowing pictures of activists holding up the bodies of some of the 32 young children who died with bullet wounds and missing faces to the cameras, sent shock-waves through foreign ministries around the world yesterday.
It set off an outpouring of international revulsion, reflected by the comments of world leaders who described it as "stomach-churning", "sickening" and "vile". The Syrian National Council said it would launch a "battle of liberation" until the United Nations intervened.
Undeterred, however, the regime continued its shelling of Houla yesterday, whilst at the same denying any responsibility for the deaths of scores of innocent men, women and children there. Taldaw, a settlement that makes up part of Houla, and which bore the brunt of Friday's massacre, again came under an intense assault.
"The Shabiha attacked Al-Naseria, part of Taldaw, under a heavy cover of live fire and mortars," a spokesman from the local activists' media bureau told The Daily Telegraph. "They looted everything they could find from resident's property, then they burned a large number of houses.
"At the same time residents of Houla were trying to run away towards nearby villages."
He said 20 tanks had advanced on the town and that more bodies from the massacre, including a family of six, were still being discovered.
Meanwhile, government forces were laying siege to other towns across central Syria which had been reoccupied by the Free Syrian Army during the provisional ceasefire. An activist in Rastan, twelve miles to the east of Houla in a belt of mixed Sunni and Alawite towns and villages, said that it had been hit by missiles as it suffered its twelfth consecutive day of bombardment.
"The army has surrounded the city," the activist, Suhaib Ali, said. "We lack relief materials, medicines, ambulance, we can't even move the injured because we are encircled.
"The city is being shelled from outside - there are tanks and rocket launchers stationed there." Forces are also attacking Al-Qusair, west of Homs, and there were clashes in Hama to the north and even in the capital Damascus.
The regime's spokesman, Jihad al-Makdissi, gave a press conference to deny the regime was responsible for the massacre, saying that it was the work of "armed terrorists" and Arabs from abroad.
But numerous witnesses said Alawite militias from neighbouring villages had entered Taldaw, which is Sunni, and shot and bayoneted men, women and children. They moved in after an initial heavy bombardment by regime forces, apparently in retaliation for a Friday demonstration and an attack on army checkpoints by men from the FSA.
"The crime was committed by two nearby settlements loyal to the regime, called Al-Qabou, and Shiea," said a man who gave his name as Abu Bilal al-Homsi. The victims were largely from a street on the edge of Taldaw, and among the dead were many members of three families - the Abdulrazzaq, Abbara and Al-Kurdi.
The first two were living in the same house, and lost six children under the age of ten, two teenagers, and seven adults, including two over the age of 60, according to the Syrian Network of Human Rights.
In a video posted online which appeared to be authentic, a woman survivor, her face covered by a veil, described what happened. "They raided our home," she says.
"The first stopped and asked who was there in the home. I answered, 'my daughter and the wife of my son,' and told them there were no men inside.
There were only women and children.
"One of them remained outside and the other came in and pushed them into the corner and started firing at them. I survived because I remained standing behind the door."
She said the dead included her grand-daughter, aged four, grand-son, aged three, and the child of a cousin, also aged three. "Entire families were killed," another of the women crying in the background breaks in.
"Had they killed one person only, we would have accepted that patiently. We are accustomed to death. More than 100 people were killed. We searched for shrouds to cover and bury them, but found none."
Opposition activists told The Daily Telegraph the regime had positioned gunmen on government buildings and at six check-points around the town with instructions to fire on any civilians who tried to venture out to speak to United Nations observers.
Meanwhile armed men from the Shabiha, or "ghost militia" – who are accused of carrying out Friday's night massacre of at least 108 people at the behest of the Assad government – were also attacking those trying to flee and setting their houses on fire. The scale of the Houla massacre, and the harrowing pictures of activists holding up the bodies of some of the 32 young children who died with bullet wounds and missing faces to the cameras, sent shock-waves through foreign ministries around the world yesterday.
It set off an outpouring of international revulsion, reflected by the comments of world leaders who described it as "stomach-churning", "sickening" and "vile". The Syrian National Council said it would launch a "battle of liberation" until the United Nations intervened.
Undeterred, however, the regime continued its shelling of Houla yesterday, whilst at the same denying any responsibility for the deaths of scores of innocent men, women and children there. Taldaw, a settlement that makes up part of Houla, and which bore the brunt of Friday's massacre, again came under an intense assault.
"The Shabiha attacked Al-Naseria, part of Taldaw, under a heavy cover of live fire and mortars," a spokesman from the local activists' media bureau told The Daily Telegraph. "They looted everything they could find from resident's property, then they burned a large number of houses.
"At the same time residents of Houla were trying to run away towards nearby villages."
He said 20 tanks had advanced on the town and that more bodies from the massacre, including a family of six, were still being discovered.
Meanwhile, government forces were laying siege to other towns across central Syria which had been reoccupied by the Free Syrian Army during the provisional ceasefire. An activist in Rastan, twelve miles to the east of Houla in a belt of mixed Sunni and Alawite towns and villages, said that it had been hit by missiles as it suffered its twelfth consecutive day of bombardment.
"The army has surrounded the city," the activist, Suhaib Ali, said. "We lack relief materials, medicines, ambulance, we can't even move the injured because we are encircled.
"The city is being shelled from outside - there are tanks and rocket launchers stationed there." Forces are also attacking Al-Qusair, west of Homs, and there were clashes in Hama to the north and even in the capital Damascus.
The regime's spokesman, Jihad al-Makdissi, gave a press conference to deny the regime was responsible for the massacre, saying that it was the work of "armed terrorists" and Arabs from abroad.
But numerous witnesses said Alawite militias from neighbouring villages had entered Taldaw, which is Sunni, and shot and bayoneted men, women and children. They moved in after an initial heavy bombardment by regime forces, apparently in retaliation for a Friday demonstration and an attack on army checkpoints by men from the FSA.
"The crime was committed by two nearby settlements loyal to the regime, called Al-Qabou, and Shiea," said a man who gave his name as Abu Bilal al-Homsi. The victims were largely from a street on the edge of Taldaw, and among the dead were many members of three families - the Abdulrazzaq, Abbara and Al-Kurdi.
The first two were living in the same house, and lost six children under the age of ten, two teenagers, and seven adults, including two over the age of 60, according to the Syrian Network of Human Rights.
In a video posted online which appeared to be authentic, a woman survivor, her face covered by a veil, described what happened. "They raided our home," she says.
"The first stopped and asked who was there in the home. I answered, 'my daughter and the wife of my son,' and told them there were no men inside.
There were only women and children.
"One of them remained outside and the other came in and pushed them into the corner and started firing at them. I survived because I remained standing behind the door."
She said the dead included her grand-daughter, aged four, grand-son, aged three, and the child of a cousin, also aged three. "Entire families were killed," another of the women crying in the background breaks in.
"Had they killed one person only, we would have accepted that patiently. We are accustomed to death. More than 100 people were killed. We searched for shrouds to cover and bury them, but found none."
Syria plunges towards civil war after Houla massacre
Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, arrived in the capital Damascus following Friday's massacre in Houla in which 108 people – including 49 children and 34 women – were killed.
He called on "every individual with a gun" to lay down their arms before Syria collapsed into full-scale civil war.
But his words went apparently unheeded as scores more civilians and regime troops lost their lives, with fresh clashes erupting all over the country between two sides that were supposed to have agreed a ceasefire six weeks ago.
At least 36 people were said to have been killed, with fighting everywhere from Idlib, to Dera'a to Damascus. Another 30 people died overnight on Sunday as regime troops shelled residential areas of Hama in retaliation for attacks by the Free Syrian Army. Rebels said there was open discussion of retaliatory attacks against regime forces and minority Alawite villages in revenge for Houla, while the country's main opposition group said its fighters should "be prepared to liberate Syria from the hands of Assad's gangs".
The danger of the outside world being dragged into a protracted and bloody struggle was highlighted when an Iranian general confirmed for the first time, in an interview with a state news agency subsequently withdrawn from its website, that Iran had sent its own forces to Syria.
"If the Islamic republic was not present in Syria, the massacre of people would have happened on a much larger scale." Ismail Gha'ani, the deputy head of the Revolutionary Guard's Quds force, was quoted as saying.
The last two weeks have seen a clear escalation in violence, which had lessened but never disappeared with the start of the ceasefire brokered by Mr Annan on April 12. Regime forces have attacked a number of towns where rebels used the lull in fighting to re-establish control, but they are now responding to attacks with indiscriminate force.
At least 30 people died on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning as regime troops shelled residential areas of the city of Hama, north of Houla, into which FSA troops had fled after attacking government check-points.
Video footage showed rooms filled with casualties. The mutilated bodies of men, women and children lay on blood-stained floors, some dead, some still alive, as doctors looked on helplessly. "They can only do basic first aid and try to stop the bleeding. There is almost no equipment, or medicines," said an activist calling himself Abu Adnan al-Hamwi.
The Syrian regime has denied responsibility for the Houla massacre, blaming Islamist militants in a letter to the UN Security Council last night. But UN observers described wounds compatible only with heavy artillery and tank fire available only to regime forces.
Others died at close quarters, by gunfire and, it is alleged, by knife wounds - killed afterwards, survivors said, by "Shabiha" militia from neighbouring villages inhabited by Alawites, member of the minority sect to which the Assad family belongs.
"People were so angry, so shocked. Some started to say why don't we attack a whole Alawite village?" Yasser al-Homsi, a local activist said. "We believe the Shabiha do not have any morals or any religious ethics."
Mr Annan, who met Syria's foreign minister, Walid Muallem, in Damascus, said he was "shocked and horrified" by events in Houla. "I urge the government to take bold steps to signal that it is serious in its intention to resolve this crisis peacefully, and for everyone involved to help create the right context for a credible political process," he said. "And this message of peace is not only for the government, but for everyone with a gun."
Video of one group of the 49 children killed suggested some of them had been tied up beforehand. Their wrists were bound with blue ties, a common substitute for handcuffs. Although it was not possible to verify whether this had been done before or after death, the Syrian Network for Human Rights cited a witness saying the militia was punishing the father of some of the children.
"One eye witness, who is a lady in her late 50s from Houla, confirmed that the Shabiha handcuffed the children of Abbara family, and told the father to look at their children, how they will be killed in front of his eyes before they killed him," a spokesman said.
Activists say that the majority of the 108 people who died lived in eight houses belonging to an extended family called Abdulrazzaq, to whom the Abbaras were related by marriage.
Human Rights Watch said it had interviewed one 10-year-old boy from the Abdulrazzaq family who survived by hiding in a barn.
“Across the street I saw my friend Shafiq, 13 years old, outside standing alone,” he said. “An armed man in military uniform grabbed him and put him at the corner of a house. He took his own weapon and shot him in the head.
“His mother and big sister — I think she was 14 years old — went outside and started shouting and crying. The same man shot at both of them more than once.”
Syria’s main opposition coalition called last night for countries that support the anti-regime uprising to honour their promises by helping Syrians defend themselves.
“The Syrian National Council calls (on) brothers and friends of the Syrian people to help before it’s too late,” the exiled group said.
Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, arrived in the capital Damascus following Friday's massacre in Houla in which 108 people – including 49 children and 34 women – were killed.
He called on "every individual with a gun" to lay down their arms before Syria collapsed into full-scale civil war.
But his words went apparently unheeded as scores more civilians and regime troops lost their lives, with fresh clashes erupting all over the country between two sides that were supposed to have agreed a ceasefire six weeks ago.
At least 36 people were said to have been killed, with fighting everywhere from Idlib, to Dera'a to Damascus. Another 30 people died overnight on Sunday as regime troops shelled residential areas of Hama in retaliation for attacks by the Free Syrian Army. Rebels said there was open discussion of retaliatory attacks against regime forces and minority Alawite villages in revenge for Houla, while the country's main opposition group said its fighters should "be prepared to liberate Syria from the hands of Assad's gangs".
The danger of the outside world being dragged into a protracted and bloody struggle was highlighted when an Iranian general confirmed for the first time, in an interview with a state news agency subsequently withdrawn from its website, that Iran had sent its own forces to Syria.
"If the Islamic republic was not present in Syria, the massacre of people would have happened on a much larger scale." Ismail Gha'ani, the deputy head of the Revolutionary Guard's Quds force, was quoted as saying.
The last two weeks have seen a clear escalation in violence, which had lessened but never disappeared with the start of the ceasefire brokered by Mr Annan on April 12. Regime forces have attacked a number of towns where rebels used the lull in fighting to re-establish control, but they are now responding to attacks with indiscriminate force.
At least 30 people died on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning as regime troops shelled residential areas of the city of Hama, north of Houla, into which FSA troops had fled after attacking government check-points.
Video footage showed rooms filled with casualties. The mutilated bodies of men, women and children lay on blood-stained floors, some dead, some still alive, as doctors looked on helplessly. "They can only do basic first aid and try to stop the bleeding. There is almost no equipment, or medicines," said an activist calling himself Abu Adnan al-Hamwi.
The Syrian regime has denied responsibility for the Houla massacre, blaming Islamist militants in a letter to the UN Security Council last night. But UN observers described wounds compatible only with heavy artillery and tank fire available only to regime forces.
Others died at close quarters, by gunfire and, it is alleged, by knife wounds - killed afterwards, survivors said, by "Shabiha" militia from neighbouring villages inhabited by Alawites, member of the minority sect to which the Assad family belongs.
"People were so angry, so shocked. Some started to say why don't we attack a whole Alawite village?" Yasser al-Homsi, a local activist said. "We believe the Shabiha do not have any morals or any religious ethics."
Mr Annan, who met Syria's foreign minister, Walid Muallem, in Damascus, said he was "shocked and horrified" by events in Houla. "I urge the government to take bold steps to signal that it is serious in its intention to resolve this crisis peacefully, and for everyone involved to help create the right context for a credible political process," he said. "And this message of peace is not only for the government, but for everyone with a gun."
Video of one group of the 49 children killed suggested some of them had been tied up beforehand. Their wrists were bound with blue ties, a common substitute for handcuffs. Although it was not possible to verify whether this had been done before or after death, the Syrian Network for Human Rights cited a witness saying the militia was punishing the father of some of the children.
"One eye witness, who is a lady in her late 50s from Houla, confirmed that the Shabiha handcuffed the children of Abbara family, and told the father to look at their children, how they will be killed in front of his eyes before they killed him," a spokesman said.
Activists say that the majority of the 108 people who died lived in eight houses belonging to an extended family called Abdulrazzaq, to whom the Abbaras were related by marriage.
Human Rights Watch said it had interviewed one 10-year-old boy from the Abdulrazzaq family who survived by hiding in a barn.
“Across the street I saw my friend Shafiq, 13 years old, outside standing alone,” he said. “An armed man in military uniform grabbed him and put him at the corner of a house. He took his own weapon and shot him in the head.
“His mother and big sister — I think she was 14 years old — went outside and started shouting and crying. The same man shot at both of them more than once.”
Syria’s main opposition coalition called last night for countries that support the anti-regime uprising to honour their promises by helping Syrians defend themselves.
“The Syrian National Council calls (on) brothers and friends of the Syrian people to help before it’s too late,” the exiled group said.
This is heartbreaking stuff....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/28/houla-massacre-survivor-boy-syria
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/28/houla-massacre-survivor-boy-syria
Absolutely horrible stuff.
The UN is a joke, and superpower poilical interests are cynical, but I can not understand the silence on here in a place littered with expert opinions during other ME events. Children and entire families shot at point-blank range and not a single post expressing disgust. As if noone cares when Arabs kill Arabs. Shame on you, hypocrites.
The UN is a joke, and superpower poilical interests are cynical, but I can not understand the silence on here in a place littered with expert opinions during other ME events. Children and entire families shot at point-blank range and not a single post expressing disgust. As if noone cares when Arabs kill Arabs. Shame on you, hypocrites.
I'm disgusted. I'm just a loss about what do about it. A military intervention from the international society seems unlikely and even if there was a military intervention it would probably just escalate the violence.
just like no one cared when an entire afghan family was "droned" just a couple of days ago by usa ?
Still think that everyone who is fighting the Assad regime is an extremist or terrorist?
Yes.
Not quite. You could find a fair few threads discussing "collateral damage" as the Yanks refer to those incidents. And I'd argue that there is a clear distinction between that and cold-blood execution of women and children by their own national army, but this has been done countelss times too.
Neverthesless, some of the most vocal anti-US posters in those threads among others are suspiciously missing from this one. I guess the Saudi-backing argument has become irrelevant with the emergence of these latest scenes. What we've seen here is on the scale of Serbrenica. These are fecking war crimes on prime-time TV. If the UN can't do shit it should be dismantled. Soldiers breaking into houses and executing entire families of their own people.
Shame!
Nutter.
Red Kaos would be proud.
Italy to expel Syrian ambassador, foreign ministry source says - @Reuters
I am now hearing that at least 5 other countries are about to expel the Syrian ambassadors, as well.
This could be the start of something...
I am now hearing that at least 5 other countries are about to expel the Syrian ambassadors, as well.
This could be the start of something...
Not sure why anyone would have a go at the UN? the P5 that set it up...make sure it is ineffective.
Tough luck for the Syrian people...Europe busy with a recession, and worried about Greece keeling over and the domino effect...meanwhile in the US, Obama concentrating on getting re-elected.
The latest atrocities are fecking disgusting though-you sadly expect a certain level of callousness when it comes to conflicts...but little kids basically executed
Tough luck for the Syrian people...Europe busy with a recession, and worried about Greece keeling over and the domino effect...meanwhile in the US, Obama concentrating on getting re-elected.
The latest atrocities are fecking disgusting though-you sadly expect a certain level of callousness when it comes to conflicts...but little kids basically executed
Think the French have already done this, and the UK will expel the Chargé d'affaires
Not everyone, but most of them/the ones who will seize power when Assad is toppled.
My opinion is that you're just being used as a tool by other people to achieve what they want. They use your emotions to justify what they already planned to do beforehand (and I'm not talking about the Syrians here).
Do you think the sight of a Syrian child being killed should make me cry more than the sight of a Bahraini child being killed? No. Do you think the sight of a Bahraini child being killed means less for the people in charge (in the world) than the sight of a Syrian child being killed? No, they both mean nothing for them.
In two very similar situations, the media and the "UN" turn all their attention to Syria, while giving the dying Bahrainis the deaf ears. Not only this, they helped the regime KILL and OPPRESS the people in Bahrain (the WHOLE world saw the Saudi army in Bahrain murdering protestors) to shut them up as quickly as possible, while they are arming the protestors in Syria, to make the suffering worse, and make a meal for their top of the hour news... For a reason, and a goal that is already set.
They don't care about the Syrians, they don't care about the Bahrainis, they don't care about the Iraqis (remember how everybody was against the war, and against toppling Saddam Hussein?), they only care about their plans, their interests... THOSE are the real hypocrites..
I will cry for the Syrians, as much as I cry for the Bahraini, and the Saudis, ... BUT I fully believe it doesn't matter what happens, the outcome will only serve the interests of the people behind the scenes.
The Russians are beginning to crack in their steadfast support for Assad. Obama and Medvedev apparently had an aside at the G8 about a plan to get Assad to step aside for a peaceful change of power.
Can you explain why you are crying for the Saudis?