Civilians: Both Sides' Targets
In this image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a Syrian man carries an injured child away from a missile strike in Raqqa, Syria, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013. AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video
"We are still finding people who were killed in their homes, and bodies left in bushes. Until now, 150 Alawites from the villages have been kidnapped. There are women and children among them. We have lost all contact with them."President Bashar al Assad triumphantly celebrated his victory in Qusayr thanks to the ferocious combat readiness of Hezbollah, a little too precipitously. And he set up his Alawite supporters for retribution from the rebels when he armed towns and villages and encouraged the faithful to launch their own defensive strikes against the rebels.
Sheikh Mohammed Reda Hatem, Alawite cleric, Latakia
Now his family's home province of Latakia has seen attacks by the rebels, accused of sectarian killing, kidnapping and looting, leaving hundreds of Alawite civilians dead, maimed, or simply missing. How surprising can it be that the rebels intended to carry out revenge attacks. They promised after their signal defeats that they would strike at the regime's support base. And this they are doing.
They suffered failures in Homs, and the plan was to hit back hard "where it hurts most". It hurt, mightily, the fighting approaching within 20 kilometres of Bashar al-Assad's ancestral village of Qardaha. The Alawite-dominated National Defence Force faced off against fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, al-Qaeda affiliates.
Islamists against like, both well armed and fierce in their determination to prevail.
And between them? Vulnerable civilians, taking the brunt of the rage and promised vengeance. Still, the Syrian National Coalition is stung at the accusations that villages have been targeted as sectarian goals for revenge. "The Free Syrian Army and the Syrian Coalition consider all Syrian people equal, regardless of their religious or ethnic backgrounds", they claimed in an issued statement, cleansing themselves of the work of the Islamists.
A local opposition journalist explained the rebels' intention to reach and blockade the port of Tartous where the Syrian government receives most of its weapons supplies. "They know it is a long-sighted campaign that will take months. First they have to pass through Qardaha, and eliminate pro-Assad groups", said Habib Saleh.
Within the first three days of the new offensive, two hundred of "Assad's men" had been killed, boasted rebel fighters. Despite residents in the area claiming that many of those were not fighters but civilians. "They are provoking a sectarian war. The casualties are in their hundreds and many civilians have been kidnapped, including women", a member of parliament for Latakia, Dr. Ammar al-Assad said.
"Those civilians who were not kidnapped have fled and are hiding in the forests around the villages. The situation is in total chaos." The rebels appear to be returning the compliment; the regime continues to target civilian Sunni areas with the explanation that they shelter the rebels.
Desperate Syrians flee in their tens of thousands, leaving behind their homes, their dead, their belongings, their hope.
Labels: Atrocities, Conflict, Human Relations, Islamists, Syria
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 13, 2013
<< Home