While
Assad and his ilk are busy carving up Syria, even as the world watches on in horror
and disbelief, both fake and sincere, the challenge ahead for Syria’s
opposition groups is to conjure a plan for keeping the rest of the country
together. Perhaps a plan can hasten the decision for intervention, without
which the future looks bleak.
Saturday June 09, 2012
Today’s death toll: 96. The Breakdown:
26 in Daraa City including many women and children, killed by pro-Assad
militias after they stormed the city. 26 in Homs, including 10 in Khaldieyh
neighborhood in Homs City killed under the continued shelling of old
neighborhoods with anti-aircraft missile and heavy artillery, the rest died in
the towns of Talbisseh and Qusayr due to continued shelling. 26 in Idlib, half
of whom fell in the city of Maaraat Al-Nouman. 12 including children in
Lattakia who fell in the continued pounding of Hiffeh town and nearby villages.
Deaths were also reported in Daraya suburb in Damascus, as well as in the
provinces of Aleppo and Hassakeh.
News
Op-Eds
& Special Reports
Shoddy unprofessional dimwitted journalism
“But
according to a new report in Germany’s leading daily, the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the Houla massacre was in fact committed by anti-Assad
Sunni militants, and the bulk of the victims were member of the Alawi and Shia
minorities, which have been largely supportive of Assad.”
Assad and his
supporters have been working since the beginning of the revolution to provoke
exactly this kind of response from Sunni rebels in order to use it to bolster
their claims of terrorist infiltrators, armed gangs and external conspiracies,
and so they can justify even more violent crackdown, wider-scale ethnic
cleansing and larger massacres. Had this been an anti-Alawite massacre as FAZ
report claims, had there, in fact, been a single Alawite victim among the dead
in Houla, Assad and his media would have jumped on it like the ravenous wolves
they are. They wouldn’t have waited for a German journalist quoting unnamed
sources to tell them what happened.
We have
lists of names of victims, we have eyewitnesses, we have videos and we have
satellite photography showing pro-Assad checkpoints all over the place. But
more importantly, had these claims been true wouldn’t Syrian media have pointed
this out from day one? Wouldn’t Assad have
bothered say so during his speech in which he described the people who
perpetrated this as monsters? Would local Alawites have allowed Sunni rebels to
bury their dead for them? Wouldn’t Assad have declared national mourning for the
dead?
Assad and
his supporters have been working since the beginning of the revolution to
provoke exactly this kind of response from Sunni rebels in order to use it to
bolster their claims of terrorist infiltrators, armed gangs and external
conspiracies, and so they can justify even more violent crackdown, wider-scale
ethnic cleansing and larger massacres. Had there been a single Alawite victim
among the dead in Houla, they would have jumped on it like the ravenous wolves
they are. They wouldn’t have waited for an overambitious German journalist, a
novice trying to make a name or a has-been trying to revive it, quoting unnamed
sources to tell them what happened.
Video Highlights
Homs
The
neighborhoods of Old Homs at point housed over 800,000 people, most of whom
Sunnis, now the inhabitants have been forced out and their dwellings are being
raised to the ground. Meanwhile, majority Alawite and Christian neighborhoods
are quite safe and life goes on as normal. The city is all too simply, and as
the world watches on hopelessly, is being readied for incorporation in a future
Alawite state.
In Homs
City, the entire crew documenting the current bombing campaign was hit but
they miraculously survived, and here they can be seeing tending to their own
wounds http://youtu.be/L3H2hKPHaQo
And the pounding of the old neighborhoods continued: Qarabees http://youtu.be/ZGY0GZXVe2k , http://youtu.be/04LKIgJTN3g Qoussour
http://youtu.be/wHV5QqVjnco , http://youtu.be/bTXPRkGeArs , http://youtu.be/64HOIOOnGro , http://youtu.be/aWWKkjUcn9U , http://youtu.be/Wu_sranKqMA , http://youtu.be/NiHDalHs0FE , http://youtu.be/EFhQA-h4jKE , http://youtu.be/mknWT0xf8n4 Ghoutah
http://youtu.be/-SihN7Q0aiA Jouret
Al-Shayah: houses catch fire http://youtu.be/mKgfuMQ9NOc
Hamidiyeh http://youtu.be/IQUlo4zTAzM
Khaldiyeh http://youtu.be/3UpwzEAKBhk
, http://youtu.be/sy7EqvhAnY4 , http://youtu.be/sKDZx0GUB8o Bomb goes
off near the media team recording the events
http://youtu.be/8i5hIkc-6H4 Wounded
http://youtu.be/XIo9EXK3JsA , http://youtu.be/nnpdtBk-z34
Pro-Assad
militias stormed the neighborhood of Ghoutah and carried out hundreds of
arrest amidst heavy firing http://youtu.be/M6YT2KNHVas
, http://youtu.be/PY4dZ9tj1tE
The
pounding of the town of Rastan continues http://youtu.be/s4E9dC5vUkw , http://youtu.be/8OWhVKR6hEc , http://youtu.be/ywqSGWtkHo8 , http://youtu.be/nVn6eaGHfbA , http://youtu.be/VTT98yZjMxU Homes catch
fire http://youtu.be/pRBbDqo34DY , http://youtu.be/jvJ15KFXBkc a martyr http://youtu.be/IRW-WW1JKI0
The nearby
town of Talbisseh is also pounded during the day http://youtu.be/cfz33qZhhLw , http://youtu.be/GNNoBq6IbKQ And at night
http://youtu.be/ihanyayFAsg , http://youtu.be/fNeoERxnqPU , http://youtu.be/5lJSuLwob6s Martyrs http://youtu.be/A6eCLkHOa-U , http://youtu.be/iL14z1Ousxs , http://youtu.be/A1jKON8Qjz4 , http://youtu.be/hIZuxpitcnk , http://youtu.be/K0o_b64R7jc , http://youtu.be/8nQCCZecgvE , http://youtu.be/avJVRYpEGoA
Qusayr: the pounding continues
http://youtu.be/khp01Gi5M7E Martyrs http://youtu.be/CsvutxLb5yQ Rescuing the
wounded http://youtu.be/9U7KUZKof5Y
Houla comes under heavy
gunfire at night http://youtu.be/ZV2OTICTqJw
Idlib
The
pounding of Maa’rrat Al-Nouman http://youtu.be/UxGciB7tnrM
left many dead http://youtu.be/dC25vryp4WQ
, http://youtu.be/8cx4OFBuePI , http://youtu.be/TA0k-pPdxLo , http://youtu.be/Mp1pfi5sCWk , http://youtu.be/0Xqg--Ydab8 , http://youtu.be/tEr0M180QnU Treating the
wounded http://youtu.be/bku3pMKAj-Y
Hama
The town
of Taybat Al-Imam comes under heavy pounding at night http://youtu.be/-RyIsE1VeME
In the
town of Kafar Zeiteh, a local martyr is so disfigured he was only
identified by the tattoo on his arm http://youtu.be/YhuqSEb93tI
UN monitors meet the locals http://youtu.be/hhHSyVNNGmQ
Daraa
Nighttime
clashes in the town of Sanamein http://youtu.be/JW7VCXlWYyc
Pro-Assad
militias set a few houses I the town of Abtaa on fire http://youtu.be/8AsiAv_CjOE
In Daraa
Al-Balad, locals take advantage of a lull in the pounding to see off the
martyrs to their final resting place http://youtu.be/hm_TG8q7dxs
, http://youtu.be/UD78Shu4HwU , http://youtu.be/H2u5fCkOyp0 , http://youtu.be/3MSsSsdYQ-8 Praying for
the dead http://youtu.be/-kDwoCvgBXM the
pounding earlier in the day http://youtu.be/9wUxOo6JXzs
, http://youtu.be/XfdxltK5K5w , http://youtu.be/YXbGnFP2uRs
Damascus
The town
of Zabadani comes under heavy pounding at night http://youtu.be/SsGmMJNboyA , http://youtu.be/OlJK5bwRCWE , http://youtu.be/wUa40sV7MIc , http://youtu.be/meYamXbHn9Q
Locals in Qaboun
suburb hold a funeral for yesterday’s dead http://youtu.be/fD6AMxWMTEI
, http://youtu.be/KYAt0-mcStw , http://youtu.be/J5EFftlJixM
Harasta: martyr http://youtu.be/3Xzq0Er0ESU
In Babbila,
pro-Assad militias force local merchants to end their strike http://youtu.be/1GUBLYVULog
Aleppo
Protesters
in Salaheddine neighborhood, Aleppo City, come under fire http://youtu.be/FJ9yZaVsjEY
The town
of Tal Rif’aat is pounded by choppers http://youtu.be/cddR0SatVds
Assalamualaikum, keep up the good work on the reporting. Can't trust mainstream media reporting.
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