April 25, 2020
incomplete
2. The IIT itself interviewed 20 persons of interest, including alleged victims, during this
phase of its work. Since the incidents under investigation took place in the same
geographical area and within seven days of each other, most of the persons of interest
were able to provide information for more than one incident.
(including the one that was clearly invented retroactively - not just unverified civilian witnesses, militant ones, possible militants speaking as White Helmets (day job), but also to … the White Helmets as a group, a bunch of Syrian opposition groups who collate the same kind of allegations, and various European agencies and NGOs that collate those collations and are taken as lending credence in the process (not that it was needed...)
These interviews were considered in conjunction with statements previously provided to the FFM and other entities. In relation to other entities that were willing to provide information, or
provide leads for the investigation, the general approach of the IIT has been to request
access to information that the IIT considered could be obtained from those entities,
and to assess it together with the rest of the information already at the IIT’s disposal.
In its investigation, the IIT reached out, among others, to the following entities:124
list:
1 The Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS);
2 Chemical Violations Documentation Center of Syria (CVDCS);
3 Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA);
4 Europol Analysis Project on Core International Crimes (AP CIC);
5 European Union Satellite Centre;
6 Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) – Peace and Security;
7 Human Rights Watch;
8 Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic;
9 Open Society Justice Initiative;
10 Peace SOS;
11 Syria Civil Defence (SCD);
12 Syria Justice and Accountability Centre;
13 Syrian Archive;
14 Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR);
15 Syrian NGO Alliance,
16 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) - relevant if the meteorological data was manipulated
Not: SOHR, any Syrian non-opposition groups like ... ones that have existed, still might, but I'd have to check.
1 The Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS);
- ?
2 Chemical Violations Documentation Center of Syria (CVDCS);
- interesting history, etc.
-- ...
3 Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA);
- Assad Files: hoax
-- https://21stcenturywire.com/2018/10/11/revolution-unraveled-assad-files-now-an-achilles-heel-for-war-crimes-narrative/
- http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2016/04/regarding-those-assad-files.html
- star witness who helped fill in the gaps
-- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2020/03/some-different-opinions-on-retun-of.html
4 Europol Analysis Project on Core International Crimes (AP CIC);
- sounds sure to be unbiassed (sarcasm)
5 European Union Satellite Centre;
- relevant if the meteorological data was manipulated
6 Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) – Peace and Security;
- compiled the most inflated, dishonest collation of CW allegations against Syria to date
-- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-change-of-thinking-on-douma-chemical.html
7 Human Rights Watch;
- identified KhAB-250 by looking at it inside out, other incompetence
-- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2020/02/on-opcw-bellingcat-collaboration.html
8 Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic;
- uniquely Syrian CW weapon, etc. Bellingcat collaboration?
-- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2020/02/on-opcw-bellingcat-collaboration.html
- e.g. reliance on bogus OPCW findings like 'no wind theory' and location fudging to make their spread seem to work
-- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/07/idlib-chemical-massacre-4-4-17-wind.html
9 Open Society Justice Initiative;
- no research of my own - what can a Soros-run compiler of allegations really add?
10 Peace SOS;
- sounds cuddly - don't know them
11 Syria Civil Defence (SCD);
- would surely be in on any staged scenario, which they considered, and found against, based on things and stories "SCD" handed them
12 Syria Justice and Accountability Centre;
- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-clearer-view-on-assad-files.html
13 Syrian Archive;
- just video archiving? some commentary attached, maybe more?
14 Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR);
- long record, no overview of my own, several good articles by others
-- ...
15 Syrian NGO Alliance,
- ?
16 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) - relevant if the meteorological data was manipulated
The Site that Asks: Is the "dictator" justifying intervention by killing innocents? Or is someone else doing it for him? (previously The Libyan Civil War: Critical Views)
Showing posts with label SNHR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SNHR. Show all posts
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Sunday, December 30, 2018
On the Layla Shweikani Issue
December 29, 2018
In late November, news broke that a dual US-Syrian citizen was killed in detention in a Syrian prison, some two years earlier. Layla Shweikani (Arabic: ليلى شويكاني ) was a U.S.-born Chicago native, educated as a software engineer. But she went to Syria in 2015, ostensibly, to help displaced people in the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta.
The area was run by Saudi-backed hardline Islamists Jaish Al-Islam, who apparently approved of her work. Other women activists there, like Razan Zaitouneh, have been arrested and killed by JaI for challenging their harsh policies. But it seems Shweikani was arrested by the Syrian authorities instead, and is believed by most to have been executed following on torture, and surely for no real crime except trying to help the Syrian people.
Since I don't follow the news closely, my first view happened to be via Tony Cartalucci at Land Destroyer on December 15, panning "a particularly scurrilous op-ed appeared in the pages of the Washington Post" two days earlier which, he argues, lacked "any actual evidence" for the allegations. He also considers a report in the UK Independent, which featured more explicit evidence. But as he accurately put it, the source for that was "dubious activists relying on second and even third-hand accounts."
- Washington Post article by Jason Rezaian (soon arrested in Iran, tried, and convicted for espionage, as noted).
- The Independent article by Richard Hall
In this post, I'll offer a reasoned rundown of what we supposedly know, and what we don't really know, and what possibilities exist.
The first 33 months of silence
Activists are pressing president Trump, with apparent futility, to impose penalties, and shaming the public and media for supposedly ignoring the crime. For example, rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) told WaPo's Rezaian in early December “It’s disheartening that there not only has been no outrage over the murder of an American by the Assad regime, but that there has been little to no coverage on her story by our national media.” The story had by then been making limited rounds for perhaps two weeks, with little evidence yet and, as it turns out, emerging from the blue with zero preludes or prior reports.
As people are guilt-tripped for silence over this crime, it should be noted everyone including her family, her government, and Syrian activist groups failed to make any public mention of the case in nearly three years since her reported arrest in February, 2016. WaPo: "She was being held in solitary confinement with no contact with the outside world." For some reason , even the people who knew she was in there didn't make one-way contact possible by speaking of her case.
Opposition records often give clues, and my primary source is the databases of the Center for Documentation of Violations (or VDC). It's pretty exhaustive up to a point, but never got a report of her as detained or killed. This seems to be the proper spelling of the fairly rare name in question: شويكاني
The VDC lists 2 men of this name killed, a civilian in 2014, a militant in 2015, both from Mleha, E. Ghouta. No women or children appear. For detainees, they list just 4 men, 3 in mid-2012 and one in late 2013 (one is from Daraya, the rest from Mleha). None since, no Shweikani women. (there's also a database for missing, which lists zero Shweikanis.)
So she didn't make it into this source. Nor did her father, nor probably her fiance. A decent internet search suggests no one else anywhere reported her arrest or detention or worries, prior to the recent news. On Twitter, I found Tweets featuring her name in Arabic first appear, just barely, on November 26 of this year, come in heavy in the following days, and sporadically since. It seems no one spoke of her prior to that.
I don't what this means, if anything, but it's odd. Detained activists are usually named as heroes and supported with protests, petitions, hashtag campaigns, etc. But here, a U.S. citizen activist and some family members are detained February 2016, contact was made with U.S. Government help 10 months later (see below), execution should have seemed likely or imminent (see below), and then contact was lost for two years, apparently with no clarification from Damascus ... and still no public note or complaint of the missing U.S. citizen, the detained activist facing execution, perhaps already killed.
But the Syrian government just now (sometime in November) confirmed her death, on December 28, 2016, through an update to its civil registry. It doesn't say she was executed, or was even in jail, just that she died. Other information might well clarify that, but that information might be untrue, in whole or part.
Then, suddenly everybody knows just when and where she died, and were able to speak about it. The explanation they'd give is they knew where she was and how she would have died if she had. But since the regime cruelly refused to confirm the killing, uncertainty over her fate and perhaps some kind of threats made them keep quiet about it (like maybe they would kill her as soon as anyone spoke up). In that case, perhaps a Syrian affirmation of hear death was taken as credible proof of something they highly suspected, and was enough to shake their tongues free.
That's entirely possible, but I suspect the abnormal quiet is some kind of a clue to the hidden truth of this story. For now, it's just worth noting.
Anyway, considering everyone else's silence for nearly three years, I don't feel so slow in catching the story and following up with this starter post that winds up just missing the mark of two years since her death, and one month after the first anyone heard of her.
The government officials and reporters passing on news of her meeting are probably doing it correctly enough. Important context is probably left off, but I presume this visit was real, and so: Ms. Shweikani was held at Adra prison as of December 18, and the Syrian government acknowledged that fact by granting the visit that proved it. And unless she was released in the interim (which seems unlikely) the same authorities' claim she died somewhere, somehow, ten days later, means she died in prison. Execution is obviously one way that happens.
In his report, Tony Cartalucci added some questioning of the WaPo journalist Josh Rogin, who acknowledged "we don't know the specifics of Layla's death ... Thank you for that caution. ... But the regime is responsible for her death, in their custody." From this, we can say Rogin is pretty sure she was in jail when she died, and can only claim general responsibility based on that. And that's probably accurate enough while the rest is, in fact, hearsay. And there's been a lot of that regarding Syria, that either goes untested or fails a test.
The charges and Shweikani's uncertain fate
Without explaining how this was known, the article claims the prisoner admitted to the leveled charges, but only after "Shweikani had been threatened by Syrian authorities that they would harm her family if she did not confess to the ambassador to the crimes she had been accused of, which she then did."
If this is true, she said in the meeting that she was guilty. The claim that this was extracted under threat is suspect; there's little reason to know what happens inside torture chambers at Adra prison. Was this just a guess?
What were the charges? Most sources are vague, saying it was related to "terrorism." But Richard Hall wrote for the Independent how Layla was arrested sometime in February, 2016, "along with her father and her fiancé. She was charged with planning to assassinate members of the Syrian government."
First off, Hall can't know what the charges actually were - his activist source almost surely filled in this detail, as he did for most relevant details. And as we'll discuss next, he doesn't seem very trustworthy. But if this is the charge - and it should be the one she claimed to be guilty of, before an ambassador and a judge, if so - it would probably be known early on; her family probably learned of it from or before the December 18 meeting with ambassador Filipi. It's surely a death penalty crime, and execution should be expected with little delay, justified or otherwise. And at some point, as I'll explain next, they learned she had been sentenced to death in a December 26 trial that lasted 30 seconds. Yet, as the Independent reports, until the 2018 confirmation...
Another way of looking at it; a US citizen was allegedly involved in assassination plots in Syria - and no one mentions her detention, least of all the U.S. government, until Damascus brings up her name first in 2018. That could be coincidence, or might help clarify what caused that unusual silence.
Qutaiba Idlibi's "Research"
Alleged threats behind Shweikani's confession to ambassador Filipi were mentioned above. It's not clear how these were learned of, but that's presumably some of the prolific detective work by "Qutaiba Idlbi, a researcher who works with the relatives of Syrian detainees," as cited for the Independent, not in the WaPo piece. After stumbling on his Twitter account (first tweet mentioning her case - Nov. 27, 2018) I asked him about that finding in particular: "Are you the source for that claim? How was it learned of?" (awaiting a response...)
Based on info he gathered (when?), Hall at the Independent would report:
"What happened next was discovered by Idlbi through testimony of other inmates at Adra prison, where she was held, and contact with Syrian officials after the fact."
"...Eight days later [Dec. 26], Shweikani was taken from Adra prison to a military court, where she was asked to answer to the charges against her. “The trial is basically one question: ‘Do you admit to the accusations?’ Layla said yes, due to the threats on her family’s life,” says Idlbi. “Through an official, we found out that a judge sentenced her to execution for terrorism. The trial lasted 30 seconds.”
The trial part would be internal. It would almost require a functioning insider to witness it or know a witness. Luckily, Idlibi claims, there was an unnamed official sympathetic to the opposition who knew of these details and leaked them to this researcher. It's not clear when he pulled this convenient trick, but presumably well after the fact. These details would make her death pretty certain, as they seem to do now. Yet for years, this info was apparently not available as "Shweikani’s family still held out hope that she was alive, and that she would be released."
I suspect this 'sympathetic insider' only 'stepped forward' in November 2018, as if to bolster the government's new listing, as if he had no clue before, or maybe had just forgotten until the registry update jogged his memory. But it seems likely he only handed over these long-quiet details, to support more opposition claims, in the days before Idlibi would finally 'reveal' his own ongoing research.
Otherwise, this "researcher" Idlibi relies - as many other opposition propagandists do - on alleged prisoners who saw detainees here and there, and bring this up upon their alleged release. In this case, I suspect all such source were 'released' suddenly in late November, 2018, just as that official came out to help Idlibi with his big debut as a world-stage research guy.
Here's another little puzzle - following a trial on December 26, as Richard Hall heard it:
Furthermore, the presumed date, known since whenever, happens to match exactly what they Syrian government had just confirmed - December 28 (transferred Dec. 26, usually killed within 48 hours). Are they really that predictable, or is this a fake prediction fitted to the revelation after-the-fact? The latter option remains open anyway, since Idlibi waited two years for this regime confirmation before raising any public complaints.
In support, the article notes how the Syrian Network for Human Rights also "believes she was executed on 28 December 2016." The SNHR is a western-funded pro-regime change front propaganda group, as Cartalucci notes. It's also the more shrill, partisan propagandist cousin of the widely-cited Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, from which it branched off following an early dispute. The SNHR, not the SOHR, endorse the claims brought by Mr. Idlibi, which means nothing. It blames Assad, so they agree. (that's not to say the western-funded SOHR would NOT endorse the story...)
As Cartalucci notes, Idlibi's status as an opposition member means he lacks neutrality as a witness and further, he might be repaying favors to a hostile state; "Qutaiba Idlbi lives in the United States after receiving a scholarship to study at Columbia University," as Cartalucci found with a bit of his own research. I can add it says Columbia student right on his Twitter profile. More research on this chap may be in order. But even as I'm sure Idlibi is researching me now (as if that matters), I probably won't bother much. My questions are those raised here, and digging around won't answer them. Some discussion with him might provide clues, however. I am going to pursue that.
What Remains
Idlibi's research might still be partly or totally true. I doubt that, but doubt is just what it is. Otherwise, there are other possibilities for the few solid facts here:
1. she was executed legitimately, for a serious crime she was guilty of (or reasonably considered guilty)
2. she was executed illegitimately, on false charges (I take it as my job to question such claims, not rule them out absent a very good reason)
3. She died of natural causes, illness, etc. It happens in jails and prisons everywhere. (but that would mean her charges, confessions, and perhaps trial and sentencing to death at the same time are coincidental)
There are also standing questions over the government's actions. At least as the stories imply, her family was never informed, obviously not given her body. Washington and the Czech ambassador pursued the case, we hear. They must have been misled/uninformed over the execution. I'm not convinced that's the reality, but it could well be. There are different possible reasons, some of them reasonable, why Damascus might stay quiet on this execution in particular. But certainly that secrecy would feed into narratives like those circulating now.
And let's consider the troubling precedents and prior allegations that make these stories seem likely enough most won't even bother with specific evidence. What we think we know about Assad's secret prison killing machine includes mass arrests of innocents, inhumane conditions, routine torture, false confessions, and mass executions, thought to have been ramped up lately. This is; all alleged, with the allegations widely credited. Like most, Layla is said to have been killed at Sednaya prison, the "human slaughterhouse" as decried by Amnesty International in a report I considered here.
It's widely accepted there must be a system to this mass killing, some order for it coming from on high. There probably should be, if it's real. In fact anti-Syria investigators have gathered close to a million pages of top secret documents seized from overrun government facilities, etc. But despite the public bluster, these "Assad Files" apparently reveal no such orders. The best examples they can find to even suggest it note some beatings and some torture have occurred in Syrian prisons. But officials are only seen - talking candidly and secretly between themselves - calling these "mistakes" and ordering that it be stopped. Oversight is proposed. Some deaths by disease are also noted; officials secretly suggested more attention to cleanliness to minimize that. (see here) The orders TO starve, neglect and mass exterminate the prisoners ... yet to be found, just like the orders to shoot or arrest peaceful protesters.
The torture part of Layla's tale might be a specific from Idlibi's supposed insider, or simply inferred from the record of allegations and the supposed proof in the "Caesar photos," said to show "torture." Tony Cartalucci noted this:
"Part of [WaPo reporter Josh] Rogin’s diversions included references to the 2013 “Caesar photographs,” which Rogin would claim were “verified” by the FBI. US Representative Kinzinger is also fond of invoking the photographs which were allegedly smuggled out of Syria and reportedly depict Syrians "tortured then executed" by the Syrian government. "
"What Rogin failed to mention was that the photographs were “verified” only as undoctored by the FBI who never once stepped foot in Syria to investigate or verify the identities of or circumstances surrounding those depicted in the photographs."
This is true and well-put. They are genuine photos, mostly or all taken at an official location in Damascus near Assad's palace. But where did these thousands of real and emaciated bodies come from? I've made a huge project of analyzing these photos (not all published, but a lot of work is collected here). For a nine month span, the bodies came thorough at a rate of about 1,000/month. This is a huge crime. The circumstances deserve careful consideration, not the easily-convinced, almost kneejerk Assad blame they were greeted with.
Some photo evidence and considerable logic suggest those thousands of men and boys (and one woman) were prisoners of the local terrorists (see again FC6). Most likely, that would be the same Jaish Al-Islam that freely kidnaps non-Sunni civilians and uses them how it sees fit (see Fail Caesar part 8), and also seemingly approved of Layla Shewikani's work with "displaced people." Knowing they had a sympathetic insider at the morgue end ("Caesar"), I think they killed off most of the huge number of prisoners they held, forged "regime prisoner" numbers on the bodies they dumped for the government to process as unknown. Then, I suspect, the insider "confirmed" those numbers with his own unofficial morgue photos of the victims, to make it all look official. Even many opposition sources support my hunch that most of the victims are captured Syrian army soldiers and the like (allegedly, they had "tried to defect" - see here).
So there's little documented reason to be sure this torture-killing of innocents by the "Assad regime" is a real thing, let alone the obvious explanation for Ms. Shweikani's fate. We should still be applying some skepticism to the specific evidence and, as we see above, finding it doesn't hold much weight on its own. It needs these precedents to be real, but they probably aren't.
Remember Nabil Sharbaji
At least some detainee stories seem to be simply made up, or grossly embellished. Consider the case of Nabil Sharbaji, arrested at the uprising's start in March, 2011, but quickly released, detained again in Feb. 2012 for helping start an opposition newspaper, and held for longer. In late 2012, he allegedly wrote down the names and details of some 82 cellmates at Adra prison - in blood and rust with a chicken bone, on scraps of rough cloth, and seemingly illegible - as highlighted in a presentation and documentary film sponsored by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Then he was arrested a third time at the end of January, 2013. That last arrest is suspicious, going ignored by most sources, and following on an even more-ignored release. He may have been in real jail before, was released twice, and was then kidnapped into a terrorist dungeon for the final and fatal stretch. (see my analysis for this and the following details). It should be noted he, like most highlighted over such fates, was always opposed to violence and Islamism. If anyone had a reason to kill him, it would be the violent Islamists taking over his neighborhood. And yet it was the cruel Assad regime, we hear, arrested everyone nice, forcing the rebellion to turn violent and Islamist...
As it happens the 82-names list - some pile of cloth - was allegedly hidden in the cuffs and collar of one shirt and smuggled out by Mansour Al-Omari, who also ran the VDC's detainee database (that never listed Layla). According to this man and that database, Sharbaji was never released after the second arrest; he kept sending out notes from the regime prisons (mostly with ink and paper and smuggled in unspecified ways) long enough to disprove rumors he was killed in April. The notes continued up to August, 2013, with sightings and an alleged prison visit in October, 3013. But then there's no news I could find for over three years before, in late 2016, the same Mansour Al-Omari revealed how his friend Nabil had been killed two years earlier; "He died in the Saydnaya military prison after a jailer kicked him in the chest" on May 3, 2015.
This would have happened two months after Sharbaji was reliably identified (March, 2015 - see second VDC martyr's entry) in a "Caesar photo" looking like he died of suffocation. But it's dated February, 2013, and no Caesar photos show bodies later than mid-August of that year. (Alleged sightings continue into October - just long enough to 'clarify' he lived past the photo collection.) But that really looks like him, and timeline analysis supports this is the right basic time for that body number to pass through, probably about two weeks after that murky third arrest. Unless the ID is wrong, he was dead before most of the smuggled notes attributed to him, and some of the alleged sightings. He might still have written that famous 82-names list before he died, but you know ... I just don't buy that either. I find that evidence almost ludicrous in and of itself.
It's worth remembering Nabil at this time, and wondering how widely this kind of embellishment happens. Maybe something of the like plays into the stories about Layla Shweikani's death for no crime, under systematic torture ordered by the brutal Assad regime.
In late November, news broke that a dual US-Syrian citizen was killed in detention in a Syrian prison, some two years earlier. Layla Shweikani (Arabic: ليلى شويكاني ) was a U.S.-born Chicago native, educated as a software engineer. But she went to Syria in 2015, ostensibly, to help displaced people in the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta.
The area was run by Saudi-backed hardline Islamists Jaish Al-Islam, who apparently approved of her work. Other women activists there, like Razan Zaitouneh, have been arrested and killed by JaI for challenging their harsh policies. But it seems Shweikani was arrested by the Syrian authorities instead, and is believed by most to have been executed following on torture, and surely for no real crime except trying to help the Syrian people.
Since I don't follow the news closely, my first view happened to be via Tony Cartalucci at Land Destroyer on December 15, panning "a particularly scurrilous op-ed appeared in the pages of the Washington Post" two days earlier which, he argues, lacked "any actual evidence" for the allegations. He also considers a report in the UK Independent, which featured more explicit evidence. But as he accurately put it, the source for that was "dubious activists relying on second and even third-hand accounts."
- Washington Post article by Jason Rezaian (soon arrested in Iran, tried, and convicted for espionage, as noted).
- The Independent article by Richard Hall
In this post, I'll offer a reasoned rundown of what we supposedly know, and what we don't really know, and what possibilities exist.
The first 33 months of silence
Activists are pressing president Trump, with apparent futility, to impose penalties, and shaming the public and media for supposedly ignoring the crime. For example, rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) told WaPo's Rezaian in early December “It’s disheartening that there not only has been no outrage over the murder of an American by the Assad regime, but that there has been little to no coverage on her story by our national media.” The story had by then been making limited rounds for perhaps two weeks, with little evidence yet and, as it turns out, emerging from the blue with zero preludes or prior reports.
As people are guilt-tripped for silence over this crime, it should be noted everyone including her family, her government, and Syrian activist groups failed to make any public mention of the case in nearly three years since her reported arrest in February, 2016. WaPo: "She was being held in solitary confinement with no contact with the outside world." For some reason , even the people who knew she was in there didn't make one-way contact possible by speaking of her case.
Opposition records often give clues, and my primary source is the databases of the Center for Documentation of Violations (or VDC). It's pretty exhaustive up to a point, but never got a report of her as detained or killed. This seems to be the proper spelling of the fairly rare name in question: شويكاني
The VDC lists 2 men of this name killed, a civilian in 2014, a militant in 2015, both from Mleha, E. Ghouta. No women or children appear. For detainees, they list just 4 men, 3 in mid-2012 and one in late 2013 (one is from Daraya, the rest from Mleha). None since, no Shweikani women. (there's also a database for missing, which lists zero Shweikanis.)
So she didn't make it into this source. Nor did her father, nor probably her fiance. A decent internet search suggests no one else anywhere reported her arrest or detention or worries, prior to the recent news. On Twitter, I found Tweets featuring her name in Arabic first appear, just barely, on November 26 of this year, come in heavy in the following days, and sporadically since. It seems no one spoke of her prior to that.
I don't what this means, if anything, but it's odd. Detained activists are usually named as heroes and supported with protests, petitions, hashtag campaigns, etc. But here, a U.S. citizen activist and some family members are detained February 2016, contact was made with U.S. Government help 10 months later (see below), execution should have seemed likely or imminent (see below), and then contact was lost for two years, apparently with no clarification from Damascus ... and still no public note or complaint of the missing U.S. citizen, the detained activist facing execution, perhaps already killed.
But the Syrian government just now (sometime in November) confirmed her death, on December 28, 2016, through an update to its civil registry. It doesn't say she was executed, or was even in jail, just that she died. Other information might well clarify that, but that information might be untrue, in whole or part.
Then, suddenly everybody knows just when and where she died, and were able to speak about it. The explanation they'd give is they knew where she was and how she would have died if she had. But since the regime cruelly refused to confirm the killing, uncertainty over her fate and perhaps some kind of threats made them keep quiet about it (like maybe they would kill her as soon as anyone spoke up). In that case, perhaps a Syrian affirmation of hear death was taken as credible proof of something they highly suspected, and was enough to shake their tongues free.
That's entirely possible, but I suspect the abnormal quiet is some kind of a clue to the hidden truth of this story. For now, it's just worth noting.
Anyway, considering everyone else's silence for nearly three years, I don't feel so slow in catching the story and following up with this starter post that winds up just missing the mark of two years since her death, and one month after the first anyone heard of her.
How we know she was in jail
My main question in general with tortured detainees is whether they ever were prisoners of the Syrian government, rather than of opposition groups with their own genocide plans (see Fail Caesar part 6 for well-founded doubts even in those cases that have supposed photo proof). But here, it seems Layla Shweikani was held in Syrian prison, and did presumably die there, possibly in an execution. So the usual line of questioning is - barring a surprise revelation - out the window.
Since Washington withdrew its meddling, hostile "ambassador" to Syria, Robert Ford, early in the engineered conflict, the U.S. pursued Shweikani's case through the Czech ambassador to Damascus, Eva Filipi. As the Independent reported, "ten months after she was first detained, on 18 December 2016, Filipi visited Shweikani in Adra prison on behalf of the US government."
It's a logical possibility that ambassador Filipi fabricated this visit to help sow a false story of the detained American activist - especially considering the case of Robert Ford. But it's surely not an accusation I'm making. As a professional politician outside the Jihadist deception network (alleged inmates at the prison, etc. are always suspect), she's presumably trustworthy - on basic facts like this anyway.My main question in general with tortured detainees is whether they ever were prisoners of the Syrian government, rather than of opposition groups with their own genocide plans (see Fail Caesar part 6 for well-founded doubts even in those cases that have supposed photo proof). But here, it seems Layla Shweikani was held in Syrian prison, and did presumably die there, possibly in an execution. So the usual line of questioning is - barring a surprise revelation - out the window.
Since Washington withdrew its meddling, hostile "ambassador" to Syria, Robert Ford, early in the engineered conflict, the U.S. pursued Shweikani's case through the Czech ambassador to Damascus, Eva Filipi. As the Independent reported, "ten months after she was first detained, on 18 December 2016, Filipi visited Shweikani in Adra prison on behalf of the US government."
The government officials and reporters passing on news of her meeting are probably doing it correctly enough. Important context is probably left off, but I presume this visit was real, and so: Ms. Shweikani was held at Adra prison as of December 18, and the Syrian government acknowledged that fact by granting the visit that proved it. And unless she was released in the interim (which seems unlikely) the same authorities' claim she died somewhere, somehow, ten days later, means she died in prison. Execution is obviously one way that happens.
In his report, Tony Cartalucci added some questioning of the WaPo journalist Josh Rogin, who acknowledged "we don't know the specifics of Layla's death ... Thank you for that caution. ... But the regime is responsible for her death, in their custody." From this, we can say Rogin is pretty sure she was in jail when she died, and can only claim general responsibility based on that. And that's probably accurate enough while the rest is, in fact, hearsay. And there's been a lot of that regarding Syria, that either goes untested or fails a test.
Without explaining how this was known, the article claims the prisoner admitted to the leveled charges, but only after "Shweikani had been threatened by Syrian authorities that they would harm her family if she did not confess to the ambassador to the crimes she had been accused of, which she then did."
If this is true, she said in the meeting that she was guilty. The claim that this was extracted under threat is suspect; there's little reason to know what happens inside torture chambers at Adra prison. Was this just a guess?
What were the charges? Most sources are vague, saying it was related to "terrorism." But Richard Hall wrote for the Independent how Layla was arrested sometime in February, 2016, "along with her father and her fiancé. She was charged with planning to assassinate members of the Syrian government."
First off, Hall can't know what the charges actually were - his activist source almost surely filled in this detail, as he did for most relevant details. And as we'll discuss next, he doesn't seem very trustworthy. But if this is the charge - and it should be the one she claimed to be guilty of, before an ambassador and a judge, if so - it would probably be known early on; her family probably learned of it from or before the December 18 meeting with ambassador Filipi. It's surely a death penalty crime, and execution should be expected with little delay, justified or otherwise. And at some point, as I'll explain next, they learned she had been sentenced to death in a December 26 trial that lasted 30 seconds. Yet, as the Independent reports, until the 2018 confirmation...
"Since there was no official confirmation of her death at that time, Shweikani’s family still held out hope that she was alive, and that she would be released. From the time they lost contact with her at the end of 2016, the Czech ambassador continued to make enquiries about her with the Syrian government and the case was followed by the then US envoy to Syria, Michael Ratney."That sounds like it's missing something. The Americans must have been given no clear answer? Why would Damascus deny a supposedly valid execution for terrorism? Did they actually send an answer but the Americans - for example - "misplaced" it, in order to maintain the illusion of a horrible injustice and cause for yet more "pressure on Damascus"? There are open questions here.
Another way of looking at it; a US citizen was allegedly involved in assassination plots in Syria - and no one mentions her detention, least of all the U.S. government, until Damascus brings up her name first in 2018. That could be coincidence, or might help clarify what caused that unusual silence.
Qutaiba Idlibi's "Research"
Alleged threats behind Shweikani's confession to ambassador Filipi were mentioned above. It's not clear how these were learned of, but that's presumably some of the prolific detective work by "Qutaiba Idlbi, a researcher who works with the relatives of Syrian detainees," as cited for the Independent, not in the WaPo piece. After stumbling on his Twitter account (first tweet mentioning her case - Nov. 27, 2018) I asked him about that finding in particular: "Are you the source for that claim? How was it learned of?" (awaiting a response...)
Based on info he gathered (when?), Hall at the Independent would report:
"What happened next was discovered by Idlbi through testimony of other inmates at Adra prison, where she was held, and contact with Syrian officials after the fact."
"...Eight days later [Dec. 26], Shweikani was taken from Adra prison to a military court, where she was asked to answer to the charges against her. “The trial is basically one question: ‘Do you admit to the accusations?’ Layla said yes, due to the threats on her family’s life,” says Idlbi. “Through an official, we found out that a judge sentenced her to execution for terrorism. The trial lasted 30 seconds.”
The trial part would be internal. It would almost require a functioning insider to witness it or know a witness. Luckily, Idlibi claims, there was an unnamed official sympathetic to the opposition who knew of these details and leaked them to this researcher. It's not clear when he pulled this convenient trick, but presumably well after the fact. These details would make her death pretty certain, as they seem to do now. Yet for years, this info was apparently not available as "Shweikani’s family still held out hope that she was alive, and that she would be released."
I suspect this 'sympathetic insider' only 'stepped forward' in November 2018, as if to bolster the government's new listing, as if he had no clue before, or maybe had just forgotten until the registry update jogged his memory. But it seems likely he only handed over these long-quiet details, to support more opposition claims, in the days before Idlibi would finally 'reveal' his own ongoing research.
Otherwise, this "researcher" Idlibi relies - as many other opposition propagandists do - on alleged prisoners who saw detainees here and there, and bring this up upon their alleged release. In this case, I suspect all such source were 'released' suddenly in late November, 2018, just as that official came out to help Idlibi with his big debut as a world-stage research guy.
Here's another little puzzle - following a trial on December 26, as Richard Hall heard it:
"According to Idlbi, Shweikani was then transferred to the infamous Saydnaya prison, just outside of the capital. “Since then our assumption is that she was definitely killed. Because usually you are executed within 48 hours [of a verdict],” he says."So it was illogically that "Shweikani’s family still held out hope that she was alive" - at least, once this presumption was formed (just when is unclear - when someone who saw it was allegedly released?) And from that point forward, this outlandish fantasy somehow underpinned their continued public silence, until the regime finally admitted it on their own.
Furthermore, the presumed date, known since whenever, happens to match exactly what they Syrian government had just confirmed - December 28 (transferred Dec. 26, usually killed within 48 hours). Are they really that predictable, or is this a fake prediction fitted to the revelation after-the-fact? The latter option remains open anyway, since Idlibi waited two years for this regime confirmation before raising any public complaints.
In support, the article notes how the Syrian Network for Human Rights also "believes she was executed on 28 December 2016." The SNHR is a western-funded pro-regime change front propaganda group, as Cartalucci notes. It's also the more shrill, partisan propagandist cousin of the widely-cited Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, from which it branched off following an early dispute. The SNHR, not the SOHR, endorse the claims brought by Mr. Idlibi, which means nothing. It blames Assad, so they agree. (that's not to say the western-funded SOHR would NOT endorse the story...)
As Cartalucci notes, Idlibi's status as an opposition member means he lacks neutrality as a witness and further, he might be repaying favors to a hostile state; "Qutaiba Idlbi lives in the United States after receiving a scholarship to study at Columbia University," as Cartalucci found with a bit of his own research. I can add it says Columbia student right on his Twitter profile. More research on this chap may be in order. But even as I'm sure Idlibi is researching me now (as if that matters), I probably won't bother much. My questions are those raised here, and digging around won't answer them. Some discussion with him might provide clues, however. I am going to pursue that.
What Remains
Idlibi's research might still be partly or totally true. I doubt that, but doubt is just what it is. Otherwise, there are other possibilities for the few solid facts here:
1. she was executed legitimately, for a serious crime she was guilty of (or reasonably considered guilty)
2. she was executed illegitimately, on false charges (I take it as my job to question such claims, not rule them out absent a very good reason)
3. She died of natural causes, illness, etc. It happens in jails and prisons everywhere. (but that would mean her charges, confessions, and perhaps trial and sentencing to death at the same time are coincidental)
There are also standing questions over the government's actions. At least as the stories imply, her family was never informed, obviously not given her body. Washington and the Czech ambassador pursued the case, we hear. They must have been misled/uninformed over the execution. I'm not convinced that's the reality, but it could well be. There are different possible reasons, some of them reasonable, why Damascus might stay quiet on this execution in particular. But certainly that secrecy would feed into narratives like those circulating now.
And let's consider the troubling precedents and prior allegations that make these stories seem likely enough most won't even bother with specific evidence. What we think we know about Assad's secret prison killing machine includes mass arrests of innocents, inhumane conditions, routine torture, false confessions, and mass executions, thought to have been ramped up lately. This is; all alleged, with the allegations widely credited. Like most, Layla is said to have been killed at Sednaya prison, the "human slaughterhouse" as decried by Amnesty International in a report I considered here.
It's widely accepted there must be a system to this mass killing, some order for it coming from on high. There probably should be, if it's real. In fact anti-Syria investigators have gathered close to a million pages of top secret documents seized from overrun government facilities, etc. But despite the public bluster, these "Assad Files" apparently reveal no such orders. The best examples they can find to even suggest it note some beatings and some torture have occurred in Syrian prisons. But officials are only seen - talking candidly and secretly between themselves - calling these "mistakes" and ordering that it be stopped. Oversight is proposed. Some deaths by disease are also noted; officials secretly suggested more attention to cleanliness to minimize that. (see here) The orders TO starve, neglect and mass exterminate the prisoners ... yet to be found, just like the orders to shoot or arrest peaceful protesters.
The torture part of Layla's tale might be a specific from Idlibi's supposed insider, or simply inferred from the record of allegations and the supposed proof in the "Caesar photos," said to show "torture." Tony Cartalucci noted this:
"Part of [WaPo reporter Josh] Rogin’s diversions included references to the 2013 “Caesar photographs,” which Rogin would claim were “verified” by the FBI. US Representative Kinzinger is also fond of invoking the photographs which were allegedly smuggled out of Syria and reportedly depict Syrians "tortured then executed" by the Syrian government. "
"What Rogin failed to mention was that the photographs were “verified” only as undoctored by the FBI who never once stepped foot in Syria to investigate or verify the identities of or circumstances surrounding those depicted in the photographs."
This is true and well-put. They are genuine photos, mostly or all taken at an official location in Damascus near Assad's palace. But where did these thousands of real and emaciated bodies come from? I've made a huge project of analyzing these photos (not all published, but a lot of work is collected here). For a nine month span, the bodies came thorough at a rate of about 1,000/month. This is a huge crime. The circumstances deserve careful consideration, not the easily-convinced, almost kneejerk Assad blame they were greeted with.
Some photo evidence and considerable logic suggest those thousands of men and boys (and one woman) were prisoners of the local terrorists (see again FC6). Most likely, that would be the same Jaish Al-Islam that freely kidnaps non-Sunni civilians and uses them how it sees fit (see Fail Caesar part 8), and also seemingly approved of Layla Shewikani's work with "displaced people." Knowing they had a sympathetic insider at the morgue end ("Caesar"), I think they killed off most of the huge number of prisoners they held, forged "regime prisoner" numbers on the bodies they dumped for the government to process as unknown. Then, I suspect, the insider "confirmed" those numbers with his own unofficial morgue photos of the victims, to make it all look official. Even many opposition sources support my hunch that most of the victims are captured Syrian army soldiers and the like (allegedly, they had "tried to defect" - see here).
So there's little documented reason to be sure this torture-killing of innocents by the "Assad regime" is a real thing, let alone the obvious explanation for Ms. Shweikani's fate. We should still be applying some skepticism to the specific evidence and, as we see above, finding it doesn't hold much weight on its own. It needs these precedents to be real, but they probably aren't.
Remember Nabil Sharbaji
At least some detainee stories seem to be simply made up, or grossly embellished. Consider the case of Nabil Sharbaji, arrested at the uprising's start in March, 2011, but quickly released, detained again in Feb. 2012 for helping start an opposition newspaper, and held for longer. In late 2012, he allegedly wrote down the names and details of some 82 cellmates at Adra prison - in blood and rust with a chicken bone, on scraps of rough cloth, and seemingly illegible - as highlighted in a presentation and documentary film sponsored by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Then he was arrested a third time at the end of January, 2013. That last arrest is suspicious, going ignored by most sources, and following on an even more-ignored release. He may have been in real jail before, was released twice, and was then kidnapped into a terrorist dungeon for the final and fatal stretch. (see my analysis for this and the following details). It should be noted he, like most highlighted over such fates, was always opposed to violence and Islamism. If anyone had a reason to kill him, it would be the violent Islamists taking over his neighborhood. And yet it was the cruel Assad regime, we hear, arrested everyone nice, forcing the rebellion to turn violent and Islamist...
As it happens the 82-names list - some pile of cloth - was allegedly hidden in the cuffs and collar of one shirt and smuggled out by Mansour Al-Omari, who also ran the VDC's detainee database (that never listed Layla). According to this man and that database, Sharbaji was never released after the second arrest; he kept sending out notes from the regime prisons (mostly with ink and paper and smuggled in unspecified ways) long enough to disprove rumors he was killed in April. The notes continued up to August, 2013, with sightings and an alleged prison visit in October, 3013. But then there's no news I could find for over three years before, in late 2016, the same Mansour Al-Omari revealed how his friend Nabil had been killed two years earlier; "He died in the Saydnaya military prison after a jailer kicked him in the chest" on May 3, 2015.
This would have happened two months after Sharbaji was reliably identified (March, 2015 - see second VDC martyr's entry) in a "Caesar photo" looking like he died of suffocation. But it's dated February, 2013, and no Caesar photos show bodies later than mid-August of that year. (Alleged sightings continue into October - just long enough to 'clarify' he lived past the photo collection.) But that really looks like him, and timeline analysis supports this is the right basic time for that body number to pass through, probably about two weeks after that murky third arrest. Unless the ID is wrong, he was dead before most of the smuggled notes attributed to him, and some of the alleged sightings. He might still have written that famous 82-names list before he died, but you know ... I just don't buy that either. I find that evidence almost ludicrous in and of itself.
It's worth remembering Nabil at this time, and wondering how widely this kind of embellishment happens. Maybe something of the like plays into the stories about Layla Shweikani's death for no crime, under systematic torture ordered by the brutal Assad regime.
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Syria: Crushed Women in Rastan
Syria: Crushed Women in Rastan
On August 28, the Syrian Network For Human Rights reported: at least 2 women died in government warplanes missiles fired on Al Rastan city in Homs governorate, August 28, 2016.
الشبكة السورية: سيدتان على الأقل، توفيتا جراء قصف الطيران الحربي الحكومي بالصواريخ مدينة الرستن بمحافظة حمص، في 28 آب 2016
No further details. One woman is shown in a photo, sort of crushed and rolled to the edge as two concrete slabs came together in a building collapse. Presumably, the story is she was living there, as the dishes suggest, and when it was bombed, everything just came out like this. She might have been living alone and/or "in sin" to some - no dead husband mentioned, and look at those modern, tight pants, with spangles. She wasn't a real salafist, apparently. And that bright pink head-scarf ... or is it red and white pin-stripes? Or tie-died?
Looking closer ... beneath her head scarf is a large head wound we can only see part of. It seems fatal, and to be done while the scarf wasn't on - the fabric doesn't seem torn like her head is. And the color issue is all white cloth plus blood.
On August 28, the Syrian Network For Human Rights reported: at least 2 women died in government warplanes missiles fired on Al Rastan city in Homs governorate, August 28, 2016.
الشبكة السورية: سيدتان على الأقل، توفيتا جراء قصف الطيران الحربي الحكومي بالصواريخ مدينة الرستن بمحافظة حمص، في 28 آب 2016
No further details. One woman is shown in a photo, sort of crushed and rolled to the edge as two concrete slabs came together in a building collapse. Presumably, the story is she was living there, as the dishes suggest, and when it was bombed, everything just came out like this. She might have been living alone and/or "in sin" to some - no dead husband mentioned, and look at those modern, tight pants, with spangles. She wasn't a real salafist, apparently. And that bright pink head-scarf ... or is it red and white pin-stripes? Or tie-died?
It's possible this is all from the jumbling violence where some reinforcing bar
pierced her skull while the scarf was pulled back, and then later the it
slid back to partly cover the wound. But it's also possible she was shot or stabbed in the head, had
that wrapped up with a new headscarf, and her body was placed in some abandoned
building - probably with its walls already gone. It might be arrayed with some dishes, all visibly along the edge, before the structure was collapsed on her body as a
propaganda stunt.
I think that's quite likely what happened; they just planted the body of someone they killed, because they're terrorist assholes. They figured it would all come out looking close enough.
In case we get an alleged attack time here, note: photo is mid-morning (could be measured for solar elevation). Most blood is dry, but there was a lot, and the thickest of it is still tacky. The possibly blood-smeared object to the right is of some interest. I don't know what that it - some kind of mattress?
Who was she? SNHR had said "at least two women" killed, suggesting both more people and more women were possibly killed. VDC query: all civilians from Rastan killed Aug. 28 = 1: Ayda Hamdan, adult female, married, killed by warplane shelling, and no further details. The entry includes this "generic video" of others being treated in a clinic in Rastan for genuine-seeming but light injuries. There's no second Rastan woman.
But there's supposed to be another woman.... VDC shows a total of three women from Homs province dying this day. And this same Rastan video is attached to one of those, from Der Baalba, (northern Homs city), killed the same way. One could presumes she died in Der Baalba, but warplanes don't shell there much. Was she displaced somehow, to Rastan, to then die along with this other woman? VDC query: all Der Baalba deaths on 8-28 = 3. That woman, and the other Homs woman, and her husband.
So that's presumably one of these three women we see squished here.
So that's presumably one of these three women we see squished here.
The married couple share the same family name al-Merei ( المرعي ) - suggesting not very traditional Islamic people. Women usually keep their fathers' names if devout Muslims, so the father and the children have one family name, and the mother has another. These kind of "Western-style," all-one-name families fare poorly for things like getting displaced within rebel-held areas, and then dying elsewhere under alleged Assad bombs in the kind of ignored, daily mini-massacres that really add up over years. See also Hayan Missile Massacre recently, near Aleppo: 2-3 wives with the same name (Qraitem) as 5-8 kids killed alongside them, and same as 3 men killed all at once two weeks earlier (all sorting and killing was, of course by regime aircraft...).
In this case, however, the man and woman are listed together, not separated like usual. Any children, however, seem separated and not dead. They're supposed to be spared, and can be re-educated. Also, I checked the name Marei, and it doesn't have much of a clear pattern - no recent child deaths, one man from Halfaya the next day, one man each from Aleppo and from Rastan and one that's a "FSA" rebel, in the preceding weeks, etc.
But back to the Hayan case - that connected by one Qraitem man and many from another family killed earlier, in a June 4 barrel bomb attack with a boy somehow crushed between a concrete slab and a section of demolition chute. How that could happen is unclear, but some turned the photo upside-down to claim he was crushed by an un-exploded barrel bomb!
Below: Grisly pic, taken from here and turned right-side-up, and grisly notes:
In this case, however, the man and woman are listed together, not separated like usual. Any children, however, seem separated and not dead. They're supposed to be spared, and can be re-educated. Also, I checked the name Marei, and it doesn't have much of a clear pattern - no recent child deaths, one man from Halfaya the next day, one man each from Aleppo and from Rastan and one that's a "FSA" rebel, in the preceding weeks, etc.
But back to the Hayan case - that connected by one Qraitem man and many from another family killed earlier, in a June 4 barrel bomb attack with a boy somehow crushed between a concrete slab and a section of demolition chute. How that could happen is unclear, but some turned the photo upside-down to claim he was crushed by an un-exploded barrel bomb!
Below: Grisly pic, taken from here and turned right-side-up, and grisly notes:
Note, blood clearly drips down. But not much of it. He was probably dead well before the slab came down. Someone laid his body across the chute, after the massive wound across his upper face wasn't even bleeding any longer. Only when the slab came down was a little thick blood up in his sinuses jarred loose to make this splatter.
Turning horribly-executed women and children into more victims of "Assad's" bombing ... it's that easy, or usually, even easier. In fact, this is one of the more elaborate methods I've seen.
Turning horribly-executed women and children into more victims of "Assad's" bombing ... it's that easy, or usually, even easier. In fact, this is one of the more elaborate methods I've seen.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Syria: Who's Making Who Bray to Assad Here?
August 10, 2015
(incomplete)
There's a new allegation I was alerted to, not the most urgent but interesting enough to look into a bit. This was run by Middle East Eye, August 7: VIDEO: Syrian couple beaten, forced to mimic donkey by pro-Assad forces
Content Analysis (Opinion)
I'm less convinced than usual this is fake - it seems like a more realistic crime than most. But there are some problems worth pointing out:
- how he continues, knowing it's being filmed, and perhaps that it's going to end with a family massacre he won't want evidence for.
- rebels got hold of the video of this crime - oops - for like the millionth time.
- he doesn't let the conversation move forward much - the situation is never cleared up, left confused (see below "I was on TV?").
- he likes to keep it dwelling on how mean he and Assad are, again, knowing it's going on video, and such videos often wind up found/leaked/whatever and gotten to the public, as this one would.
- no one to my knowledge has given supporting details like a TV broadcast of the man talking (but maybe that just suggests the Shabih was wrong or lying even about that). MEE's article mentions no details like victim names, locale or date.
The wife understands she's supposed to profess love or non-hate for the Assads, and does so, for one of 3 reasons:
1) because that's how she feels (swears by her eyes she doesn't hate him)
2) because the Shabih said to say it, or
3) because the Salafist rebel psycho posing as a Shabih said to.
Claims Analysis
Title:
ضابط علوي من عصابات الاسد يُعذب رجل وامراتهُ في منزلهم الشبيح العلوي#باسل_بريدي
Alawi officer of Assad gangs tortured man and his wife in their homeAlshabiha Alawi # Basel_Baridi (name, apparently the alleged Shabih?)
So he's an Alawi Shabih they say. Maybe MEE thinks all of them are Alawi, as rebels often claim or imply, but it's not so. It's worth specifying. The victims would implicitly be Sunnis. However ...
Video description translated:
The allegations are specific enough to allow checking around. First stop, and only for now, the VDC.
A check of their martyrs database (fill it in yourself this time!) shows among Homs men and women no likely matches in either, killed by anything, anywhere in that area, going back months. Considering the border and checking placid Tartous, there's nothing remotely close (not a single Tartous woman killed this year?). That's not to show they weren't killed, just not killed and listed here, by the details on the video. Sometimes listing is delayed and less often, never happens, or they heard a different origin story, etc.
Updates Aug 12:
The cited video posting is now gone, account deleted. The villain name in Arabic yields other postings, different versions, etc. Among these is a longer video posted Aug 5, maybe the main source, by account Village Metras. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YACxJgGI3fA
Woman and her husband tortured by shabiha tyrant Bashar al-Assad and killing a family with children in the village of Barricade
Village Barricade
August 5, 2015
تعذيب امرأة وزوجها من قبل شبيحة الطاغية بشار الأسد وقتلهم لعائلة مع الأطفال في قرية المتراس
قرية المتراس
That contains this video after dark footage of murdered children - one with an apparent cut-like neck wound, eventually in rebel hands, before or after rigor mortis (body flaccid).
Description, Google-translated with fixes
Abuse video apparently just now scored, not clear how. They seem to have photos of a guy who looks about like the abuser, and say he's Mr. Baridi.
(incomplete)
There's a new allegation I was alerted to, not the most urgent but interesting enough to look into a bit. This was run by Middle East Eye, August 7: VIDEO: Syrian couple beaten, forced to mimic donkey by pro-Assad forces
The cited video - (Youtube link - not graphic but disturbing) shows a supposed National Defense Forces fighter (NDF, aka "Shabiha") in camouflage abusing civilians pretty severely. First, I appreciate MEE agreeing these terms Shabiha and NDF mean the same thing, as I reasoned long ago (see ACLOS). Generally, these guys get demonized, but they're actually awesome - locals protecting their communities from ongoing terrorist attacks, accused of slaughtering children in neighboring towns dozens and dozens of times now.
Anyway, the man involved here - his face is clearly visible, and if he's identified as active duty NDF, then it's so - either a bad apple or yet another sign of a rotten system, depending. But until then, he's an alleged NDF or, maybe one of the real "Shabiha" behind stuff like the Houla Massacre.
This supposed Shabih is seen abusing a husband and wife, both bound, as their children, perhaps, watch on the sides. The article gives a full-seeming if "rushed" transcription. Summarized: he accuses the man of appearing on TV and insulting Hafez al-Assad (the former president), whips them both, slaps the man in the face brutally, and finally gets the wife first and then husband to admit they are donkeys and to bray like it.
This supposed Shabih is seen abusing a husband and wife, both bound, as their children, perhaps, watch on the sides. The article gives a full-seeming if "rushed" transcription. Summarized: he accuses the man of appearing on TV and insulting Hafez al-Assad (the former president), whips them both, slaps the man in the face brutally, and finally gets the wife first and then husband to admit they are donkeys and to bray like it.
That's not the worst; "There were allegations on social media that the couple, along with their children, were eventually killed for allegedly criticising former President Hafez Assad on TV, but the claims could not be substantiated."
The article boosts the credibility of the video claim with additional
horror stories of 'things like that,' mostly just alleged. Let's just focus on the central one, proven
with a video. On that MEE turned to an expert; "the Chairman and founder of the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) Fadel Abdul Ghany, who "told Middle East Eye that the video appears to be authentic." He also said they know these abuses and far worse are done - all by security forces and ISIS a little bit, and no one else. And furthermore ""Video experts whom I've been in touch with have also confirmed that the video has not been doctored," Abdul Ghany added." Did anyone claim this video was "doctored?" Why not pretend someone thinks it's all a CGI animated sequence?
This is clearly real video, and not even the kind of fake that's concocted between friends, like a 2014 video I recently analyzed. The whipping, those slaps, and the hate behind them feel real to me. The pain and fear of the victims feels real, and grim. I would almost be surprised if these people weren't all killed afterwards. (But it's possible that's my dark imagination, and this was the harsh part of a scene that mellowed out.)
There is quite likely an element of fakery, however, just a one-sided kind. Below, my analysis (opinion) and research (basic), on two levels.
There is quite likely an element of fakery, however, just a one-sided kind. Below, my analysis (opinion) and research (basic), on two levels.
Content Analysis (Opinion)
I'm less convinced than usual this is fake - it seems like a more realistic crime than most. But there are some problems worth pointing out:
- how he continues, knowing it's being filmed, and perhaps that it's going to end with a family massacre he won't want evidence for.
- rebels got hold of the video of this crime - oops - for like the millionth time.
- he doesn't let the conversation move forward much - the situation is never cleared up, left confused (see below "I was on TV?").
- he likes to keep it dwelling on how mean he and Assad are, again, knowing it's going on video, and such videos often wind up found/leaked/whatever and gotten to the public, as this one would.
- no one to my knowledge has given supporting details like a TV broadcast of the man talking (but maybe that just suggests the Shabih was wrong or lying even about that). MEE's article mentions no details like victim names, locale or date.
The thug here knows how to praise Assad, insult salafists (Sunni extremists) and maybe God, wear camouflage, and be vicious to people he clearly hates. Disaffected Salafist defectors wanting to demonize their secular old bosses can easily pull off all of that. This dialog might be a clue:
Interrogator "He's a donkey, like who else? … like (anti-Assad cleric sheikh Adnan al-) Arour?"
Woman: I don't know who that is
Interrogator: (hitting her) You don't know who [Arour] is?"
That makes me wonder if this group is sucking up to/supported by Adnan al-Arour, who's a grade-A scumbag by the way. Having this cartoon villains hate him in particular makes him look good, a propaganda plus in the Arab world. Consider also how, when the husband pleads "please, by God," he's cut off: "Interrogator: God? Which God, the Salafi one or ours?" The Salafi god of Arour and the FSA defectors sounds good here, compared to "our God" of secular brutality.
"I have no ties with them," the man pleads, twice. It's about all he says of substance. Who are they? Who does he think he's talking to? The people seem confused. Accused of being on TV, he manages to ask "I was on TV?" but he's cut off, pleads he's not with whoever, and gets slapped. Before the video cuts anyway, he never gets to the part where he explains convincingly how there must be a mix-up, he's a normal pro-Assad Syrian, or even asks "hey, are you a real NDF? Can I see your ID?" That part, if it existed, wouldn't get leaked to rebel uploaders.
1) because that's how she feels (swears by her eyes she doesn't hate him)
2) because the Shabih said to say it, or
3) because the Salafist rebel psycho posing as a Shabih said to.
Claims Analysis
Without even digging into the social media claims mentioned (might be worthwhile), just the Arabic title and description with the video add details not included in the report and adequate to make a full-sized post out of this.
Title:
ضابط علوي من عصابات الاسد يُعذب رجل وامراتهُ في منزلهم الشبيح العلوي#باسل_بريدي
Alawi officer of Assad gangs tortured man and his wife in their homeAlshabiha Alawi # Basel_Baridi (name, apparently the alleged Shabih?)
So he's an Alawi Shabih they say. Maybe MEE thinks all of them are Alawi, as rebels often claim or imply, but it's not so. It's worth specifying. The victims would implicitly be Sunnis. However ...
Video description translated:
Alawi Shabih # Basel_Baridi from the village of Ein saucer ( عين الصح ) countryside # Safita .... A person who has disgraced/insulted (people?) from the village parapet المتراس Turkmen villages .. The video was shot in the Valley of the Christians in Homs # one of Christian villages and was working for the Porter Ranch Obakar..autam kill all the family with their children in cold blood -
This says Baridi is from village of عين الصحن (ain al-Sahan?) - Safita is in Tartous province, but just NW of Wadi al-Nassarah (valley of the Christians) in Homs. Ayn as-Sahn on Wikimapia - 5 km east of Safita, maybe the border. The farm that was mentioned might be here, as the name directed me - some distance away, just northeast of Homs city. The town he insulted seems to be Metras, in the valley of Christians but apparently Sunni/Turkmen majority (?), a few km south of Ain al-Sahan. But it seems to say this is in one of the Cristian villages.
The allegations are specific enough to allow checking around. First stop, and only for now, the VDC.
A check of their martyrs database (fill it in yourself this time!) shows among Homs men and women no likely matches in either, killed by anything, anywhere in that area, going back months. Considering the border and checking placid Tartous, there's nothing remotely close (not a single Tartous woman killed this year?). That's not to show they weren't killed, just not killed and listed here, by the details on the video. Sometimes listing is delayed and less often, never happens, or they heard a different origin story, etc.
Updates Aug 12:
The cited video posting is now gone, account deleted. The villain name in Arabic yields other postings, different versions, etc. Among these is a longer video posted Aug 5, maybe the main source, by account Village Metras. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YACxJgGI3fA
Woman and her husband tortured by shabiha tyrant Bashar al-Assad and killing a family with children in the village of Barricade
Village Barricade
August 5, 2015
تعذيب امرأة وزوجها من قبل شبيحة الطاغية بشار الأسد وقتلهم لعائلة مع الأطفال في قرية المتراس
قرية المتراس
That contains this video after dark footage of murdered children - one with an apparent cut-like neck wound, eventually in rebel hands, before or after rigor mortis (body flaccid).
Description, Google-translated with fixes
In the name of God the Merciful, and peace and blessings be upon our master Muhammad and his family and him .. after the shabiha pork Bashar al-Assad, shabiha (of) village Tannourine Christianity execution of Abbas Abdo Khadr family and two children Hayyan and Ryan in the third row and the second primary of the children of the village barricade (Metras) and his wife Ahlem Ramadan of Krak des Chevaliers , Patarrakh (?) 9-9-2013split here - that must be the first incident. VDC lists at least the children, both boys, but killed Sept. 10. Other details later. Next, the one we've been talking about
a farmer a farm village Tannourine, the shabiha pork Bashar al-Assad, led by Alhbih Basil Postal (Nasseri of the village of Ein saucer), beating, torturing and insulting Mustafa Abdou Khader and his children of his village parapet (Metras) and his wife, Hiam Bahgat Hassan of Alhsrgih village and it almost a month the second of 2014, and until now we do not know the fate of Mustafa Abdou Khadr and his wife, Hiam Hassan Bahgat .. Being God and yes, the agent Village parapet of a Sunni Turkoman assets located northwest of Homs administratively belonging to the province of TartousTanurin is 3km east of Metras, near Marmarita (WM) It sounds like they're saying these inhabitants of Metras were taken to Tanoourin by Alawi and Christian Shabiha to abuse them there, not in "their home" in a Christian village like the other posting said. Not a current event, but maybe February 2014? Records may not exist as "we don't know."
Abuse video apparently just now scored, not clear how. They seem to have photos of a guy who looks about like the abuser, and say he's Mr. Baridi.
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Baniyas Massacre Victim Bayan Jalloul, Martyr for Truth?
July 12, 2015
(small edits July 13)
"Specific Communities" the Other Way Around
In the 2013 al-Bayda Massacre, as I've previously reported, about 50 of the victims (from a total of around 80 to 240, depending who you ask) were related by blood or marriage to Sheikh Omar Biasi, a retired imam at a local mosque and revered by many. That was so interesting because Sheikh Omar was openly and vehemently pro-government and anti-rebellion, trying to be for reconciliation, but seeming to call for the death of all "traitors" shortly before he was killed with so many relatives on May 2. That was by rebel "terrorists" or anti-Sunni Alawite militias, depending who you ask. For those unaware of that story, please see "Targeting specific communities".
And like the Biasis in al-Bayda, there's a possible core victim amongst the Jallouls, with a political connotation pointing the opposite way. Bayan Abdulrahman Jalloul was a young woman, aged 21, who was supposedly "prominent" in supporting the rebel cause with an influential group. But the only source I've seen to mention this at all is a May 10 report by the UK-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR - cited by HRW for their report): The Most Heinous Crime of the Modern Era: Banyas Massacre ... Blatant Ethnic Cleansing in Syria.
On page 18, alleged witness "Abu Mohammed" says the attackers "raid(ed) the well known media activist's house Ms. Baian Jaloul, who had a prominent role in transferring the ongoing news and images." She was a young woman of promise, set to marry a man (unnamed) who was also a media activist. He worked with her "in Baniyas coordinating," the report says, meaning the opposition Local Coordinating Committees (LCC). These gather information from rebel fighters and various sources and issue daily reports blaming the "regime" for everything remotely possible. (English site, far behind now: http://www.lccsyria.org/en/)
The LCC works with the Violation Documentation Center (VDC - ACLOS page, not to be confused with the the similarly-named Syrian Center for Documentation). The VDC, which I cite frequently, and the LCC were both co-founded by some of the same people. But the VDC's entry for Bayan Abdulrahman Saeid Jalloul says nothing of her activist role, when they usually do note it. She's not well-known enough I can find anything prior that mentions her by name, but I didn't dig deep, and anyway, perhaps she was prominent locally. Or she was simply important and should-be prominent. Sometimes you say nice things about people to inflate their importance after they die.
We might note the flip-side of Bayan's murder in May; she operated freely until this time spreading opposition propaganda, despite the "regime's" total access here. The government had stifled all violent rebellion in the area through 2011, 2012, and much of 2013 until these few special days. And it could have had her killed at any time. But only then, just after the massacre of Sheikh Biasi's kin in al-Bayda, did someone punch the hole in that usual security that took her life. They say it was "Shabiha."
But now that I notice this, I should write on it, for balance, and open the question; did the regime kill its own supporters in one case to bolster its claim that "terrorists" had killed their own supporters in Baniyas? Or did the rebels behind al-Bayda kill one of their own supporters in Ras al-Nabi to blame the regime and cancel out the problem they had there? Or does victim politics just not matter, like rebels say, because this is now a logic-free sectarian slaughter?
Bayan, Her Sister, Their Fiancés, A Confusing Drama
That description - especially the "ripped face" part - makes me wonder if she's the woman with the infamous face in the picture you can hardly find around anymore. I have a copy somewhere, but here's the blurred version saved at ACLOS, of the main pile of dozens of bodies. Just above the center is the one who could be her: white headscarf, eyes and mouth frozen open as if gasping in pain. The right side of her face as seen here is pretty much the inside of her face hanging out, it's that bad. A little girl nearby is similarly halved. It's horrible.
That woman looks perhaps around 21, and the headscarf is consistent with pro-salafist media activist. Her hands and feet are invisible, so "stamping" isn't clear. Her nose might be tweaked even more than the rest of her face, if not visibly cut. The gash continues from chin to eyebrow, but might include a first hack near the nose. It's doubtful anyone could survive that for more than some shock-obscured moments. In fact it may well have been done after her death; there's no sign of massive blood loss from that gash, and there seems to be a separate hole in her forehead (a horribly clear view, labeled as from Bayan's own LCC and cropped on this victim, is available here). Maybe she was simply shot, at first.
SNHR's witness "Abo Mohammed" says he witnessed the singular killing of "35 members of my family," including women and children who were then piled on each other (in more detail below). There's no known gathering of 35 members of any family in one spot. Only the Jallouls died, perhaps, in just about that number but at different sites combined. Did Shabiha collect them all here, before piling them un-guarded in the open?
In fact, "Abo Mohammed" says the pile of 35 included a baby they finished off afterwards, and "two children after they killed them, they burned their hands and legs" as one would know "if you have seen the pictures." I have. This must be the infamous pile shown blurred above, looking like they were tossed out a window to land this way. I estimate it contains about 30-35 bodies. If this does all line up, it means Bayan must be in there, and that hacked face is quite likely to be hers.
Truth-Teller to the End?
More Failed Cover-Up, Foiled by All-Seeing Witnesses
SNHR's "most important" and all-seeing witness in their report is "Abo Mohammed." He says he watched Alawites he knew and named by family, arriving from a long list of towns he named, murdering Sunni families he knew with their "Russian weapons." He questions their humanity, as many do. With his own eyes - not with anyone else's - Abo Mohammed says he witnessed a woman stripped and gang-raped by the bests, who cut her hands and left her "half slaughtered" (bladed but alive - similar to but apparently not Bayan).
Abo Mohammed also watched a family executed by a wall, saw them turn and face it before being gunned down, and saw one woman play dead and live. In a possible contradiction, as previously cited here at ACLOS, this or a similar "Abu Mohammed" told al-Arabiya news he heard this from a basement he was "forced" to hide in, and the victims "were around 35 members of my family," gathered and shot in one outside spot and then piled on each other. In all, he told HRW he saw with his own eyes the murder of what he estimates as 250 victims. However, oddly enough, "there are many areas in the neighborhood that I couldn't see," so the number might be even higher! In fact he told al-Arabiya earlier that "the number of dead exceeds 1500. They are over 1000 only in Ras-elnabe’." For reference, all other sources top off between 150 and 200 documented dead in Ras al-Nabi - a number that might be high but could also be accurate.
(small edits July 13)
"Specific Communities" the Other Way Around
Al-Bayda is a Sunni village, and it's widely believed the killers were predominately Alawi (Alawite), like the majority of people in the coastal provinces (see map). In the following and murkier massacre in Baniyas city, May 3-6, it was the same tale of sectarian mass murder; Baniyas is more mixed, but the killings reportedly happened in the poor and Sunni district of Ras al-Nabi. The killers - mixed regular forces and local "Shabiha" militia - came from Alawite districts and villages, activists said, and there was no other reason involved; Alawites were killing Sunnis, hoping to chase away the rest, and purify their province of a rebellious religious group. Maybe it was to help create a coastal breakaway state for the Alawi as "the Sunnis" took the rest of a divided Syria. No one could know the real motive, but many people were pretty sure that was it.
In this second massacre, two families - Rajab and Jalloul - stand out about equally for heavy losses. Both were highlighted by Human Rights Watch in their September report on the two massacres "No One's Left," but it's only the latter that concerns us at the moment. "Human Rights Watch has also documented the execution of seventeen members of the Jalloul family," the report says and lists 16, including some wives (under father's name, not husband's, as usual).
I found that, including these and two Jalloul wives (married to a Suleiman and a Taha) and their children, there are as many as 36-37 clearly related entries. But that's going by the most expansive list correlated with other sources (overall comparison ongoing, report perhaps forthcoming, too tedious to re-post here now).
There was one Biasi killed in Baniyas, at the end of the killing spree on May 6. And there was one Jalloul killed in al-Bayda at the outset. And the Jalloul-related Tahas at least died heavily in both massacres. But otherwise each family name and intermarried names dominate the victim lists in their massacre.
In this second massacre, two families - Rajab and Jalloul - stand out about equally for heavy losses. Both were highlighted by Human Rights Watch in their September report on the two massacres "No One's Left," but it's only the latter that concerns us at the moment. "Human Rights Watch has also documented the execution of seventeen members of the Jalloul family," the report says and lists 16, including some wives (under father's name, not husband's, as usual).
I found that, including these and two Jalloul wives (married to a Suleiman and a Taha) and their children, there are as many as 36-37 clearly related entries. But that's going by the most expansive list correlated with other sources (overall comparison ongoing, report perhaps forthcoming, too tedious to re-post here now).
There was one Biasi killed in Baniyas, at the end of the killing spree on May 6. And there was one Jalloul killed in al-Bayda at the outset. And the Jalloul-related Tahas at least died heavily in both massacres. But otherwise each family name and intermarried names dominate the victim lists in their massacre.
And like the Biasis in al-Bayda, there's a possible core victim amongst the Jallouls, with a political connotation pointing the opposite way. Bayan Abdulrahman Jalloul was a young woman, aged 21, who was supposedly "prominent" in supporting the rebel cause with an influential group. But the only source I've seen to mention this at all is a May 10 report by the UK-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR - cited by HRW for their report): The Most Heinous Crime of the Modern Era: Banyas Massacre ... Blatant Ethnic Cleansing in Syria.
On page 18, alleged witness "Abu Mohammed" says the attackers "raid(ed) the well known media activist's house Ms. Baian Jaloul, who had a prominent role in transferring the ongoing news and images." She was a young woman of promise, set to marry a man (unnamed) who was also a media activist. He worked with her "in Baniyas coordinating," the report says, meaning the opposition Local Coordinating Committees (LCC). These gather information from rebel fighters and various sources and issue daily reports blaming the "regime" for everything remotely possible. (English site, far behind now: http://www.lccsyria.org/en/)
The LCC works with the Violation Documentation Center (VDC - ACLOS page, not to be confused with the the similarly-named Syrian Center for Documentation). The VDC, which I cite frequently, and the LCC were both co-founded by some of the same people. But the VDC's entry for Bayan Abdulrahman Saeid Jalloul says nothing of her activist role, when they usually do note it. She's not well-known enough I can find anything prior that mentions her by name, but I didn't dig deep, and anyway, perhaps she was prominent locally. Or she was simply important and should-be prominent. Sometimes you say nice things about people to inflate their importance after they die.
We might note the flip-side of Bayan's murder in May; she operated freely until this time spreading opposition propaganda, despite the "regime's" total access here. The government had stifled all violent rebellion in the area through 2011, 2012, and much of 2013 until these few special days. And it could have had her killed at any time. But only then, just after the massacre of Sheikh Biasi's kin in al-Bayda, did someone punch the hole in that usual security that took her life. They say it was "Shabiha."
But now that I notice this, I should write on it, for balance, and open the question; did the regime kill its own supporters in one case to bolster its claim that "terrorists" had killed their own supporters in Baniyas? Or did the rebels behind al-Bayda kill one of their own supporters in Ras al-Nabi to blame the regime and cancel out the problem they had there? Or does victim politics just not matter, like rebels say, because this is now a logic-free sectarian slaughter?
Bayan, Her Sister, Their Fiancés, A Confusing Drama
Among the Jallouls, HRW heard the most about those killed in the home of Abdulrahman Said Jalloul, aka Abu Said. He was killed along with his unnamed wife ("Um Said"), his adult son Said, and three daughters, Sanaa, Rawan, and Bayan.
While his oldest girl, 21-year-old Bayan, waited to wed her activist sweetheart, supposed neighbor "Aya" told HRW her little sister Rawan - age 17 - was also engaged. "Muhammad al-Zouzou, Rawan’s fiancé and a member of the Free Syrian Army" was, "Aya" told HRW, the only family link to the armed rebellion. There's her sister, the alleged media activist, but that's not "rebel" in the same way, and it's not even mentioned by HRW. All they heard about her was from "Aya," who says she went to the Abu Said house and found them all dead or near it. "I saw Bayan Jalloul, who is 21, shot in the head. I turn around and I saw Rawan, her 17-year-old sister, also shot in the chest but she was still alive." Therefore, "Aya" says "I spoke to her and she told me that she was burnt…Their living room was on fire."
While his oldest girl, 21-year-old Bayan, waited to wed her activist sweetheart, supposed neighbor "Aya" told HRW her little sister Rawan - age 17 - was also engaged. "Muhammad al-Zouzou, Rawan’s fiancé and a member of the Free Syrian Army" was, "Aya" told HRW, the only family link to the armed rebellion. There's her sister, the alleged media activist, but that's not "rebel" in the same way, and it's not even mentioned by HRW. All they heard about her was from "Aya," who says she went to the Abu Said house and found them all dead or near it. "I saw Bayan Jalloul, who is 21, shot in the head. I turn around and I saw Rawan, her 17-year-old sister, also shot in the chest but she was still alive." Therefore, "Aya" says "I spoke to her and she told me that she was burnt…Their living room was on fire."
Rawan's FSA fiancé was careful to be out of the scene during the attack; his presence
couldn't possibly be a motive, leaving the sectarian massacre
narrative extra clear. Witness "Selwa" (but not Aya) told HRW that Mohammed only "came to their house after the attack. When he saw that [Rawan] was injured he left to get help," but being unarmed amidst the government attack, he never came back. "Zouzou was himself later killed elsewhere in the village," HRW reported. They also heard from "Ahmad" that one pile of bodies contained "Mohammad al-Zouzou, and Bassam al-Zouzou," besides two Lolo brothers.
But I checked the VDC's records and there's no match, that day or ever. The closest are the three al-Zozo men killed in the massacre; maybe he's Abu Yousef al-Zozo, already married with a kid named Yousef, or one of the other two (Bassam and Samer) under a different name. Or maybe this is a minor story goof-up.
But I checked the VDC's records and there's no match, that day or ever. The closest are the three al-Zozo men killed in the massacre; maybe he's Abu Yousef al-Zozo, already married with a kid named Yousef, or one of the other two (Bassam and Samer) under a different name. Or maybe this is a minor story goof-up.
Alleged witness "Aya" says she arrived to find Bayan and everyone but her sister already dead. It must have been before this that Bayan's fiancé, the media activist, "came to her before she died," as the SNHR report says. "She asked him to drink water (or vice-versa?), then she died in his hands." Rawan would be alive then too, awaiting her ill-fated opposition fiance, but that's not mentioned. And while Mr. Zozo was killed too, this unnamed activist may have survived the day (that's not clarified).
Furthermore, Bayan and Rawan's cousin Ahmad Jalloul also showed up following the massacre, HRW heard, apparently during this same fiancé free-for-all. He apparently tried loading the ladies' bodies into his car during the lull, but moved too slowly and was shot dead by his car when the killers suddenly returned. Was neither fiancé there to help? Or were all three men and Aya each there alone in their own little shifts, as it sounds? Or is one or more of these stories just not true, as it kind of seems?
They Rip Her Face With KnivesFurthermore, Bayan and Rawan's cousin Ahmad Jalloul also showed up following the massacre, HRW heard, apparently during this same fiancé free-for-all. He apparently tried loading the ladies' bodies into his car during the lull, but moved too slowly and was shot dead by his car when the killers suddenly returned. Was neither fiancé there to help? Or were all three men and Aya each there alone in their own little shifts, as it sounds? Or is one or more of these stories just not true, as it kind of seems?
HRW heard that Bayan, and everyone killed, was simply "shot" with regime guns. To read their report, no one was hacked up with regime blades. These can easily evoke incredulity and then unsettling images of the dreaded Islamist terrorist blades.
It's not clear if that's why HRW didn't hear about that part. But they developed that guns-only picture citing the SNHR. And the SNHR, in their own report targeted more to Arab audiences, described the victims in general as "slaughtered and shot by Syrian government's armed forces," where slaughtered usually means killed with blades, from stabbing to beheading. Citing Abu Mohammed, the SNHR report relates how that played out for the activist Bayan:
It's not clear if that's why HRW didn't hear about that part. But they developed that guns-only picture citing the SNHR. And the SNHR, in their own report targeted more to Arab audiences, described the victims in general as "slaughtered and shot by Syrian government's armed forces," where slaughtered usually means killed with blades, from stabbing to beheading. Citing Abu Mohammed, the SNHR report relates how that played out for the activist Bayan:
"... they took revenge and killed her in a very horrific way , they rip her face with knives, cut her nose, stamped her in her hands and foot, and half-slaughtered her to leave dying in pain."
That woman looks perhaps around 21, and the headscarf is consistent with pro-salafist media activist. Her hands and feet are invisible, so "stamping" isn't clear. Her nose might be tweaked even more than the rest of her face, if not visibly cut. The gash continues from chin to eyebrow, but might include a first hack near the nose. It's doubtful anyone could survive that for more than some shock-obscured moments. In fact it may well have been done after her death; there's no sign of massive blood loss from that gash, and there seems to be a separate hole in her forehead (a horribly clear view, labeled as from Bayan's own LCC and cropped on this victim, is available here). Maybe she was simply shot, at first.
SNHR's witness "Abo Mohammed" says he witnessed the singular killing of "35 members of my family," including women and children who were then piled on each other (in more detail below). There's no known gathering of 35 members of any family in one spot. Only the Jallouls died, perhaps, in just about that number but at different sites combined. Did Shabiha collect them all here, before piling them un-guarded in the open?
In fact, "Abo Mohammed" says the pile of 35 included a baby they finished off afterwards, and "two children after they killed them, they burned their hands and legs" as one would know "if you have seen the pictures." I have. This must be the infamous pile shown blurred above, looking like they were tossed out a window to land this way. I estimate it contains about 30-35 bodies. If this does all line up, it means Bayan must be in there, and that hacked face is quite likely to be hers.
Truth-Teller to the End?
One difference between Ms. Jalloul and Omar Biasi in Baniyas is in their most recent politically relevant statement. In early April 2013 Sheikh Omar (perhaps - an Omar Biasi in Tartous) spoke out on the Internet against rebels, more harshly than usual, calling for them to be eliminated. That's about one month before the rebels - I think - came and massacred him and dozens of relatives.
He may have more recent statements around I haven't located, but the sheikh did not provide - for example - a running record of the actual attack. People don't usually do that, as power and communications tend to be cut off before an attack by whoever. Bayan, however, did allegedly manage that unusual feat.
The name Bayan ( بيان ) translates "statement." It's perfect for a person whose whole life conveys - or is consumed by - some kind of a worthy message. Joining the LCC to spread the truth during this time of revolution and horror in Syria might seem like a good one. But statements work best delivered at the right time, as early as that was in her young life. Whoever set it, the deadline came on May 3, and the SNHR report says Bayan "was publishing the news of what's happening to kill and death to the last moments." She allegedly sent a series of messages from shortly before 7:00 PM (apparently meaning local time) as the report says, linking to a screen grab posted here. These are transcribed in English in the report, saying in part:
He may have more recent statements around I haven't located, but the sheikh did not provide - for example - a running record of the actual attack. People don't usually do that, as power and communications tend to be cut off before an attack by whoever. Bayan, however, did allegedly manage that unusual feat.
The name Bayan ( بيان ) translates "statement." It's perfect for a person whose whole life conveys - or is consumed by - some kind of a worthy message. Joining the LCC to spread the truth during this time of revolution and horror in Syria might seem like a good one. But statements work best delivered at the right time, as early as that was in her young life. Whoever set it, the deadline came on May 3, and the SNHR report says Bayan "was publishing the news of what's happening to kill and death to the last moments." She allegedly sent a series of messages from shortly before 7:00 PM (apparently meaning local time) as the report says, linking to a screen grab posted here. These are transcribed in English in the report, saying in part:
"Allahu Akbar ... they are pouring gasoline in houses and burning them ... extermination in Ras Alnabaa my friends ... pray for us ... no one is helping us ... martyrs on the streets ... we will die too."
However, on the page just before this, the same report noted the attack began as usual with shelling and, before 2:30 PM, the regime "cut off electricity and communications." The purpose, rebels would say, is to keep people from broadcasting the truth in real time like that. The government would say it's to block terrorist communications in the coming fight. But either way, it allegedly didn't work. Bayan was allowed to watch and report for a while before they finally came and killed her, in this narrative.
Perhaps this LCC activist was equipped with special gear ("Thuraya phone", etc.) to evade the block. But it seems average locals were also able to call around fine. "Aya" told HRW "that her relative, who she saw at Abu Sa`id’s house shortly after the government and pro-government forces left, had spoken to Umm Sa`id (Bayan's mother) just before she was killed “She told me that she was speaking with Umm Sa`id at around 8:30 or 9:00 [p.m.] on the phone and that suddenly she heard Umm Sa`id screaming and pleading for mercy,” Aya recounted. “Then she heard gunshots.”
Alternatively, of course, the phone call was likely made up. And perhaps so were were Bayan's final observations shortly before, albeit with an aspect of actual text. Perhaps that was even typed by someone else logged into her secured account (I won't name any names).
Perhaps this LCC activist was equipped with special gear ("Thuraya phone", etc.) to evade the block. But it seems average locals were also able to call around fine. "Aya" told HRW "that her relative, who she saw at Abu Sa`id’s house shortly after the government and pro-government forces left, had spoken to Umm Sa`id (Bayan's mother) just before she was killed “She told me that she was speaking with Umm Sa`id at around 8:30 or 9:00 [p.m.] on the phone and that suddenly she heard Umm Sa`id screaming and pleading for mercy,” Aya recounted. “Then she heard gunshots.”
Alternatively, of course, the phone call was likely made up. And perhaps so were were Bayan's final observations shortly before, albeit with an aspect of actual text. Perhaps that was even typed by someone else logged into her secured account (I won't name any names).
More Failed Cover-Up, Foiled by All-Seeing Witnesses
It's suggested the killers intended to cover up this whole crime, and just failed spectacularly. HRW heard from its several witnesses in Lebanon how everyone witnessed this massacre, got calls in and out, had chances to check on neighbors, speak to the dying, and take the videos we've seen. They managed all this during a lull, they say, when the killers just walked away for a while.
This alternation of control - government in charge during the killings, not even present for a time after, and then in charge again during body removal - is the usual formula in Syria. Opposition access to a crime scene is essential for the continuing documentation of regime crimes, but continuous access is a troublesome notion, so it's always cut short by the soldiers coming back. Aya tells how "after they located the bodies, government or pro-government forces returned to the scene and fired repeatedly in their direction." Then theyy let her just run away, then move to to Lebanon and tell the whole story, but not without a show of trying to keep people from seeing the truth.
Another woman Human Rights Watch heard about "played dead when the security forces returned." Laying there, she claims, she "saw them shoot and kill Ahmad," the cousin killed by his car, after Rawan and Bayan were loaded inside.
This alternation of control - government in charge during the killings, not even present for a time after, and then in charge again during body removal - is the usual formula in Syria. Opposition access to a crime scene is essential for the continuing documentation of regime crimes, but continuous access is a troublesome notion, so it's always cut short by the soldiers coming back. Aya tells how "after they located the bodies, government or pro-government forces returned to the scene and fired repeatedly in their direction." Then theyy let her just run away, then move to to Lebanon and tell the whole story, but not without a show of trying to keep people from seeing the truth.
Another woman Human Rights Watch heard about "played dead when the security forces returned." Laying there, she claims, she "saw them shoot and kill Ahmad," the cousin killed by his car, after Rawan and Bayan were loaded inside.
SNHR's "most important" and all-seeing witness in their report is "Abo Mohammed." He says he watched Alawites he knew and named by family, arriving from a long list of towns he named, murdering Sunni families he knew with their "Russian weapons." He questions their humanity, as many do. With his own eyes - not with anyone else's - Abo Mohammed says he witnessed a woman stripped and gang-raped by the bests, who cut her hands and left her "half slaughtered" (bladed but alive - similar to but apparently not Bayan).
Abo Mohammed also watched a family executed by a wall, saw them turn and face it before being gunned down, and saw one woman play dead and live. In a possible contradiction, as previously cited here at ACLOS, this or a similar "Abu Mohammed" told al-Arabiya news he heard this from a basement he was "forced" to hide in, and the victims "were around 35 members of my family," gathered and shot in one outside spot and then piled on each other. In all, he told HRW he saw with his own eyes the murder of what he estimates as 250 victims. However, oddly enough, "there are many areas in the neighborhood that I couldn't see," so the number might be even higher! In fact he told al-Arabiya earlier that "the number of dead exceeds 1500. They are over 1000 only in Ras-elnabe’." For reference, all other sources top off between 150 and 200 documented dead in Ras al-Nabi - a number that might be high but could also be accurate.
This massive and cruel massacre was reportedly a government/Shabiha crime, and as usual it's one they would try to blame on "terrorists." But as also usually happens, rebels or sympathizers had continuing and relaxed access to the victims, amazing observation, victim ID age-memorization, and tallying skills. They were able to film the horrible pile shown above, with an array of dead children next to it, at night, and also for different hours in daylight. Some photos were taken from the second floor of this same building the victims were apparently tossed from. Did the Shabiha leave this scene open continuously that whole time, or did they come and go repeatedly in the span?
One thing about the pile that few have noticed is that some victims display more than a day's worth of decay - rigor mortis has faded away, faces are blue or greenish and puffy, bodies starting to bloat. I'm not clear enough on the photo timeline to say how big of a problem this is (another scene of male victims suggests killings before May 3 - ACLOS).
But it is obliquely noted that the bodies were starting to rot as people wandered around snapping pictures, before they were taken away by the "regime" and the Red Crescent. They were photographed again by rebel sympathizers during that process, the photos published as further proof bodies were left rotting because "families were unable to bury them or even come close." Maybe some people were effectively kept way, but it seems if they had just arrived with a camera and ready to blame Assad, they could have gotten as close as they wanted, as often as they wanted.
But it is obliquely noted that the bodies were starting to rot as people wandered around snapping pictures, before they were taken away by the "regime" and the Red Crescent. They were photographed again by rebel sympathizers during that process, the photos published as further proof bodies were left rotting because "families were unable to bury them or even come close." Maybe some people were effectively kept way, but it seems if they had just arrived with a camera and ready to blame Assad, they could have gotten as close as they wanted, as often as they wanted.
Abo Mohammed told SNHR about refrigerated trucks, four of them, hauling away the dead. Two loads were buried in Alnaznada, two at Maqrab bridge cemetery. This and other clues are what the competing UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) calls "evidence proving that the dozens of civilians who
were in the torched houses or under the rubble were secretly buried by
the Syrian security forces." (source - Facebook, but still active!) Why were they hidden away like that, while these killings were done so blatantly, with so many witnesses left around, and this most shocking pile of slaughtered innocents tossed out in the open
for rebel cameras to shock the world with?
Monday, June 29, 2015
Syria Massacres: Reviewing "The Societys Holocaust"
June 22, 2015
(incomplete)
last edits July 3
SNHR Report, General Observations:
* They use the term "local militias" "instead of Alawite or Shi'ite" - because "we have no knowledge of its hierarchy and its leaders' sectarian affiliations." Not sure what to make of that. (p. 5)
* They do know 90% of the listed massacres were done with the help of government forces, and of course killed Sunnis, and they know "90% of the security branches and military teams are Alawites." (p. 5)
(incomplete)
last edits July 3
The Society’s Holocaust
A report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a UK-based anti-government group, June 16, 2015. Report download page - PDF report direct download link. It's called "the society's holocaust," I guess because it's the world community's fault and responsibility to stop it. Thesis: ISIS ("Daesh"), JaN, and Kurdish militias have committed some sectarian massacres, the government's forces have done more than all those combined by far, killing 98% of massacred civilians, and the moderate FSA rebels have committed zero sectarian massacres.
Dettmer Article
A report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a UK-based anti-government group, June 16, 2015. Report download page - PDF report direct download link. It's called "the society's holocaust," I guess because it's the world community's fault and responsibility to stop it. Thesis: ISIS ("Daesh"), JaN, and Kurdish militias have committed some sectarian massacres, the government's forces have done more than all those combined by far, killing 98% of massacred civilians, and the moderate FSA rebels have committed zero sectarian massacres.
Dettmer Article
The report was headlined in a June 19 article by Jamie Dettmer (a self-proclaimed Zionist, FWIW), for the Daily Beast: "A
Damning Indictment of Syrian President Assad’s Systematic Massacres: A new report sorts through the record of sectarian carnage and leaves little doubt who are the worst offenders." This hails the anti-government group's report capable of leaving "little doubt" of their anti-government narrative.
The report outlines true facts, Dettmer feels, "making a mockery of the Syrian leader’s frequent claim to foreign broadcasters that his soldiers would never harm their own people deliberately as a matter of policy." No, these crimes, authored by whoever, clarify that Assad is just as evil and sectarian as the Sunni insurgents always said. He's been doing this from the beginning, and has the audacity to claim they're the ones doing it, just to make him look bad?
Some errors in Dettmer's report:
* "In fact, three days before Assad sat down with the BBC for an especially chilling interview last February (actually was Feb. 10 this year) and lamented how war, alas, causes casualties, government-aligned militiamen stormed the As-Sabil neighborhood in the Syrian city of Homs and slaughtered three Sunni families, including four children and five women." Actually that was February 7, 2012 - three years and three days before that interview. That one is covered, not proven rebel work but likely.
* The report lists "56 major massacres displaying obvious sectarian or ethnic cleansing traits." Actually it's 59 - 56 sectarian massacres, and 3 ethnic massacres, being (Sunni) Kuds against Sunni Arabs (and not any clear vice-versa cases). 49 of the 59 are attributed - by the info SNHR received from its anti-government contacts and rebel fighters - to government or allied forces. I contest all of these, some with direct evidence-based reasons, others just based (so far) on that pattern.
SNHR Report, General Observations:
* Recommendations (from the final page 33), summarized: Everyone they've blamed should have sanctions placed on them. Iran should be stopped from supporting Syria's government. "All necessary measures" should be taken to implement UNSC resolutions 2042 and 2139. The world should team up to get rid of Assad, and all extremist groups. The UN Security Council should do this. The people of the world should "support the Syrian people," mainly by pushing the UNSC to the above recommendations, and by getting Syria referred to the International Criminal Court. These are all measures towards the destruction of the Syrian government and a replication of the Libya scenario.
* They're totally incorrect to report as clear fact that the government and its allies are responsible for the first, worst, and most massacres, taking 98% of massacred civilian lives. That's about right by lodged opposition activist reports. But those reports, time and again, pale next to the weight of combined logic and evidence. This is best shown on a case-by-case basis, and will be below, in other posts, wherever there's enough room and whenever there's enough time.
* The report lists massacre 32, At-Trymsa (Hama) 12 July, 2012 - tens killed, 67 civilians confirmed, including 6 children killed and one woman. We'd better hope not. Rebels announced a one-sided, unprovoked massacre by government forces of over 250 people, mostly men. Government said rebels had massacred some locals, including a woman and her children executed in the city square. They were set to kill more, but the Army arrived and killed over 100 in the following battle, with very few losses of their own. Mainstream reports, even the New York Times, followed closely enough to decide in this case the government story was "closer" to the truth (no one wanted to say it was true) - there was no massacre, just a big battle the rebels lost. (see Wikipedia Battle of Tremseh (changed from massacre) and ACLOS left-ambiguous Tremseh Massacre) To hear SNHR, none of that happened - the 250 rebels just weren't confirmed here, maybe left in that vague "tens" - and they do not say here - as they do in some cases - that the killings "involved only government forces." (meaning, there was some aspect of rebel fighting and dying involved - here, the evidence suggests that was the vast bulk of the dead.)
The battle was clearly the main event, but there was also talk of a massacre, and some clues always said there was, just cut short. Were 67 civilians killed? Might be, worth some review.
* The report lists massacre 32, At-Trymsa (Hama) 12 July, 2012 - tens killed, 67 civilians confirmed, including 6 children killed and one woman. We'd better hope not. Rebels announced a one-sided, unprovoked massacre by government forces of over 250 people, mostly men. Government said rebels had massacred some locals, including a woman and her children executed in the city square. They were set to kill more, but the Army arrived and killed over 100 in the following battle, with very few losses of their own. Mainstream reports, even the New York Times, followed closely enough to decide in this case the government story was "closer" to the truth (no one wanted to say it was true) - there was no massacre, just a big battle the rebels lost. (see Wikipedia Battle of Tremseh (changed from massacre) and ACLOS left-ambiguous Tremseh Massacre) To hear SNHR, none of that happened - the 250 rebels just weren't confirmed here, maybe left in that vague "tens" - and they do not say here - as they do in some cases - that the killings "involved only government forces." (meaning, there was some aspect of rebel fighting and dying involved - here, the evidence suggests that was the vast bulk of the dead.)
The battle was clearly the main event, but there was also talk of a massacre, and some clues always said there was, just cut short. Were 67 civilians killed? Might be, worth some review.
* When the report acknowledges a crime by a non-Daesh anti-government group as actually being by them (that is, it became impossible to blame the "regime" - it happens occasionally), it tends to preface it with what the loyalists did to provoke it. All government-supporter massacres were totally unprovoked, to read this report. And that helps clarify the supposed sectarian motive behind each of these crimes.
* Page 32: The SNHR received reports of a Kurdish YPG massacre from Sunni locals, but YPG denied it, saying those locals were known pro-Daesh liars. SNHR had heard this kind of protest many times, published its report blaming the YPG anyway, still includes it here as an "ethnic cleansing massacre." But they note "On the next day, YPG issued a statement accusing SNHR of working to further their supporters' agenda and trying to incite national strife and promoting chaos." Ah, NOW the anti-government Kurds get it - this is what the massacres and the stories told about them were all about from day one!
* "It is clear that the Syrian authority is trying to provoke the other party to commit such crimes in light of the lack of any form of accountability on the International Community's part or the Security Council's willingness to stop these massacres... " (p. 5)
* "It is clear that the Syrian authority is trying to provoke the other party to commit such crimes in light of the lack of any form of accountability on the International Community's part or the Security Council's willingness to stop these massacres... " (p. 5)
* They use the term "local militias" "instead of Alawite or Shi'ite" - because "we have no knowledge of its hierarchy and its leaders' sectarian affiliations." Not sure what to make of that. (p. 5)
* They do know 90% of the listed massacres were done with the help of government forces, and of course killed Sunnis, and they know "90% of the security branches and military teams are Alawites." (p. 5)
Special Focus: Aqrab, December 11, 2012
I don't suppose this is the most representative example, but it is a real one. They really put this "massacre" in their report when most now know to simply say "what massacre?"
Massacre Coverage, Theirs vs. Ours
SNHR's 22 massacres in Homs
C=covered (will have a link in time), N = new to me,N = was new, covered now, ? = will need to check (ACLOS page and all of Shoutwiki has been down badly for a few days - some may be covered under another name, etc.). Select notes - doc= documented dead, ch=children, w=women, report title search words (useless, use PDF links)
1 C Zahraa Dec. 6, 2011 - 19 documented killed, 8 from one family
2 C Az-Zaitoun, January 26 - local militias raided, killed 2 families 19 doc 6 w 10 ch stab wounds seen (covered as Bahader-Akkra Family Massacre, At least 13-17 civilians executed in Karm al-Zaytoun (KaZ) or Nazeheen)
3 C Sebil 7 Feb 14, 5 women, 4 children report "sectarian-cleansing massacre ... As-Sabil neighborhood"
4 C Ar-Refa'ie Al-Adawiya, and Karm Az-Zaitoun March 9, 11 - 224 dead, 44 children, 48 women
5 C Deir Baalba 2 and 9 April 200 dead, 21 children, 20 women report "Der Ba'lba massacre in April"
6 C first Ash-Shamas, 15 May 11, including imam of a mosque
7 C al-Houla 97 civilians, 10 rebels
8N Eastern Buweida Massacre May 31 - 12 dead, workers, fertilizer factory, bus hijacked report "fertilizer factory massacre..."
9N Qal't Al-Hesn, June 28 Dr. Ahlam Emad home, 6 doc, 3 w report "...slaughtered in Qal't Al-Hesn"
10N Shammas 2, 11 August 22 civilians, 3 ch 2 w
11N Tasnien 5-6 Jan 105 dead or missing, bodies in Assi river
12N Mshierfa 6 January - 11 dead 1 woman, 3 Christians
13 C Haswiya, 15 Jan - 100 dead, 20 women, 25 children "killing based on sectarian backgrounds" "involved only government forces."
14 C Abel 25 March, 2013 - rebels chase out loyalists, who massacre on the way out - 14 doc 6 w 4 ch
15 C Burj, Talkalkh 31 March - 10 dead, 2 w 4 ch
16 C Baba Amrou Massacre, March 2013 - No exact date! after opp. withdrew, killed tens, burned home 58 doc, 21 w
17 C Khirbet at-Tin 10 April 10 dead, 7 ch 1 w
18N Malouk Family 17 May - 2 families, looted, burned bodies, in Wa'er 13 doc, 9 children, 3 women, one man
19N Haswiya 2 - Al-Mazarea Al-Mohammad At-Tayyar families, mutilated, 18 doc, 9 ch 3 w
20N As-Sakhna 22 July 18 doc, 2 w
21N Wadi al-Mawla, a Friday in November - 21 doc, 8 ch 7 w, one pregnant
22N (last Homs) Ash-Shniya 23 July, 2014 - killed 20 soldiers trying to flee Qabou to Houla, heads tossed in al-Assi village
So a number of these - at least 8 - are ones I had missed before. And this isn't even all massacres, just sectarian ones, by their definition. My study is even less complete than I thought. I'm looking at Tasnin now, interesting stuff.
After more checking, I eliminated the ? - I had caught 13, with 9 being new. All of those were then covered.
27 in other provinces: Aleppo: 8 - Hama: 7 - Damascus: 5 - Tartous: 2 - Idlib: 2
Daraa: 2 - Deir Ezzour: 1
Of these, some at least we've covered (using continuous numbering up to 49)
28 Al-Mazr'a 21 June 2013 (near Khnasser, below)
29 Khnaser 22 Feb 2014 (with three other area massacres, app. 104 total reported dead)
31 Qbeir, 6 June - 50 civilians
32 At-Trymsa 12 July - 67 civilians, 6 ch
39 Douma June 2012 (and another Douma massacre in October)
40 Jadedat Al-Fadl 16-23 April, 2013
42 Nabak November 2013 (SNHR says it lasted into late December and claimed the lives of 361 civilians
43 Banyas 2-4 May, 2013 covered as Al-Bayda Massacre and Baniyas Massacre "SNHR documented by name 459 civilian victims, including 92 children and 71 women."
44 Banyas 21 July, 2013 (Fattouh family massacre)
New Massacres, Covered
June 22: Tasnin massacre of Jan 2013. That was pretty quick work. Turns out mostly from rebel sources this was a mixed village with many Alawites and many loyalists that had sat out the revolution, trying to take neither side. The Alawites and loyalists all ran away when the other Alawites ("local militias" - some from Tasnin) and loyalists attacked. That's why they're gone now. The non-loyal Sunnis stayed, and were killed and abducted. By loyalist sources, terrorists attacked, abducted and killed, but were cut short by a swift army response and fled - maybe with captives. Some rebel fighters from Houla and Rastan are listed by opposition sources as massacred along with the locals; VDC lists 4 of these, plus 32 civilians they confirmed as executed - 23 men, 5 women, 2 boys and 2 girls. Is that because useful women and children were kept? That all supports that there was a sectarian aspect like they say. See Aqrab above for that parallel.
June 23: Eastern Buweida, May 31, 2012, covered. This one I was aware of, and I know there's way more info on it around. But this quick start is enough for now...
June 24: Qal't Al-Hesn, June 28 - professor Ahlam and family, and perhaps distant family, covered here. That's 3 of 8 now covered.
June 24: Second Shammas massacre August 11 or actually August 12, 2012 - covered in the same day (quick job though).
June 26: Mshierfa Jan. 6 covered, partly
June 27: Mallouk family May 2013
June 27: Sukhna, July 2013
June 28: Wadi al-Mawla Nov. 15, 2013
June 29: Shinya Massacre of July 23, 2014
Some Other Sectarian Massacres SNHR never covered and never will
(list to be filled-in/improved in time)
Tellawi family, April 17, 2011 (Alawi)
Asheera bakery, Jan. 2012 (Christians)
Sultaniya, March (4-8 Melhems killed, likely Alawi)
Houla Massacre, May 25, 2012 (Shia converts, allegedly - app. 85) (see also possible May 22 sectarian bus hijacking link and the next entry)
Shumeriyeh Homa May 25, 2012 - 10 killed (Alawi)
Joseyeh bus attack June 2012 - 9 killed (Alawi)
Jandar resort (16 Alawi and Christian workers)
Ghassaniya-Haidariya September 30, 2012 (Christians)
Al-Shaddadi Petroluem Company, Hasaka, Feb. 2013 (Shia)
Aqrab (Alawi, number unknown)
Maan Dec. 24 2012 23 killed (Alawi)
Duvair 40+ minimum (Christians)
Marmarita Aug. 17, 2013 - app. 15 killed(Christians)
Jabourin bus bombing Sept 19, 2013 -19 killed (Alawi)
Khunayfis Hama Nov 2013 (Alawi)
Adra (right after Nabak, ignored - many Christians killed)
Maan Feb 9, 2014 (Alawi)
Zara (near Khalet al-Hosn) Feb. 17, 2014 (Alawi)
Zanuba Hama June 2014 (Alawi)
Ishtabraq Idlib April 2015 (Alawi)
Qalb Lawzah, May 2015 (Druze, but forcibly converted, so arguably not sectarian at all - and this may be a wave of the future - motive elimination)
Note: any number of other massacres may have sectarian aspects and it's just not totally clear. For example one with arguably enough evidence to include is Karm al-Zaytoun, March 2012 (reports say clerics blessed the slaughter, and rebels refer to the victims as "sheep," non-humans, likely not Sunni). Khalidiya the month before has less reliable suggestions of the same (Mother Agnes says the hostages killed were local Christians and Alawi). Other massacres have varying circumstantial indicators.
If the Jabourin bus bombing counts, so would the car bombing of a school in the Homs city Alawite-majority district of Zahra, many shelling attacks on Alawiye villages, Christian districts of Aleppo, the Shiite vilages of Nubol and Zahraa (Aleppo) and things of that sort. So that should probably be stricken from the list. Done.
I don't suppose this is the most representative example, but it is a real one. They really put this "massacre" in their report when most now know to simply say "what massacre?"
Government forces' local militias besieged Aqrab village in Hama suburbs. Consequently, the village residents agreed to form a committee in order to negotiate with the militias and end the siege. The local militias killed the members of the delegation which were six civilians according to SNHR. This incident details a pattern of killing based on sectarian backgrounds. SNHR published a statement regarding this incident: "even mediation committees are being killed."
Wow is that missing some parts. The link gives me a chance to check what their supporting info is in this case. That's one of their points - each one is backed up (many are) with detailed investigations. There it says
D When the militias and government forces siege become severer on the people of Aqrab village in Hama countryside, a group of the village young men went to the government forces trying to reach an agreement to end the siege, but the militias surrounding the village arrested the group and executed them in cold blood.
It lists the men, names I recognize: Omar Walid Bakeer, Saeed Hamash, Shaker Akash, Yahia Al Hussein, Ali Al Sarah, Ali Al Omar. The linked full PDF report is the same short thing, with a big logo below. That's literally all they show.
Okay, so what's missing? The besieging Alawite militias (unspecified) in a Sunni town is presumably what makes it sectarian to them. Problem is, Aqrab was a half-Alawite town until rebels attacked the (much smaller) Alawite half in the west on December 2, herded 500 captives into a building, whole families, killing some in the process (deaths listed as government shelling - see inset). They exchanged some Alawites with the government for rebel prisoners. It somehow became a standoff, or there was some resistance from the captives, unclear - the besieging Alawite men were inside the house with family, causing some problem. They reportedly had food and water cut off, smoke from burning tires poured into the house, with the deal reported as endure or surrender - men will be executed, women and children will not be killed, but taken back to rebel-held al-Houla. Some were reportedly massacred ahead of time; one smoke-stained girl of about 7 I think was one of these - skull sliced open by a sword, shown on rebel video as a shelling victim in Houla, on December 9.
 |
| Abdulsalam Daoud, per VDC, killed by regime shelling or regime sniper, in Aqrab Dec. 3. His family inside were all killed by shelling. |
Then, there was a delegation of local Sunnis - six - sent in on the 10th, apparently to talk the Alawites into accepting the deal. It seems they were then taken hostage by the hostages and eventually killed, probably by them, probably for being part of that sick demand. Next, unclear. Rebels say the Shabiha blew up their family with grenades and either fled or committed suicide. Then the army shelled the house, and the air force bombed it. The admittedly besieging rebels said about 200 remained in the house, only a few lived, and they were helping the survivors in Houla. That was the first-reported Aqrab Massacre. Alawites were expected to rise up against Assad now that he was killing them.
 |
| The house Alex Thomson filmed, intact |
A couple days later Channel 4's Alex Thomson filmed the house hostages say they were held in - intact but with smoke coming out of some blacked-out windows. People freed in exchanges told their story to him, reporters from al-Mayadeen, and Syrian networks. It's not known if rebels actually killed those people, quietly released them, kept them as slaves, or most likely some combination of these. But everyone who supported the rebellion tried to just drop that story and move on. (see CIWCL, ACLOS and a rare tweet from Alex Thomson confirming this work "seems to bear out what I reported from Aqrab at the time") Which is:
So kudos to SNHR for bringing it up again, and in such a splendidly twisted manner. They report only the killed delegation, and in the context of a storyline almost completely inverted from reality. This leaves little doubt that, at least in some cases - wow, holy shit are they atrociously unreliable. Rebels killed or enslaved probably over 200 Alawites, used others to get their friends freed, and displaced all 2,000 there were. The few who caused some friction on the way are now attackers, killing anyone who speaks peace. Apologies for the unprofessional language here, but ... holy shit they got this one wrong.
The report is password-protected so I can't copy any text from it. So I'll cite sparingly. But for reference, I needed to make this list of the 22 massacres in Homs province they cover, 1,032 victims, to compare with my own research into that area (see Monitor summary post here - overall about 57 events covered, app. 1,400-1,900 dead).
SNHR's 22 massacres in Homs
C=covered (will have a link in time), N = new to me,
1 C Zahraa Dec. 6, 2011 - 19 documented killed, 8 from one family
2 C Az-Zaitoun, January 26 - local militias raided, killed 2 families 19 doc 6 w 10 ch stab wounds seen (covered as Bahader-Akkra Family Massacre, At least 13-17 civilians executed in Karm al-Zaytoun (KaZ) or Nazeheen)
3 C Sebil 7 Feb 14, 5 women, 4 children report "sectarian-cleansing massacre ... As-Sabil neighborhood"
4 C Ar-Refa'ie Al-Adawiya, and Karm Az-Zaitoun March 9, 11 - 224 dead, 44 children, 48 women
5 C Deir Baalba 2 and 9 April 200 dead, 21 children, 20 women report "Der Ba'lba massacre in April"
6 C first Ash-Shamas, 15 May 11, including imam of a mosque
7 C al-Houla 97 civilians, 10 rebels
8
9
10
11
12
13 C Haswiya, 15 Jan - 100 dead, 20 women, 25 children "killing based on sectarian backgrounds" "involved only government forces."
14 C Abel 25 March, 2013 - rebels chase out loyalists, who massacre on the way out - 14 doc 6 w 4 ch
15 C Burj, Talkalkh 31 March - 10 dead, 2 w 4 ch
16 C Baba Amrou Massacre, March 2013 - No exact date! after opp. withdrew, killed tens, burned home 58 doc, 21 w
17 C Khirbet at-Tin 10 April 10 dead, 7 ch 1 w
18
19
20
21
22
So a number of these - at least 8 - are ones I had missed before. And this isn't even all massacres, just sectarian ones, by their definition. My study is even less complete than I thought. I'm looking at Tasnin now, interesting stuff.
After more checking, I eliminated the ? - I had caught 13, with 9 being new. All of those were then covered.
27 in other provinces: Aleppo: 8 - Hama: 7 - Damascus: 5 - Tartous: 2 - Idlib: 2
Daraa: 2 - Deir Ezzour: 1
Of these, some at least we've covered (using continuous numbering up to 49)
28 Al-Mazr'a 21 June 2013 (near Khnasser, below)
29 Khnaser 22 Feb 2014 (with three other area massacres, app. 104 total reported dead)
31 Qbeir, 6 June - 50 civilians
32 At-Trymsa 12 July - 67 civilians, 6 ch
39 Douma June 2012 (and another Douma massacre in October)
40 Jadedat Al-Fadl 16-23 April, 2013
42 Nabak November 2013 (SNHR says it lasted into late December and claimed the lives of 361 civilians
43 Banyas 2-4 May, 2013 covered as Al-Bayda Massacre and Baniyas Massacre "SNHR documented by name 459 civilian victims, including 92 children and 71 women."
44 Banyas 21 July, 2013 (Fattouh family massacre)
New Massacres, Covered
June 22: Tasnin massacre of Jan 2013. That was pretty quick work. Turns out mostly from rebel sources this was a mixed village with many Alawites and many loyalists that had sat out the revolution, trying to take neither side. The Alawites and loyalists all ran away when the other Alawites ("local militias" - some from Tasnin) and loyalists attacked. That's why they're gone now. The non-loyal Sunnis stayed, and were killed and abducted. By loyalist sources, terrorists attacked, abducted and killed, but were cut short by a swift army response and fled - maybe with captives. Some rebel fighters from Houla and Rastan are listed by opposition sources as massacred along with the locals; VDC lists 4 of these, plus 32 civilians they confirmed as executed - 23 men, 5 women, 2 boys and 2 girls. Is that because useful women and children were kept? That all supports that there was a sectarian aspect like they say. See Aqrab above for that parallel.
June 23: Eastern Buweida, May 31, 2012, covered. This one I was aware of, and I know there's way more info on it around. But this quick start is enough for now...
June 24: Qal't Al-Hesn, June 28 - professor Ahlam and family, and perhaps distant family, covered here. That's 3 of 8 now covered.
June 24: Second Shammas massacre August 11 or actually August 12, 2012 - covered in the same day (quick job though).
June 26: Mshierfa Jan. 6 covered, partly
June 27: Mallouk family May 2013
June 27: Sukhna, July 2013
June 28: Wadi al-Mawla Nov. 15, 2013
June 29: Shinya Massacre of July 23, 2014
Some Other Sectarian Massacres SNHR never covered and never will
(list to be filled-in/improved in time)
Tellawi family, April 17, 2011 (Alawi)
Asheera bakery, Jan. 2012 (Christians)
Sultaniya, March (4-8 Melhems killed, likely Alawi)
Houla Massacre, May 25, 2012 (Shia converts, allegedly - app. 85) (see also possible May 22 sectarian bus hijacking link and the next entry)
Shumeriyeh Homa May 25, 2012 - 10 killed (Alawi)
Joseyeh bus attack June 2012 - 9 killed (Alawi)
Jandar resort (16 Alawi and Christian workers)
Ghassaniya-Haidariya September 30, 2012 (Christians)
Al-Shaddadi Petroluem Company, Hasaka, Feb. 2013 (Shia)
Aqrab (Alawi, number unknown)
Maan Dec. 24 2012 23 killed (Alawi)
Duvair 40+ minimum (Christians)
Marmarita Aug. 17, 2013 - app. 15 killed(Christians)
Khunayfis Hama Nov 2013 (Alawi)
Adra (right after Nabak, ignored - many Christians killed)
Maan Feb 9, 2014 (Alawi)
Zara (near Khalet al-Hosn) Feb. 17, 2014 (Alawi)
Zanuba Hama June 2014 (Alawi)
Ishtabraq Idlib April 2015 (Alawi)
Qalb Lawzah, May 2015 (Druze, but forcibly converted, so arguably not sectarian at all - and this may be a wave of the future - motive elimination)
Note: any number of other massacres may have sectarian aspects and it's just not totally clear. For example one with arguably enough evidence to include is Karm al-Zaytoun, March 2012 (reports say clerics blessed the slaughter, and rebels refer to the victims as "sheep," non-humans, likely not Sunni). Khalidiya the month before has less reliable suggestions of the same (Mother Agnes says the hostages killed were local Christians and Alawi). Other massacres have varying circumstantial indicators.
If the Jabourin bus bombing counts, so would the car bombing of a school in the Homs city Alawite-majority district of Zahra, many shelling attacks on Alawiye villages, Christian districts of Aleppo, the Shiite vilages of Nubol and Zahraa (Aleppo) and things of that sort. So that should probably be stricken from the list. Done.
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