Syrian officer who witnessed Houla massacre Defects

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A senior official from the Syrian Air Force has defected and sided with opposition forces, and claims he witnessed the Houla massacre first hand. The Guardian spoke to Major Jihad Raslan, who was on leave in his house 300 metres away from the small village of Taldous, one of the first areas assaulted in the Houla masacre, when “several hundred” men he knew to be Shabiha members, pro-regime militia, entered on motorbikes and army trucks:

“A lot of them were bald and many had beards,” he said. “Many wore white sports shoes and army pants. They were shouting: ‘Shabiha forever, for your eyes, Assad.’ It was very obvious who they were.

“We used to be told that armed groups killed people and the Free Syria Army burned down houses,” he said. “They lied to us. Now I saw what they did with my own eyes.”

“A lot of them were bald and many had beards,” he said. “Many wore white sports shoes and army pants. They were shouting: ‘Shabiha forever, for your eyes, Assad.’ It was very obvious who they were.

He said the killings in his area were over in around 15 minutes. However, the rampage in other parts of Houla continued until the early hours of Saturday, according to eye-witnesses and survivors.

Raslon told the Guardian those killed in his area were people he knew and had social ties with. Raslon said defections have increased since the incident in Houla, but the military is making it as difficult as possible. All holidays have been cancelled, he said, and he claimed to know of five defectors who were shot dead while trying to escape. Raslan said his normal posting was away from where most of the violence has taken place, but after Houla he couldn’t go on. “I knew they had been lying, but I had not been exposed to the effects of it. This was the first time I had seen anything like this,” he said.

Bashar al-Assad condemned the Houla massacre, and blamed foreign-supported terrorists for the crimes on Syrian state television Sunday morning. But another defected Syrian Lieutenant told the Guardian Shabiba often work in conjunction with the Syrian army, and sometimes take orders from Syrian intelligence officers. “The military give them weapons and cover, and escort them in tanks,” he said. “But they sometimes work independently.”

Atlantic wire

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31 responses to “Syrian officer who witnessed Houla massacre Defects”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    New Word submission to Oxford Dictionary – 2012
    Shabiha: n: (Variations on spelling allowed in news articles … Shabiba, shaabeeha , etc)
     A Type of humanoid known under various names depending on heritage. (Requires a certain mind-set.)
    Like butchers in a slaughterhouse who feel the necessity of a dirty job, Shabiha are released when needed, where needed, given a shopping-list to fill, then hauled off to the next job. Anything beyond the daily order they can take home for the barbeque. Generally well-fed and paid for their services. 
    Some become over-used to the blood-scent, and begin to fixate on how wonderfully flesh will part under a knife – and as seen in the last year will happily do overtime to demonstrate their skills in hospitals – both on the patients, or doctors and nurses who dare to protest they have taken over an operating room. 
    A Descendent Skill of family pride in many cases – will not be dissuaded by other thoughts, words, screams, or held in check by usual computer simulations.
    Over the course of human history, eradication methods have proven less than satisfying … may lie dormant when jobs are in short supply, but this theory is unsubstantiated since no such event has occurred.

    1. Hannibal Avatar
      Hannibal

      homo erectus shabihus

      1. MeYosemite Avatar
        MeYosemite

        I think you meant rattus shabihus.

      2. MeYosemite Avatar
        MeYosemite

        I think you meant rattus shabihus.

    2. master09 Avatar
      master09

      5TH      “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.”

      This best line I have heard for this week………………In society they judge you on the paper you got at UNI and hangs on the wall….even if you can’t put one and  two together….. you are smart because of that paper…  Roll up Roll up and be brainwashed……….

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        And, master09, thanks for some back-up of the rambles. We need the right kind of brainwashing…. 🙂

    3. master09 Avatar
      master09

      5TH      “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.”

      This best line I have heard for this week………………In society they judge you on the paper you got at UNI and hangs on the wall….even if you can’t put one and  two together….. you are smart because of that paper…  Roll up Roll up and be brainwashed……….

  2. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    New Word submission to Oxford Dictionary – 2012
    Shabiha: n: (Variations on spelling allowed in news articles … Shabiba, shaabeeha , etc)
     A Type of humanoid known under various names depending on heritage. (Requires a certain mind-set.)
    Like butchers in a slaughterhouse who feel the necessity of a dirty job, Shabiha are released when needed, where needed, given a shopping-list to fill, then hauled off to the next job. Anything beyond the daily order they can take home for the barbeque. Generally well-fed and paid for their services. 
    Some become over-used to the blood-scent, and begin to fixate on how wonderfully flesh will part under a knife – and as seen in the last year will happily do overtime to demonstrate their skills in hospitals – both on the patients, or doctors and nurses who dare to protest they have taken over an operating room. 
    A Descendent Skill of family pride in many cases – will not be dissuaded by other thoughts, words, screams, or held in check by usual computer simulations.
    Over the course of human history, eradication methods have proven less than satisfying … may lie dormant when jobs are in short supply, but this theory is unsubstantiated since no such event has occurred.

    1. homo erectus shabihus

      1. MeYosemite Avatar
        MeYosemite

        I think you meant rattus shabihus.

    2. master09 Avatar
      master09

      5TH      “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.”

      This best line I have heard for this week………………In society they judge you on the paper you got at UNI and hangs on the wall….even if you can’t put one and  two together….. you are smart because of that paper…  Roll up Roll up and be brainwashed……….

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        And, master09, thanks for some back-up of the rambles. We need the right kind of brainwashing…. 🙂

  3.  curious thing that bashar  blames foreign terrorists for crimes consistently commited against anti regime demographical towns…either way if mubarack got convicted  with flying colors on much less atrosities, assad will have acres of witnesses  and hard core testimonies for unspeakable  deeds that he cant duck from for too long, everything has an ending and his decisions  will make full circle and haunt him to no end.

  4.  curious thing that bashar  blames foreign terrorists for crimes consistently commited against anti regime demographical towns…either way if mubarack got convicted  with flying colors on much less atrosities, assad will have acres of witnesses  and hard core testimonies for unspeakable  deeds that he cant duck from for too long, everything has an ending and his decisions  will make full circle and haunt him to no end.

  5. bs244846 Avatar
    bs244846

    yes he saw it thats why he defected and i am the pope too lol….i understand a homsi soldier could be stupid to utter this nonsense that nobody can believe but i am surprised of the number of lebanese who claim to be more intelligent than the homsis to believe such stupidity and foremost how a respectable website like this one permits itself to post such silly propaganda

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Well Mr. BullShitter … yours is here. Seems to be a free blog, right? 

      1. bs244846 Avatar
        bs244846

        if you ask an educated person what does BS mean he will tell you: bachelor of sciences. You ask an ignoramus from the street what does BS mean he will tell you: Bull shit. Oops sorry drawer, i thought you were a man, am sorry i did not know you were a hayawan….apologies to animals to compare you to this drawer

        1. master09 Avatar
          master09

          You really have to talk about people you have never met or know anything about like the way you have….. For anyone that talks in this way and about others he does not knowl, it makes them even lower and even more uneducated….  By the way a person can have ten masters three doctrates and still have no common sense…. But really bs what I have seen from you is nothing more than HATE words, why don,t you use your educated mind and xplain and disqus matters like humans….. All you have done is kill this, jail that and hated him. Hey dude it is your life if you have something personal for some MP or party in Lebanon, you will not live a happy life…….Good luck and may Jesus give our minds peace…..and love for each other……….

        2. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Hehehe … the old ‘educated’ line … and these days anyone with or without a ‘degree’ can tell you that a B of S or A or M, or in anything else, is basically bullshit as far as the workplace is concerned. Many simply become slogs in B of Office. Well-trained truck drivers, plumbers and electricians can do better over a lifetime … although there are a lot of Bachelor of Restaurant making good tips, it’s true. (Especially if you have B of Boobs. 😉
          The concept of ‘university’ education is vastly overrated when it enormously produces people who can’t think for themselves anyway, or discover why their lives are so shitty.
          Hellen Keller said: “The highest result of education is tolerance.”
          Well, seems there’s something amiss in the Leb university these days, wouldn’t you say? Here, a country where getting that ‘Bachelor Degree’ is necessary to get half a job after begging friends and relatives for a couple of years; but where usually before graduation the plan is to leave and get educated in the world instead. Most students can see where the bullshit is … if universities haven’t clogged their minds already. And not having a ‘degree’ of any kind means eternal suffering under some very dirty hands.  (Especially if one is female.) (And Where, for instance, have apprenticeships gone?) Well ….
          I chuckle at you now because I think I see the ‘educated’ mind attempting to insert it’s views, which haven’t actually had time to be formed properly yet. Reactionary youth. Tsk.
          “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.” — Anatole France
          Some of us attempt to keep learning – as we should … some simply stop at the happy-bank-account level. Some think a ‘degree’ should give them that … as if it’s a ‘right’ … but then, they hit the street like everyone else …. basically where the brain has to take over … and to their chagrin find there really is no ‘equality’ in brain cells just because they have a piece of paper. Perhaps there’s nothing really wrong with bullshit. It has fertilized many a mind before yours, after all. I suppose in the end how it must be judged is by whether it produces a flower, or a mushroom.  😉
          (Yes, you many quote me. 🙂
          Ok, ok … while I’ve been allowed out and am rolling tonight … and before the scotch takes over … (quiet Prophet)
          Alfred Lord Tennyson was one of those Flowers … there HAVE been some in the history of humans. And he said; “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”  This simple phrase insinuates that knowledge is pieces of information that aren’t always retained (as happens to B-Somethings), but wisdom is a deeper understanding based on life experiences.
          Get some folks … get some. I hope you don’t find it all at the end of a gun.

      2. bs244846 Avatar
        bs244846

        if you ask an educated person what does BS mean he will tell you: bachelor of sciences. You ask an ignoramus from the street what does BS mean he will tell you: Bull shit. Oops sorry drawer, i thought you were a man, am sorry i did not know you were a hayawan….apologies to animals to compare you to this drawer

        1. master09 Avatar
          master09

          You really have to talk about people you have never met or know anything about like the way you have….. For anyone that talks in this way and about others he does not knowl, it makes them even lower and even more uneducated….  By the way a person can have ten masters three doctrates and still have no common sense…. But really bs what I have seen from you is nothing more than HATE words, why don,t you use your educated mind and xplain and disqus matters like humans….. All you have done is kill this, jail that and hated him. Hey dude it is your life if you have something personal for some MP or party in Lebanon, you will not live a happy life…….Good luck and may Jesus give our minds peace…..and love for each other……….

        2. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Hehehe … the old ‘educated’ line … and these days anyone with or without a ‘degree’ can tell you that a B of S or A or M, or in anything else, is basically bullshit as far as the workplace is concerned. Many simply become slogs in B of Office. Well-trained truck drivers, plumbers and electricians can do better over a lifetime … although there are a lot of Bachelor of Restaurant making good tips, it’s true. (Especially if you have B of Boobs. 😉
          The concept of ‘university’ education is vastly overrated when it enormously produces people who can’t think for themselves anyway, or discover why their lives are so shitty.
          Hellen Keller said: “The highest result of education is tolerance.”
          Well, seems there’s something amiss in the Leb university these days, wouldn’t you say? Here, a country where getting that ‘Bachelor Degree’ is necessary to get half a job after begging friends and relatives for a couple of years; but where usually before graduation the plan is to leave and get educated in the world instead. Most students can see where the bullshit is … if universities haven’t clogged their minds already. And not having a ‘degree’ of any kind means eternal suffering under some very dirty hands.  (Especially if one is female.) (And Where, for instance, have apprenticeships gone?) Well ….
          I chuckle at you now because I think I see the ‘educated’ mind attempting to insert it’s views, which haven’t actually had time to be formed properly yet. Reactionary youth. Tsk.
          “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.” — Anatole France
          Some of us attempt to keep learning – as we should … some simply stop at the happy-bank-account level. Some think a ‘degree’ should give them that … as if it’s a ‘right’ … but then, they hit the street like everyone else …. basically where the brain has to take over … and to their chagrin find there really is no ‘equality’ in brain cells just because they have a piece of paper. Perhaps there’s nothing really wrong with bullshit. It has fertilized many a mind before yours, after all. I suppose in the end how it must be judged is by whether it produces a flower, or a mushroom.  😉
          (Yes, you many quote me. 🙂
          Ok, ok … while I’ve been allowed out and am rolling tonight … and before the scotch takes over … (quiet Prophet)
          Alfred Lord Tennyson was one of those Flowers … there HAVE been some in the history of humans. And he said; “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”  This simple phrase insinuates that knowledge is pieces of information that aren’t always retained (as happens to B-Somethings), but wisdom is a deeper understanding based on life experiences.
          Get some folks … get some. I hope you don’t find it all at the end of a gun.

    2. Hannibal Avatar
      Hannibal

      Homsis are intelligent i.e. Steve Jobs. Are you bs?

  6. bs244846 Avatar
    bs244846

    yes he saw it thats why he defected and i am the pope too lol….i understand a homsi soldier could be stupid to utter this nonsense that nobody can believe but i am surprised of the number of lebanese who claim to be more intelligent than the homsis to believe such stupidity and foremost how a respectable website like this one permits itself to post such silly propaganda

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Well Mr. BullShitter … yours is here. Seems to be a free blog, right? 

      1. bs244846 Avatar
        bs244846

        if you ask an educated person what does BS mean he will tell you: bachelor of sciences. You ask an ignoramus from the street what does BS mean he will tell you: Bull shit. Oops sorry drawer, i thought you were a man, am sorry i did not know you were a hayawan….apologies to animals to compare you to this drawer

        1. master09 Avatar
          master09

          You really have to talk about people you have never met or know anything about like the way you have….. For anyone that talks in this way and about others he does not know well, it makes them even lower and even more uneducated….  By the way a person can have ten masters three doctrates and still have no common sense…. But really bs what I have seen from you is nothing more than HATE words, why don,t you use your educated mind and xplain and disqus matters like humans….. All you have done is kill this, jail that and hated him. Hey dude it is your life if you have something personal for some MP or party in Lebanon, you will not live a happy life…….Good luck and may Jesus give our minds peace…..and love for each other……….

        2. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Hehehe … the old ‘educated’ line … and these days anyone with or without a ‘degree’ can tell you that a B of S or A or M, or in anything else, is basically bullshit as far as the workplace is concerned. Many simply become slogs in B of Office. Well-trained truck drivers, plumbers and electricians can do better over a lifetime … although there are a lot of Bachelor of Restaurant making good tips, it’s true. (Especially if you have B of Boobs. 😉
          The concept of ‘university’ education is vastly overrated when it enormously produces people who can’t think for themselves anyway, or discover why their lives are so shitty.
          Hellen Keller said: “The highest result of education is tolerance.”Well, seems there’s something amiss in the Leb university these days, wouldn’t you say? Here, a country where getting that ‘Bachelor Degree’ is necessary to get half a job after begging friends and relatives for a couple of years; but where usually before graduation the plan is to leave and get educated in the world instead. Most students can see where the bullshit is … if universities haven’t clogged their minds already. And not having a ‘degree’ of any kind means eternal suffering under some very dirty hands.  (Especially if one is female.) (And Where, for instance, have apprenticeships gone?) Well ….
          I chuckle at you now because I think I see the ‘educated’ mind attempting to insert it’s views, which haven’t actually had time to be formed properly yet. Reactionary youth. Tsk.
          “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.” — Anatole France
          Some of us attempt to keep learning – as we should … some simply stop at the happy-bank-account level. Some think a ‘degree’ should give them that … as if it’s a ‘right’ … but then, they hit the street like everyone else …. basically where the brain has to take over … and to their chagrin find there really is no ‘equality’ in brain cells just because they have a piece of paper. Perhaps there’s nothing really wrong with bullshit. It has fertilized many a mind before yours, after all. I suppose in the end how it must be judged is by whether it produces a flower, or a mushroom.  😉

          Ok, ok … while I’ve been allowed out and am rolling tonight … and before the scotch takes over … (quiet Prophet)
          Alfred Lord Tennyson was one of those Flowers … there HAVE been some in the history of humans. And he said; “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”  This simple phrase insinuates that knowledge is pieces of information that aren’t always retained (as happens to B-Somethings), but wisdom is a deeper understanding based on life experiences.
          Get some folks … get some. I hope you don’t find it all at the end of a gun.

    2. Homsis are intelligent i.e. Steve Jobs. Are you bs?

  7. wargame1 Avatar
    wargame1

    Assad will be making story and those will be valid only if he can somehow come out of this mess like his daddy could. But the way the resistance is going it seems Assad needs more solders to defend his palace than the cheap propaganda. The 
    bald and bearded beautiful are plenty in Lebanon who will be going for pilgrim soon.

  8. wargame1 Avatar
    wargame1

    Assad will be making story and those will be valid only if he can somehow come out of this mess like his daddy could. But the way the resistance is going it seems Assad needs more solders to defend his palace than the cheap propaganda. The 
    bald and bearded beautiful are plenty in Lebanon who will be going for pilgrim soon.

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