Up to 500 feared dead in Damascus suburb, mostly civilians

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damascus jdaidet al-fadl  mapAt least 109 people have been documented as killed and up to 400 more are likely to have died in an almost week-long offensive by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on a rebellious Damascus suburb, opposition activists said.

If the accounts are confirmed, the killings in the mainly Sunni Muslim suburb of Jdeidet al-Fadel would amount to one of bloodiest episodes of the two-year-old uprising against Assad. Many of the dead were civilians, the activists said.

A statement by the Syrian National Coalition umbrella opposition group, issued from Istanbul, said death toll “continues to rise and has reached the hundreds” and described the killings as a “horrifying civilian massacre”.

“The deafening silence of the international community over these crimes against humanity is shameful, and has become routine for the victims and their families,” the statement said.

“Syrians no longer expect an answer to our pleas for help or a chivalrous intervention from our brothers and neighbors. We no longer expect to be supported with the necessary arms to empower the Free Syrian Army to defend our people.”

Syrian state media gave no death toll but confirmed the army had been fighting in Jdeidet al-Fadel. It said it had saved the town from what it described as criminal terrorist groups, killing and wounding an undisclosed number of them.

On Sunday, activists said at least 85 people had been killed and the toll might reach 250, but with the army beginning to pull back they said more accounts were emerging which suggest the final figure could be even higher.

The activists, speaking from the area, 10 km (six miles) southwest of Damascus, said residents had buried some victims in the early stages of the five-day attack by elite forces and pro-Assad militias. More bodies were now being found burnt or apparently killed in summary executions, they said.

Rebel brigades who numbered around 300 fighters withdrew two days ago, they said, leaving Assad’s forces in total control.

The working-class district is one of several Sunni Muslim towns surrounding the capital that have been at the forefront of the uprising. It is situated near hilltop bases of elite forces which are mostly from Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam that has dominated Syriasince the 1960s.

BODIES LYING IN STREETS

damascus jdaidaet al Fadl massacreShamel al-Golani, of the opposition Sham News Network, said one of the hardest hit areas was a neighborhood adjacent to the 100 army brigade, one of several elite units based around Jdeidet al-Fadel.

“In the first three days the army would go into neighborhoods and commit killings and withdraw and come back the next day,” he said.

“Many of them who were killed early were refugees from Daraya and al-Mouadamiya and were buried quietly,” he said, referring to two adjacent suburbs that have been the scene of fighting and several army incursions.

Assad’s forces have been accused of massacring hundreds of Sunni Muslims in areas they stormed in Hama and Homs provinces and Damascus suburbs. International rights groups say rebel forces have also committed atrocities, although on a smaller scale.

Jdeidet al-Fadel lies on the road from Damascus to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Its residents are Golan refugees and in the last year thousands of families from nearby areas took shelter in the town.

The Syrian Organisation for Human Rights (Sawasiah), which put the death toll at 500, said the army forces included elite Republican Guards, the 100 and 153 artillery brigades and the 555 brigade, formerly known as the Defense Brigades.

Units of “sectarian militia” supported by members of air force intelligence, one of the most feared of a myriad of secret police branches, accompanied the army units, it said.

According to witness accounts interviewed by the Syrian organisation, water and electricity were cut off from the town and residents were not allowed to leave as Assad’s forces blocked ways in and out of the suburbs.

Many of the victims, Sawasiah said, were civilians, targeted because the suburb was an “incubator for armed resistance” and they had showed solidarity with refugees in adjacent towns also subjected to mass killings.

Reuters

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6 responses to “Up to 500 feared dead in Damascus suburb, mostly civilians”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Good Old Dad wiped out 10,000 to 40,000 in a very short time … Bashar has taken two years, although he bettered the numbers. That ANY ‘political movement’ thinks this is a ‘wonderful thing’ to happen – for the sake of it’s own selfish continuance – is the true ‘human’ tragedy and stupidity of the whole event.
    And there is nothing of any ‘god’ in it.
    The witnesses – Maturs – will have by now discovered there is also no god. Too bad they can’t come back to tell us that. Because THEN humans would begin to realize it’s all about power and politics.
    Maybe the next time around ‘humans’ can advance?
    Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, and its system of government is considered to be non-democratic. Considering that fact, we could say Lebanon is FAR advanced. OH, REALLY ??

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Pic of Old Syrian lead on a rope in Tripoli … advanced society.

  2. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Good Old Dad wiped out 10,000 to 40,000 in a very short time … Bashar has taken two years, although he bettered the numbers. That ANY ‘political movement’ thinks this is a ‘wonderful thing’ to happen – for the sake of it’s own selfish continuance – is the true ‘human’ tragedy and stupidity of the whole event.
    And there is nothing of any ‘god’ in it.

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Pic of Old Syrian lead on a rope in Tripoli … advanced society.

  3. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    (Since ‘PietKlaassen’ brought it up and others like to ‘get into it’ … and since this story is being ignored anyway, thus making it a good spot to drop this into …) 🙂

    ‘A Short History of Sex’. (or ‘What Drives Us’)
    by 5thDrawer.

    ‘In The Beginning’ ….
    There was the cave-man, who followed that natural biological desire of all ‘life’ on the planet, and he went out to grab the ‘weaker attractive human’ and do ‘his thing’ whenever the urge came upon him. It was fun. Over time, aside from learning that if he was too rough with the ‘fun’ he would be bouncing on a corpse, he wanted to keep the female close enough to allow him fun whenever the urge came upon him. Gathering meat just to eat was enough work to do, after all.
    He also however, began to notice that whenever he had fun, the woman got fat and a baby popped out every 9 months or so – lets say one a year – and after a while he had a small tribe to gather food for. If he didn’t gather enough, the female would end up dying because she always fed the kids before herself, and he would have to find another – which proved difficult – since other ‘prospects’ ran away when they saw his scrawny tribe, knowing he was a ‘lazy-good-for-nothing’ food-hunter. (And the damn kids couldn’t even pick the bones for several years after birth, let alone get their own lunches.)
    After a time, he found he was out hunting more, and getting less fun in. Even when he got home, the female was farting around in the cave with the kids all the time, and too tired for him. While grunting about these ‘bad things’, and about life in general with the other hunters around a camp-fire, they discovered they all had the same problems. They all knew how to make or fix a spear, but keeping the ‘little woman’ happy was a chore that escaped most of them.
    But there was one smart-ass among them, and one day he said: “Why not put them all together, and bring some of these plants and animals we gather all the time to the one place, and the females can take care of those too while we go out to hunt.” Everyone grunted approval. So they ‘made a law’ and did it. And they saw that ‘It Was Good’ when they returned the next weekend to fix the broken spears. AND there was good fun again with the female. ‘The Village’ concept was born. Life was good.
    At least until the women started bitching about each other’s kids, or not having a big enough hut-space for all their own kids.

    Aeons pass … and over all that time, the males still debated how to keep the women happy, no matter how much they had done to improve the huts or their spears. They even went to a grand effort in their campfire-debates, and made new ‘laws’ to alleviate some of the problems … but still had not quite figured it out.
    And naturally, being males, they couldn’t agree on all of the silly things they try to do. In fact, by this time with all the weekend fun, there had been so many kids produced that the evening camp-fire meeting on hunting days left some of the now-adult crowd so far from the camp-fire that they tended to freeze to death. The result of that was more campfires, and then more villages. Which, unfortunately, ultimately produced different kinds of smart-asses.
    The really big problem was when they began to believe in gods to help with the hunting; and then, when some smart-asses claimed they had the answers from ‘their god’.

    Aeons pass again …
    One camp-fire chat produced a village where having one female and fewer kids – which allowed the male more time to hunt and fish – was seen to be a ‘best idea’ and became the ‘normal’ thing to aspire to. Better huts kept the fun coming on weekends, and they often found ways to have ‘fun’ without making babies too. They decided 2 hours on the weekend was OK for praying to the god, and that wasn’t too hard on the knees which had to walk a lot on hunting-days.
    Another camp-fire chat produced the idea that having more women at home could fix the problems. But no-one discussed how to stop the babies, and the males found they needed more than a weekend to keep the extra females happy … and it wore them out too. Eventually those males only had campfires and coffee to keep the strength up – while still sitting and discussing where they had gone wrong. Another smart-ass got into it and told them to pray to the god 5X a day … maybe that would help. Unfortunately, they made that a ‘law’ too. Eventually the knees wouldn’t hunt at all.
    (No-one understands what was discussed at the Chinese campfire … they were inscrutable for a long time … but we know they went from many gods to no gods, kept making kids, hunted and ate almost everything in sight. The females work the rice paddies carrying the kids on their backs, and the males still have time to fish. No-one is really having much fun.)

    Aeons pass again … and the smart-asses grew in numbers … especially with the ‘god rules’ they were now using to try and prove they were the smartest asses, even when they were not. Some saw that they were not … and decided to break the ‘laws’ … but that meant keeping a good supply of spears around when they went off to make their own camp-fires. Strangely, their females were happier, and the other camps noticed those males seemed to be having a lot of fun without the downside problems, and resented it. They fished and hunted when they wished, AND they had fun more often without all the damn kids around. Other camp-fires dialogued about it, but their smart-asses kept telling them that ‘fun’ was now NOT the reason they did things like making babies … it was to get more smart-asses than anyone else … and also the main reason they had to keep their females happy in ‘traditional’ female rolls.
    (But also, out of sight of the others. in case their females found out there were females somewhere who were working less but having more fun, while also having nicer curtains on a rather larger hut.)
    They called fun ‘Sex’ by this time … and then made ‘laws’ for that too. Indeed, the whole original and natural desire of the male had become something he was not supposed to do. Have fun.
    In some camps, there was still fun. Smart-asses said ‘Spears must sharpened. God doesn’t want Sex for fun. We must destroy fun-camps.’
    This caused a large movement of camps – and indeed entire villages – north, and then westward. (Walking into a rising sun hurt the eyes after waking up.)

    Aeons pass again … and we are calling this 2013.
    In many places, on a planet covered in camps now, some campers say ‘Sex is Bad’.
    Other campers hearing that, simply smile. Knowledge is bliss. 😉

  4. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    (Since ‘PietKlaassen’ brought it up and others like to ‘get into it’ … and since this story is being ignored anyway, thus making it a good spot to drop this into …) 🙂

    ‘A Short History of Sex’. (or ‘What Drives Us’)
    by 5thDrawer.

    ‘In The Beginning’ ….
    There was the cave-man, who followed that natural biological desire of all ‘life’ on the planet, and he went out to grab the ‘weaker attractive human’ and do ‘his thing’ whenever the urge came upon him. It was fun. Over time, aside from learning that if he was too rough with the ‘fun’ he would be bouncing on a corpse, he wanted to keep the female close enough to allow him fun whenever the urge came upon him. Gathering meat just to eat was enough work to do, after all.
    He also however, began to notice that whenever he had fun, the woman got fat and a baby popped out every 9 months or so – lets say one a year – and after a while he had a small tribe to gather food for. If he didn’t gather enough, the female would end up dying because she always fed the kids before herself, and he would have to find another – which proved difficult – since other ‘prospects’ ran away when they saw his scrawny tribe, knowing he was a ‘lazy-good-for-nothing’ food-hunter. (And the damn kids couldn’t even pick the bones for several years after birth, let alone get their own lunches.)
    After a time, he found he was out hunting more, and getting less fun in. Even when he got home, the female was farting around in the cave with the kids all the time, and too tired for him. While grunting about these ‘bad things’, and about life in general with the other hunters around a camp-fire, they discovered they all had the same problems. They all knew how to make or fix a spear, but keeping the ‘little woman’ happy was a chore that escaped most of them.
    But there was one smart-ass among them, and one day he said: “Why not put them all together, and bring some of these plants and animals we gather all the time to the one place, and the females can take care of those too while we go out to hunt.” Everyone grunted approval. So they ‘made a law’ and did it. And they saw that ‘It Was Good’ when they returned the next weekend to fix the broken spears. AND there was good fun again with the female. ‘The Village’ concept was born. Life was good.
    At least until the women started bitching about each other’s kids, or not having a big enough hut-space for all their own kids.

    Aeons pass … and over all that time, the males still debated how to keep the women happy, no matter how much they had done to improve the huts or their spears. They even went to a grand effort in their campfire-debates, and made new ‘laws’ to alleviate some of the problems … but still had not quite figured it out.
    And naturally, being males, they couldn’t agree on all of the silly things they try to do. In fact, by this time with all the weekend fun, there had been so many kids produced that the evening camp-fire meeting on hunting days left some of the now-adult crowd so far from the camp-fire that they tended to freeze to death. The result of that was more campfires, and then more villages. Which, unfortunately, ultimately produced different kinds of smart-asses.
    The really big problem was when they began to believe in gods to help with the hunting; and then, when some smart-asses claimed they had the answers from ‘their god’.

    Aeons pass again …
    One camp-fire chat produced a village where having one female and fewer kids – which allowed the male more time to hunt and fish – was seen to be a ‘best idea’ and became the ‘normal’ thing to aspire to. Better huts kept the fun coming on weekends, and they often found ways to have ‘fun’ without making babies too. They decided 2 hours on the weekend was OK for praying to the god, and that wasn’t too hard on the knees which had to walk a lot on hunting-days.
    Another camp-fire chat produced the idea that having more women at home could fix the problems. But no-one discussed how to stop the babies, and the males found they needed more than a weekend to keep the extra females happy … and it wore them out too. Eventually those males only had campfires and coffee to keep the strength up – while still sitting and discussing where they had gone wrong. Another smart-ass got into it and told them to pray to the god 5X a day … maybe that would help. Unfortunately, they made that a ‘law’ too. Eventually the knees wouldn’t hunt at all.
    (No-one understands what was discussed at the Chinese campfire … they were inscrutable for a long time … but we know they went from many gods to no gods, kept making kids, hunted and ate almost everything in sight. The females work the rice paddies carrying the kids on their backs, and the males still have time to fish. No-one is really having much fun.)

    Aeons pass again … and the smart-asses grew in numbers … especially with the ‘god rules’ they were now using to try and prove they were the smartest asses, even when they were not. Some saw that they were not … and decided to break the ‘laws’ … but that meant keeping a good supply of spears around when they went off to make their own camp-fires. Strangely, their females were happier, and the other camps noticed those males seemed to be having a lot of fun without the downside problems, and resented it. They fished and hunted when they wished, AND they had fun more often without all the damn kids around. Other camp-fires dialogued about it, but their smart-asses kept telling them that ‘fun’ was now NOT the reason they did things like making babies … it was to get more smart-asses than anyone else … and also the main reason they had to keep their females happy in ‘traditional’ female rolls.
    (But also, out of sight of the others. in case their females found out there were females somewhere who were working less but having more fun, while also having nicer curtains on a rather larger hut.)
    They called fun ‘Sex’ by this time … and then made ‘laws’ for that too. Indeed, the whole original and natural desire of the male had become something he was not supposed to do. Have fun.
    In some camps, there was still fun. Smart-asses said ‘Spears must sharpened. God doesn’t want Sex for fun. We must destroy fun-camps.’
    This caused a large movement of camps – and indeed entire villages – north, and then westward. (Walking into a rising sun hurt the eyes after waking up.)

    Aeons pass again … and we are calling this 2013.
    In many places, on a planet covered in camps now, some campers say ‘Sex is Bad’.
    Other campers hearing that, simply smile. Knowledge is bliss. 😉

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