Reading Progress:

Reports: Rebels Responsible for Houla Massacre in Syria

by Jun 10, 2012Articles, Foreign Policy0 comments

Moon of Alabama has a translation of an article from the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung by Rainer Hermann reporting on eyewitness accounts of the Houla massacre in Syria that corroborate the Syrian government’s version of events.

Reading Time: ( Word Count: )

()

Moon of Alabama has a translation of an article from the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung by Rainer Hermann reporting on eyewitness accounts of the Houla massacre in Syria that corroborate the Syrian government’s version of events. The Google translation is a bit rough. MoA’s more comprehensible translation is:

According to the witness accounts the massacre happened during this timeframe. Killed were nearly exclusively families from the Alawi and Shia minorities in Houla which has a more than 90% Sunni population. Several dozen members of one extended family, which had in recent years converted from Sunni to Shia believe, were slaughtered. Also killed were members of the Alawi family Shomaliya and the family of a Sunni member of parliament who was [by the rebels] considered a government collaborator.

I’ve written repeatedly in recent weeks on how the Western media is propagating the rebels’ version of events in Syria despite the fact that indications are actually that the rebels carried out the Houla massacre, most recently in my article, “Propaganda Is the Name of the Game in Media Reports of Atrocities in Syria”. See also “Eyewitnesses Corroborate Syrian Government Account of Houla Massacre”, and for additional background, just follow the links in those two pieces to my other writings on the subject.

The National Review Online also cites the German news report and includes a translation. The NRO adds:

The FAZ report echoes eyewitness accounts collected from refugees from the Houla region by members of the Monastery of St. James in Qara, Syria. According to monastery sources cited by the Dutch Middle East expert Martin Janssen, armed rebels murdered “entire Alawi families” in the village of Taldo in the Houla region.

Already at the beginning of April, Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix of the St. James Monastery warned of rebel atrocities’ being repackaged in both Arab and Western media accounts as regime atrocities. She cited the case of a massacre in the Khalidiya neighborhood in Homs. According to an account published in French on the monastery’s website, rebels gathered Christian and Alawi hostages in a building in Khalidiya and blew up the building with dynamite. They then attributed the crime to the regular Syrian army. “Even though this act has been attributed to regular army forces . . . the evidence and testimony are irrefutable: It was an operation undertaken by armed groups affiliated with the opposition,” Mother Agnès-Mariam wrote.

Thanks to a reader, Brian, for notifying me of MoA’s post and the NRO article.

Rate This Content:

Average rating / 5. Vote count:

What do you think?

I encourage you to share your thoughts! Please respect the rules.

>
Share via
Copy link