_Syria_ the Hidden Massacre — RT Op-Edge

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Syria: The hidden massacreSharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a formersenior associate at St. Antony's College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree inInternational Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a widearray of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times

Online, Salon.com, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, BRICS Post and others. You canfollow her on Twitter at @snarwani

Published time: 7 May, 2014 14:36Edited time: 26 Sep, 2014 12:41

A picture shows courthouse that was torched a day earlier by angry protesters inthe southern town of Daraa, 100 kms ﴾60 miles﴿ south of Damascus, on March 21,2011 following a demonstration demanding "freedom" and an end to 48 years ofemergency laws in Syria under President Bashar al‐Assad and his father Hafez.﴾AFP Photo / Louai Beshara﴿ / AFP

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The attack took place shortly after the first stirrings of trouble in thesouthern Syrian city of Daraa in March 2011.

Several old Russian‐made military truckspacked with Syrian security forces rolled onto ahard slope on a valley road between Daraa al‐Mahata and Daraa al‐Balad. Unbeknown to thepassengers, the sloping road was slick with oilpoured by gunmen waiting to ambush thetroops.

Brakes were pumped as the trucks slid into each other, but the shootingstarted even before the vehicles managed to roll to a stop. According toseveral different opposition sources, up to 60 Syrian security forces werekilled that day in a massacre that has been hidden by both the Syriangovernment and residents of Daraa.

One Daraa native explains: “At that time, the government did not want toshow they are weak and the opposition did not want to show they arearmed.”

Beyond that, the details are sketchy. Nizar Nayouf, a longtime Syriadissident and blogger who wrote about the killings, says the massacre tookplace in the final week of March 2011.

A source who was in Daraa at the time, places the attack before the secondweek of April.

Rami Abdul Rahman, an anti‐government activist who heads up the SyrianObservatory for Human Rights ﴾SOHR﴿, the most quoted Western mediasource on Syrian casualties, tells me: “It was on the first of April and about18 or 19 security forces – or “mukhabarat” – were killed.”

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Faisal Mekdad is a rare governmentofficial familiar with the incident. Mekdad studied in Daraa, is from a town35 kilometers to the east called Ghasson, and made several official visits toDaraa during the early days of the crisis. The version he tells me is similar,down to the details of where the ambush took place – and how. Mekdad,however, believes that around 24 Syrian army soldiers were shot that day.

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TrendsSyria unrest

TagsPolitics, Human rights,

Opposition, Syria, Shooting

Why would the Syrian government hide this information, when it wouldbolster their narrative of events – namely that “armed groups” weretargeting authorities from the start, and that the uprising was not all“peaceful”?

In Mekdad’s view, “this incident was hidden by the government and by thesecurity for reasons I can interpret as an attempt not to antagonize or not toraise emotions and to calm things down – not to encourage any attempt toinflame emotions which may lead to escalation of the situation – which atthat time was not the policy.”

April 2011: The killing of soldiersWhat we do know for certain is that on April 25, 2011, nineteen Syriansoldiers were gunned down in Daraa by unknown assailants. The names,ages, dates of birth and death, place of birth and death andmarital/parental status of these 19 soldiers are documented in a list ofmilitary casualties obtained from Syria’s Defense Ministry.

The list was corroborated by another document – given to me by a non‐government acquaintance involved in peace efforts – that details 2011security casualties. All 19 names were verified by this second list.

Were these the soldiers of the “Daraa massacre?” April 25 is later than thedates suggested by multiple sources – and these 19 deaths were notexactly “hidden.”

But even more startling than actually finding the 19 Daraa soldiers on a list,was the discovery that in April 2011, eighty‐eight soldiers were killed byunknown shooters in different areas across Syria.

Keep in mind that the Syrian army was mostly not in the field that early onin the conflict. Other security forces like police and intelligence groupswere on the front lines then – and they are not included in this death toll.

The first Syrian soldiers to be killed in the conflict, Sa’er Yahya Merhej andHabeel Anis Dayoub, were killed on March 23 in Daraa.

Two days after those first military casualties, Ala’a Nafez Salman wasgunned down in Latakia.

On April 9, Ayham Mohammad Ghazali was shot dead in Douma, south ofDamascus. The first soldier killing in Homs Province – in Teldo – was onApril 10 when Eissa Shaaban Fayyad was shot.

April 10 was also the day when we learned of the first massacre of Syriansoldiers – in Banyas, Tartous – when nine troops were ambushed andgunned down on a passing bus. The BBC, Al Jazeera and the Guardian allinitially quoted witnesses claiming the dead soldiers were “defectors” shotby the Syrian army for refusing to fire on civilians.

That narrative was debunked later, but the story that soldiers were beingkilled by their own commanders stuck hard throughout 2011 – and gavethe media an excuse to ignore stories that security forces were beingtargeted by armed groups.

The SOHR’s Rami Abdul Rahman says of the “defector” storyline: “This gameof saying the army is killing defectors for leaving – I never accepted thisbecause it is propaganda.” It is likely that this narrative was used early on byopposition activists to encourage divisions and defections among thearmed forces. If military commanders were shooting their own men, youcan be certain the Syrian army would not have remained intact and unitedthree years on.

After the Banyas slayings, soldier deaths in April continued to pop up indifferent parts of the country – Moadamiyah, Idlib, Harasta, al‐Masmiyah﴾near Suweida﴿, Talkalakh and the suburbs of Damascus.

But on April 23, seven soldiers were slaughtered in Nawa, a town nearDaraa. Those killings did not make the headlines like the one in Banyas.Notably, the incident took place right after the Syrian government tried todefuse tensions by abolishing the state security courts, lifting the state ofemergency, granting general amnesties and recognizing the right topeaceful protest.

Two days later, on April 25 – Easter Monday – Syrian troops finally movedinto Daraa. In what became the scene of the second mass slaying ofsoldiers since the weekend, 19 soldiers were shot dead that day.

This information also never made it to the headlines.

Instead, all we ever heard was about the mass killing of civilians by securityforces: “The dictator slaughtering his own people.” But three years into theSyrian crisis, can we say that things may have taken a different turn if wehad access to more information? Or if media had simply provided equalair‐time to the different, contesting testimonies that were available to us?

Facts versus fictionA report by Human Rights Watch ﴾HRW﴿ relies entirely on 50 unnamedactivists, witnesses and “defected soldiers” to set the scene for what wastaking place in Daraa around that time.

taking place in Daraa around that time.

HRW witnesses provided accounts of “security forces using lethal forceagainst protesters during demonstrations” and “funeral processions.” In somecases, says HRW, “security forces first used teargas or fired in the air, butwhen the protesters refused to disperse, they fired live ammunition fromautomatic weapons into the crowds…From the end of March witnessesconsistently reported the presence of snipers on government buildings nearthe protests who targeted and killed many of the protesters.”

The HRW report also states: “Syrian authorities repeatedly claimed that theviolence in Daraa was perpetrated by armed terrorist gangs, incited andsponsored from abroad.”

Today we know that this statement is fairly representative of a largesegment of Islamist militants inside Syria, but was it true in Daraa in early2011 as well?

There are some things we know as fact. For instance, we have visualevidence of armed men crossing the Lebanese border into Syria duringApril and May 2011, according to video footage and testimony from formerAl Jazeera reporter Ali Hashem, whose video was censored by his network.

There are other things we are still only now discovering. For instance, theHRW report also claims that Syrian security forces in Daraa “desecrated

HRW report also claims that Syrian security forces in Daraa “desecrated(mosques) by scrawling graffiti on the walls” such as “Your god is Bashar,there is no god but Bashar” – in reference to Syrian President Bashar al‐Assad.

Just recently a Tunisian jihadist who goes by the name Abu Qusay, toldTunisian television that his “task” in Syria was to destroy and desecratemosques with Sunni names ﴾Abu Bakr mosque, Othman mosque, etc﴿ infalse‐flag sectarian attacks to encourage defection by Syrian soldiers, themajority of whom are Sunni. One of the things he did was scrawling pro‐government and blasphemous slogans on mosque walls like “Only God,Syria and Bashar.” It was a “tactic” he says, to get the soldiers to “come onour side” so that the army “can become weak.”

Had the Syrian government been overthrown quickly – as in Tunisia andEgypt – perhaps we would not have learned about these acts of duplicity.But three years into this conflict, it is time to establish facts versus fiction.

A member of the large Hariri family in Daraa, who was there in March andApril 2011, says people are confused and that many “loyalties have changedtwo or three times from March 2011 till now. They were originally all withthe government. Then suddenly changed against the government – but now Ithink maybe 50% or more came back to the Syrian regime.”

The province was largely pro‐government before things kicked off.According to the UAE paper The National, “Daraa had long had areputation as being solidly pro‐Assad, with many regime figures recruitedfrom the area.”

But as Hariri explains it, “there were two opinions” in Daraa. “One was thatthe regime is shooting more people to stop them and warn them to finishtheir protests and stop gathering. The other opinion was that hidden militiaswant this to continue, because if there are no funerals, there is no reason forpeople to gather.”

“At the beginning 99.9 percent of them were saying all shooting is by thegovernment. But slowly, slowly this idea began to change in their mind –there are some hidden parties, but they don’t know what,” says Hariri, whoseparents remain in Daraa.

HRW admits “that protestors had killed members of security forces” butcaveats it by saying they “only used violence against the security forces anddestroyed government property in response to killings by the security forces

destroyed government property in response to killings by the security forcesor…to secure the release of wounded demonstrators captured by the securityforces and believed to be at risk of further harm.”

We know that this is not true – the April 10 shootings of the nine soldierson a bus in Banyas was an unprovoked ambush. So, for instance, was thekilling of General Abdo Khodr al‐Tallawi, killed alongside his two sons and anephew in Homs on April 17. That same day in the pro‐government al‐Zahra neighborhood in Homs, off‐duty Syrian army commander Iyad KamelHarfoush was gunned down when he went outside his home to investigategunshots. Two days later, Hama‐born off‐duty Colonel Mohammad AbdoKhadour was killed in his car. And all of this only in the first month ofunrest.

In 2012, HRW’s Syria researcher Ole Solvag told me that he haddocumented violence “against captured soldiers and civilians” and that“there were sometimes weapons in the crowds and some demonstratorsopened fire against government forces.”

But was it because the protestors were genuinely aggrieved with violencedirected at them by security forces? Or were they “armed gangs” as theSyrian government claims? Or – were there provocateurs shooting at oneor both sides?

Provocateurs in “Revolutions”Syrian‐based Father Frans van der Lugt was the Dutch priest murdered by agunman in Homs just a few weeks ago. His involvement in reconciliationand peace activities never stopped him from lobbing criticisms at bothsides in this conflict. But in the first year of the crisis, he penned someremarkable observations about the violence – this one in January 2012:

“From the start the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From thestart I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who beganto shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces hasbeen a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.”

In September 2011 he wrote: “From the start there has been the problem ofthe armed groups, which are also part of the opposition…The opposition ofthe street is much stronger than any other opposition. And this opposition isarmed and frequently employs brutality and violence, only in order then toblame the government.”

blame the government.”

Certainly, by June 5, there was no longer any ability for opposition groupsto pretend otherwise. In a coordinated attack in Jisr Shughur in Idlib, armedgroups killed 149 members of the security forces, according to the SOHR.

But in March and April, when violence and casualties were still new to thecountry, the question remains: Why would the Syrian government – againstall logic – kill vulnerable civilian populations in “hot” areas, whilesimultaneously taking reform steps to quell tensions?

Who would gain from killing “women and children” in those circumstances?Not the government, surely?

Discussion about the role of provocateurs in stirring up conflict has madesome headlines since Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet’sleaked phoneconversation with the EU’s Catherine Ashton disclosed suspicions that pro‐west snipers had killed both Ukranian security forces and civilians duringthe Euromaidan protests.

Says Paet: “All the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipersfrom both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, that theywere the same snipers killing people from both sides…and it’s reallydisturbing that now the new (pro‐western) coalition, they don’t want toinvestigate what exactly happened.”

investigate what exactly happened.”

A recent German TV investigation the sniper shootings confirms muchabout these allegations, and has opened the door to contesting versions ofevents in Ukraine that did not exist for most of the Syrian conflict – at leastnot in the media or in international forums.

Instead of writing these things off as “conspiracy theories,” the role ofprovocateurs against targeted governments suddenly appears to haveemerged in the mainstream discourse. Whether it is the US’s leaked plan tocreate a “Cuban twitter” to stir unrest in the island nation – or – theemergence of “instructional”leaflets in protests from Egypt to Syria to Libyato Ukraine, the convergence of just one‐too‐many “lookalike” mass protestmovements that turn violent has people asking questions and diggingdeeper today.

Since early 2011 alone, we have heard allegations of “unknown” sniperstargeting crowds and security forces in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria andUkraine. What could be more effective at turning populations againstauthority than the unprovoked killing of unarmed innocents? By the sametoken, what could better ensure a reaction from the security forces of anynation than the gunning down of one or more of their own?

By early 2012, the UN claimed there were over 5,000 casualties in Syria –without specifying whether these were civilians, rebel fighters orgovernment security forces. According to government lists presented toand published by the UN’s Independent International Commission ofInquiry on Syria, in the first year of conflict, the death toll for Syrian policeforces was 478, and 2,091 for military and security force casualties.

Those numbers suggest a remarkable parity in deaths between both sidesin the conflict, right from the start. It also suggests that at least part of theSyrian “opposition” was from the earliest days, armed, organized, andtargeting security forces as a matter of strategy – in all likelihood, to elicit aresponse that would ensure continued escalation.

Today, although Syrian military sources strongly refute these numbers, theSOHR claims there are more than 60,000 casualties from the country’ssecurity forces and pro‐government militias. These are men who comefrom all parts of the nation, from all religions and denominations and fromall communities. Their deaths have left no family untouched and explain agreat deal about the Syrian government’s actions and responses

great deal about the Syrian government’s actions and responsesthroughout this crisis.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solelythose of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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muhammad razayesterday at 18:59This article is worth reading..I salute the reporterReply+2+2‐0

igor bundy2015.12.24 07:00Of course the US armed terrorists in Syria and Iraq for a decade before any uprising. And the uprising was not for freedom but for relief fromeconomic hardship due to drowt.. US turned that into an uprising to get rid of a government that would not allow their pipeline.. There isevidence since 2006 that the US was undermining the Syrian government and training terrorists.Reply+2+2‐0Enter email

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