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a.) Qana 2006.
From Ynet, July 30, 2006:
Israel's attack on a building in the Lebanese village of Qana that killed at least 54 civilians constitutes "state terrorism", Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Sunday. "The massacre committed by Israel in Qana this morning shows the barbarity of this aggressive entity. It constitutes state terrorism committed in front of the eyes and ears of the world," Assad said in remarks carried by state news agency SANA.
b.) Hama 1982.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is the son of the late Hafez al-Assad, who became Syrian President in 1971 and remained in function until 2000, when he died of a heart attack. The first decade of al-Assad's rule was marred by continuing troubles with the powerful Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. It should be noted that the Assads are themselves Alawites, a minority sect not immediately known as fervent islamists. Indeed, in 1976 Syria intervened in Lebanons civil war on the side of the Lebanese... Maronites, who are Christians, and actually it was this fact, more than anything else, which acted as a catalyst for MB armed opposition to Assad's Baath regime. The MB started to assassinate key members of the Syrian government and in June 1979 even conducted an attack at an artillery school in Aleppo, northern Syria. 83 cadets were killed, most if not all of them Alawites. One year later, the MB even tried to kill Assad himself. And in summer and early fall of 1981, it carried out three major car bombings at Syrian government officials in Damascus. It is said that hundreds of bystanders died in the attacks.By early 1982, Hafez al-Assad had had enough and intended to crush the MB for good. Hama, Syria's fourth city (pop. at the time some 250,000) was a Brotherhood stronghold, and it would serve as an example.
Before dawn on February 2, 1982, the Syrian Air Force began to bomb the city. This was only an introduction, since around the city the Syrian Army had assembled Defence Brigades, Special Forces and specially selected elite army units such as the 21st and 47th Brigades. They had brought with them tanks, heavy artillery and rocket launchers, and these would shell Hama for four weeks. In between shelling, troops would move in and shoot eveything that moved.
The following excerpt is from a Syrian Human Rights Committee report:
"It is rather impossible for a writer to paint a picture of the massacres committed against women and newborn children or to describe the methods used to murder members of the same family, one after another right before the eyes of the ones to follow the same fate. They would cut the guts of a baby while his mother held him, and then fire a stream of bullets onto her to prevent her from giving birth to another future opposition member. They would fire right on the head of an elder, while he murmured a prayer after what he had just witnessed. Children would scream asking for their mom, or grandfather just to be answered with a stream of bullets killing them all. A family would fall in a pool of their blood, but not for long, because soldiers would set everything ablaze after ransacking the house for any valuables and cutting the hands and ears off in their crazed rush to loot the jewelry worn. Not one store escaped theft, ransacking or bulldozing, no mosques escaped destruction, nor any minarets remained erect in Hama during that tragic month, even churches were not spared and suffered a similar fate."
More SHRC excerpts:
* The massacre in the new Hama district:
On the 3rd day of invading the city of Hama, the Syrian regime defence brigades gathered the citizens of the ‘new Hama district’, in the football field and shot them. Then they raided the houses and killed everyone there. They robbed the people of their belongings. Some sources estimate the victims of the district to be around 1500.
* The massacre in the Sooq Alshajarah district:
On the fifth day of the massacre, Sooq Alshajarah district was heavily bombed and the Syrian regime forces invaded the district and shot the young and the old in the streets and followed those who sought refuge into the mosque and killed them all. The victims were estimated to be around 160. The members of the security intelligence and the army forces killed the families of Al-Alwan, Hamood, Kojan and Al Abu Sin including their men, women and children. Some of them were shot, some were stabbed and some of them died under the remains of their bombed houses. On the same day, the regime forces also killed over 70 people, including women and children, after being gathered in AlHabashi shop that sold grain. Then the forces set fire to the shop to kill those who hadn’t died.
* The massacre in Al-Bayadh district:
In front of the Muhammad AlHamid mosque in Al-Bayadh district, due to the lack of space on the vehicles which carried the detainees, the regime forces killed some detainees and threw their bodies into a waste ditch belonging to a tile factory owned by Abd Alkarim Alsaghir.
* The massacre in Sooq Altaweel:
The massacre of Sooq Altaweel took place on the 7th day of the invasion, where 30 young people were killed on the roof of the market. The authorities also killed Sheikh Abdullah Al-Halaq, who was 72 years old, in front of his house and robbed him of his possessions. The security forces also shot 35 citizens after robbing their money and watches. Those citizens had been gathered in Abd-Alrazaq Alrees’s shop where they had all been killed, except for two children, age 13, who managed to escape through the shop’s loft.
Estimates for the Hama 1982 carnage vary roughly between 15,000 and 40,000 killed. Even if you take into account a number of "only" two wounded for everyone killed, that means between 45,000 and 120,000 casualties. Over the years I have read so many references to the massacre that I'd cautiously say the number most cited is 35,000. If you are still sceptic and think the SHRC reports above are onesided, convince yourself and do a Google for "Hama 1982" + massacre. What happened there reduces Qana 2006 to a picnic. Yet here we have President Bashar al-Assad with the nerve to call a tragic Israeli mistake involving citizens of a neighboring country, "state terrorism" (a mistake, btw, provoked by Hizballah rats who know full well their actions will cause toddlers to die)....
....while his own father butchered close to 35,000 of his own citizens.
Arab hypocrisy, the Grandmother of all Pleonasms. The Middle East: what an insane, crazy, disgusting, FUCKED UP corner of the world.
MFBB.
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