DER SPIEGEL: Defending the Rebels Eyewitnesses Contradict Houla Massacre Claims

[tabatha]

Recent German media reports have suggested that Syrian rebels carried out the Houla massacre and then blamed President Assad's forces. But eyewitnesses to the killings contradict those claims.


It was the afternoon of May 25, when Houla near Homs became internationally famous as a synonym for the brutality of the Syrian regime. It was the site of a massacre where 108 people died, mostly women and children.

In recent days, German media reports have suggested that rebels carried out the massacre and then blamed Assad's troops. Reports from eyewitnesses who spoke to SPIEGEL give a different impression, however. Aiman Hassan Abd al-Rassak, a farmer and survivor of the massacre, watched as buses containing Syrian military troops drove up the hill where the village of Fullah is located, half a kilometre to the south, shortly before 5 p.m. on that day. Some 60 to 70 uniformed men marched towards the village, accompanied by around 200 men in civilian clothes.

Al-Rassak, who had recently been arrested, found a hiding place between the bushes and fields. Just minutes later, he heard his wife and five children being killed.

Two further eyewitnesses, Umm Shaalan Abd al-Rassak and Samira Suwai, also observed the two groups of military and civilian-clad men as they gathered on the hilltop and walked into the Taldo district. The army's grenade bombardment of Houla had stopped shortly before.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/eyewitnesses-contradict-claims-that-rebels-carried-out-houla-massacre-a-839593.html

[BlueToTheBone]

1. No Justice No Peace.

May the victims find peace and may the world be rid of the monsters that are eating us all alive.