Syria: Civilians Come Under Fire From Rebels

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Sky News

We knew what was coming and so wore flak jackets and helmets. The demonstrators knew what was coming, had no protection, and still walked straight into the line of fire.

The demonstrators were predominantly Syrian Palestinians, many from the Yarmouk district of Damascus who had fled when it was taken over by opposition forces eight months ago.

Some screamed at us: "Please tell the world the truth! We don't want the fighters here, we want the army to kill them!"

A few carried the portrait of President Assad, others the Syrian or Palestinian flag.

One woman called the Free Syrian Army (FSA) "dogs" and said the men in Yarmouk were not Syrians but from Chechnya and Afghanistan. We could not verify this.

Read more: http://news.sky.com/story/1091428/syria-civilians-come-under-fire-from-rebels

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Video contains live footage from earlier today.

[socialsecurityisAAA]

1. The rebels used chemical weapons

expelled Christians and Non-fundamental muslims, they tortured civilians and soldiers alike, and apparently recently the rebels have become cannibals.

It's pretty obvious that America doesn't support military forces based on any moral reasoning, its simply about hegemony and keeping a region in constant conflict. PETRODOLLAR WAREFARE as they say....................

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. Well, that doesn't fit the narrative.

[Blandocyte]

3. the rebels are taking babies out of incubators

and seeking yellow cake uranium. Damn rebels!

[socialsecurityisAAA]

4. Those claims were made against Iraqi's in kuwait

at the behest of U.S. forces to increase American civilian support for the war. They were proven false.

MEANWHILE. It has been proven that rebels used Chemical Weapons, expelled NON-fundamentalists(Christians, liberal muslims, etc) or killed them, and then there is the recent video of a rebel soldier, most likely of foreign extraction(al queda from Libya)eating the heart of a soldier fighting for the SECULAR Assad.

[Blandocyte]

5. Heh. 'zactly.

[socialsecurityisAAA]

6. I fail to see the necessity for sarcasm?

The rebels in this case have been proven countless times, both on video and direct eyewitness testimony to be cruel, genocidal radical terrorists.
All the evidence against Assad's forces is based on 3 party testimony from foreigners who were sent to the country to fight.
I guess I'm having a hard time decrypting the meaning of your sarcasm.

[eissa]

15. Well said, and true

The rebels are not the romanticized freedom fighters McCain and his ilk are trying to portray. Far from it. This is all payback for Hama; the fundamentalists have been waiting for this opportunity to rid themselves of a "heretic" leader for decades, and now with the help of Qatar and the Saudis, they're hell-bent on installing their own Salafist regime in Syria.

[pampango]

17. Al Queda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra represent about 6,000 out of over 100,000 opposition fighters.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2013/05/14/63221/the-structure-and-organization-of-the-syrian-opposition/

6,000 can cause a lot of damage but they are not the entire opposition. Most Syrians do not want a theocracy or an autocracy. The are surprisingly like you and me in that sense.

"The rebels" are not any one kind of people but a wide variety. About half of the fighters are reasonably 'good guys' - or as good as anyone gets in a civil war. There are as many or more 'terrorists' on the autocrat's side of the war. They don't use car bombs but they use terror to achieve their ends just the same. The vast majority of war crimes in Syria have been committed by the government according to Amnesty International so let's not present a 'romanticized' version of the army and government miitias either.

[eissa]

18. Most of the protestors during Iran's '79 revolution

were secular university students. Among them, many intellectuals, minorities, and leftists. The religious fundies were a minority among them, but guess who took over?

The al-Qaeda supported rebels might be just as small in Syria (I doubt it; from what my family there tells me, they make up the bulk of the opposition) but their brutal tactics is what will see them to power should the Assad regime fall.

[riderinthestorm]

7. Welcome to DU. Don't let anyone bully you here. Great post nt

[socialsecurityisAAA]

9. Who is buylling him?

I find it in poor taste to joke about mass murder. I asked for justification. My mistake. There is no justification for joking about the fundamentalist rebels murdering moderate Syrian civilians.

[Sand Wind]

13. Nothing that you say have been proven, except in your imagination.

[cer7711]

8. "Civil" War Is a Misnomer

It's always the ugliest kind of war.

You know the expression, "I don't have a dog in this fight"?

We don't have a dog in this fight.

Is the conflict pathetic, tragic, appalling?

Yes.

Worth one American life?

Not a single goddamn one.

Syria, heal thyself.

[socialsecurityisAAA]

10. America importing al quaeda

to Syria started this conflict.

[Sand Wind]

12. Nope. AlQuaeda go by his own everywhere they can, especially since they know USA

Will not move a single toe.

[David__77]

11. The narrative of a popular revolution doesn't ring true.

The religious extremists are much more like Pol Pot than anything else I can imagine, trying to impose a rural mystical "socialism" on the masses. There have been many expression of Syrians calling for the army to restore normalcy and security. Do the insurgents have support? Absolutely. But it is hardly hegemonic.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

14. We need to send arms and ammo to the good guys ...

... and neither side is the "good guys".

Staying out of this seems like the wise approach.

[Sand Wind]

16. No this Is a little minority, bad reporting from a poor source, here Is the same place same day:

[link:

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