'It has been confirmed that hundreds of gunmen gathered at 2:00 o'clock on Friday afternoon , using Pick-up cars loaded with up-to-date and heavy weapons, like mortars, machineguns and anti-tank missiles, which are newly used in the confrontation with the state forces.''[source : Makdissi: Syria Categorically Denies Responsibility of the Syrian Forces for al-Houla Massacre, SANA, 28/05/2012]
''The gunmen headed to al-Houla area which is guarded by the government forces at five points where law-enforcement members and security are positioned, which lie outside the places where the massacres happened. The attack lasted from 2:00 pm o'clock until 11:00 pm. 3 law-enforcement members were martyred and 16 injured, some critically, and there were charred bodies.''
Makdissi said that there has been a massacre in al-Shoumarieh village where crops, houses and the national hospital were burnt down., indicating that Al-Houla is only part of a larger terrorist attack.
The Syrian Ambassdor to the UN Al-Jaafari basically repeated the same narrative.
Al-Jaafari stressed the importance of understanding the background and the comprehensive scene of what happened to understand these crimes, adding that "after Friday prayers, 200 to 300 gunmen driving pick-up trucks equipped with anti-tank missiles, mortar projectiles and machineguns headed from different places to meet in al-Houla area where they attacked law-enforcement forces in the region from 14:00 pm till 23:00 pm… We are not talking about a half hour military attack but an intended and planned operation."[source : Al-Jaafari: States Interested in the Success of Annan Plan Should Stop Arming and Embracing Terrorists, SANA, 28/05/2012]
"After attacking military and law-enforcement forces, the gunmen started to kill civilians then they moved to another village where they burned the national hospital, houses and the farmers' harvests after which they murdered dozens of innocent civilians in another village near al-Houla which is al-Shumariyeh. So, we are not talking about one accident but we are talking about a series of operations took place in small villages in the region," he added.
But Alex Thomson of Channel 4, claiming to be the first journalist in Houla, is being told a different story. According to Thomson's sources,
Mr Griffiths said both the Free Syrian Army (FSA) command in Rastan and civilian eyewitnesses in Houla itself had said the same thing.[source : Syria Houla massacre: they moved from family to family, killing them one by one, The Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9293588/Syria-Houla-massacre-they-moved-from-family-to-family-killing-them-one-by-one.html, 27/05/2012]
Shelling of the town began at about 12.30pm after prayers and lasted about two hours.
Then, from around 3pm, groups of armed civilian militias — known as the Shabiha — began moving house to house and the killings, using knives and firearms, began.
According to both sources speaking independently, it went on for hours, family by family. Both groups say the killings continued until about 2am on Saturday.
So according to the FSA and these eyewitnesses, the massacre by knife and gun by the local militia, who they accuse of the murders, took place over a period of 11 hours!
But for the same time period, the Syrian government says that a group of hundreds of armed men with heavy weapons lay siege to Syrian military positions (and they have the corpses and survivors to prove it) and that another attack took place in al-Shoumarieh which is not being reported in any NATO media that I can find (which implies to me they want that kept out of the public arena).
After the UN Security Council meeting yesterday, Russia's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Igor Pankin said there was no evidence given by General Mood to show that this local militia had been in Houla committing this massacre.
He [Pankin] added " We have no evidence, but according to the observers, the inhabitants of the village alleged that the gunmen may be the Shabiha militant who support the government, but there weren't any visual proofs on the alleged existence of the Shabiha in the village,"[source : Al-Jaafari: States Interested in the Success of Annan Plan Should Stop Arming and Embracing Terrorists, SANA, 28/05/2012]
So the accounts differ over approximately the same time period, from 3pm to 11pm. Can they be reconciled? Perhaps. The Washington Post repeats the blame-the-local-militia narrative.
Houla is the name given to a cluster of four small Sunni communities on the northwestern edge of the central city of Homs. It is surrounded by five villages inhabited by members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect. The killers were armed civilians from those villages, residents say, underscoring the danger that Syria’s conflict could descend into sectarian war.[source : U.N. Security Council blames Syrian government for civilian massacre, The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/syrian-government-denies-blame-in-attack-that-killed-dozens-including-32-children/2012/05/26/gJQA3rruuU_story.html?hpid=z2, 28/05/2012]
Houla residents have acknowledged that at least two Syrian army officers were killed in clashes that erupted between local rebels and Syrian forces Friday afternoon. But they assert that the government then embarked on a spree of punitive shelling against the village, after which the shabiha stormed homes in the area and randomly butchered men, women and children.
But what about before then? Thomson's sources say that Houla was shelled from 1230pm to 1430pm. And the Syrian government says that the armed men began their attack at 3pm. So was this attack in retaliation for any shelling that may have taken place after Friday prayers?
General Mood told the UN Security Council yesterday that there was evidence of shelling, and it is this statement by Mood that persuaded Russia and China to condemn the Syrian government for the use of heavy weapons.
It is being pointed out that the families who were killed by knife and execution were Sunni, which implicates the Syrian government and/or their non-Sunni supporters, such as the local militia.
The Russians seemed to be swayed by the arguments that it made little sense that the opposition, which is heavily Sunni Muslim, or even extremist jihadist elements, would kill so many of their own faith in cold blood, said one Security Council diplomat, speaking anonymously about a closed-door session.[source : U.N. Security Council Issues Condemnation of Syria Attack, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/world/middleeast/syria-denies-responsibility-in-brutal-attack.html?ref=global-home, 28/05/2012]
But there is an assumption there that being Sunni automatically makes you anti-Assad. Is it possible to be Sunni and pro-Assad? And if so, would this make you a target for vicious throat-cutting Sunni al Qaeda NATO death squad mercenaries? The answer is yes, and will be shown shortly.
Questions that need answering are
1. did the Syrian military shell Houla after Friday prayers?
2. did this prompt the gang of hundreds of armed men with heavy weapons to attack Syrian government positions?
3. if not, then how did several Syrian personnel die and more come to be injured, when according to Thomson's sources the local militia spent 11 hours moving from house to house killing families?
4. was there an attack on al-Shoumarieh (or al-Shumariyeh)? If so then by whom and why?
5. were the families murdered because they were Sunni but supported Assad?
6. where were the UN observers while this was going on?
7. if there was an attack on al-Shoumarieh (or al-Shumariyeh) by the rebels, then did the local militia retaliate, as is alleged, and invade Houla, exacting revenge?
Regarding question 5, there are plenty of reports of the Syrian opposition cutting the throats of and chopping the heads off pro-Assad supporters, even though those executed were Sunnis. The following is a devastating review of the butchery of the Syrian opposition. After referencing several interviews of the Syrian opposition who brag about their butchery, this account is referenced. It is of significance because it shows that the Syrian opposition are prepared to kill Sunnis, even though the opposition is itself mainly Sunni, because to them a pro-Assad Sunni is a traitor.
Never conducted executions? In February, BBC correspondent Paul Wood writes from Homs (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16984219): “Afterwards, one of the FSA fighters showed me a video he had filmed in December. They had ambushed a convoy of armoured vehicles. Eight of the security forces were killed, 11 captured. The video showed the prisoners, in camouflage uniform, lined up facing a wall. Some were still bleeding after the battle. Their arms were raised. One turned to the camera, looking petrified. The man who’d taken the pictures said that despite their army uniforms, their ID cards showed they were Shabiha (or ghosts) – the hated government paramilitary force. “We killed them,” he told me. “You killed your prisoners?” “Yes, of course. They were executed later. That is the policy for Shabiha.” These were Sunni Shabiha, he added; the only Alawite had escaped. I checked with an officer. While soldiers were released, he said, members of the Shabiha were “executed” after a hearing before a panel of FSA military judges. To explain, they showed me a film taken from the mobile phone of a captured Shabiha. Prisoners lay face down on the ground, hands tied behind their backs. One-by-one, their heads were cut off. The man wielding the knife said, tauntingly, to the first: “This is for freedom.” As his victim’s neck opened, he went on: “This is for our martyrs. And this is for collaborating with Israel”.[source : So, is the Free Syrian Army beheading people?, SibiaLiria, http://www.sibialiria.org/wordpress/?p=256, 19/04/2012]
Regarding question 6, the UN claim that the observers have no mandate to intervene and stop any violence. This is true. But that does not stop them getting out of their beds or the hotel bar to observe events in real time to see what is going on.
The Washington Post article recognises that a clash took place between "local rebels and Syrian forces Friday afternoon". If so, then where were these rebels as the local militia were allegedly massacring the families by knife point and gun for 11 hours? This does not make sense. Unless they were, as the Syrian government reports, in al-Shumariyeh massacring families in cold blood there?
And also the two accounts about the local militia do not agree. According to Thomson, the shelling began after Friday prayers, then the local militia moved in. There is no mention of a clash. But according to the Washington Post, there was a clash then shelling, then the local militia moved in.
However, if, as proposed by the Syrian government, an attack by the rebels took place over 7 hours, did the Syrian military join in, to defend their positions and colleagues?
There are inconsistencies of varying significance from both sides.
But I go back to my question from a few days ago.
Things were calming down. The Annan Peace Plan was being implemented, slowly but surely. But now with $100 million from the Absolute Monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and logistical support and advice from the USA, the rebels can now turn up in places like Houla with anti-tank weapons and trucks and apparently lay waste to places like al-Shumariyeh.
Would this violence have occured without this kind of financial and political support?
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