Syrian Civil War Is Back
The Massacres Are In Full Swing
A few friends and I attended a running race yesterday, Mar 7. It started as light rain drizzled on the runners, but the weather improved quickly, and all-in-all, it was a fun race. I achieved my goals and had fun at the same time. It was great. I was in high spirits.
As I headed back to my car to drive home, I checked my Telegram feed. I discovered that the Syrian Civil war took another turn and images of war were interwoven with videos of mass massacre.
As it seems, the previous Assad regime crowd tried to perform a mutiny against the new and “so progressive” regime of Al-Jolani. The remnants of the old Assad regime tried to take over the coastal areas of Syria, specifically Tartus and Latakia, but fighting broke out in other regions of Syria as well.
As the day progressed it was obvious that the mutiny is failing and the regime is quickly taking control back as they rushed Jihadi reenforement from all over Syria to the Alawit dominated coastal area. The mutiny had no chance and I was not surprised that the new Damascas rulers crushed the rebellion, which, from the bits and pieces I was able to assemble, seemed unorganized.
Another thing that changed as yesterday afternoon became evening is that clips of fighting became rare and the number of massacres videos rose steadily. By nighttime, I must have watched a hundred videos of massacres. Some of them had one or two victims, others had many dozens of victims.
Today, Mar 8, was full of new attrocities as the Sunni Jihadi army of the new regime in Syria massacred men of the Alawit minority that ruled Syria for over fifty years, headed by the Assad family.
Rumors circulate of killings among the small Christian community too.
I’m not going to share the hardcore images, only these “lite ones”.
Payback Time
Al-Jolani, his army and many other factions fought the Assad regime for over a decade, the hatred is overwhelming. The new government has been pressing the Alawit minority for months now. Sporadic executions, arrests, beating and humiliation has been going on since the Sunni Jihadi dominated government took power few months ago and set on extracting revenge for the decades of torture, rape, mutilation, arrests and executions by Assad regime. As aggressive as the policy of the new regime has been to the Allawits, it was not nearly as bad as in the last two days.
The payback time has come and no Alawit is spared. I’ve seen executions of men in military uniforms and of boys too young to hold an AK47. Old men, too weak to pose a threat, are beaten and executed as quickly.
It starts with the arrest and beating of men. Then the victim is subjected to humiliations such as crawling on the ground and barking like a dog. The jihadists love that, it raises their sick sense of self-importance. The beating continues all the time and sometimes the victim is beaten to death. More often than not, when the torturer had his fun with the victim, he or someone else shot the victim. Sometimes they are shot in mass graves and other times in the streets. Anything goes.
Unlike the “brave” justice warriors at the Columbia University, the Jolani army doesn’t hide behind masks. They don’t hide their crimes and don’t bury the bodies to conceal their war crimes. On the contrary, they are happy to pose with the victims, torturing them, humiliating and killing them on camera to the cheering of their comrades. They don’t fear reprisal or being arrested for their crimes. Why would they be arrested?
The old Assad’s regime tactic of dropping exploding barrels from war planes on civilian population centers, that the new regime claims was a war crime, is used by the new regime too. If it works, why not?…
The number of the killed is unclear. I saw hundreds killed online. According to one source, there were around 600 killed on Mar 7 alone. The real number is probably over a thousand now.
Thousands of Allawits, Christians and others fled to the Russian run Hmeimim airbase for safety.
Jihad Online
I recently subscribed to several jihadi English speaking Telegram channels. There are a lot of these online. Usually, my interest is to inspect how the terrorists and their followers perceive the unfolding drama in the Middle East and what are the narratives that govern them. This time it was Muslims vs Muslims and I was curious to see what they see and who they support. It seems that the channels I follow support the old Assad regime. In the beginning, they were anxious to claim the rebellion is a success, which stood in stark contrast with every other channel I follow and didn’t make much sense. As the rebellion was quelled, they moved on to expressing outrage at the atrocities and shared more horror images and clips. It was weird to see them outraged by terrorism because usually these channels are excited and celebrate every terror attack in Israel or Europe. Since when do jihadists dislike massacres? Maybe I’m subscribed to the wrong channels.
The World (lack of) Reaction
When I traveled to Cambodia many years ago, I went to the Killing Fields memorial site for the Cambodian genocide. It’s not a fancy place and it (at the time) was just a field, as many others killing locations in Cambodia. I was younger and more naive than I am today. Thinking of the Jewish Holocaust and the Cambodian genocide, I wondered how the world would react to mass massacre if it happened right now. Many years later, sitting in front of a TV set and watching a massacre unfold in real-time in Nigeria (or was it Congo? There have been so many in Africa) I understood that the world doesn’t care. No Jews, No News.
Of course, since then I’ve witnessed many wars and massacres by Jihadi terrorists, the Syrian Civil war was full of such acts of “heroism” by all waring parties and some half a million were killed. The butchers always scream Allah Akbar as they massacre each other and the world doesn’t care.
Since Jolani took power from Assad, the world was quick to embrace this new Syrian government and pretend they deal with a legitimate representative of the Syrian people and not jihadi terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Never mind Jolani didn’t control half of Syria and was not elected by anyone to rule.
All it took for the Western leaders to accept Jolani and his rule was for him to put on a western suit and say some words that sounded progressive about peace, elections and the bright future of Syria. No proof was needed, and the useful Western idiots were hooked! The fact that ISIS took over Syria bothered no one.
Arab leaders were happy to embrace him for even less.
Today, the Qatari government was quick to back Jolani in all his massacre endeavors. The Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera network, which is fast to report every time a bird drops its droppings over Gaza, has not reported the ongoing slaughter at all. No coverage whatsoever! Top story, unsurprisingly, Gaza.
The Turkish government intensified its attacks on the Kurds in case the latter had thoughts of taking advantage of the weakened state of Syria and promised full support to Jolani.
It is unclear whether Hezbollah was about to intervene on the behalf of the old Assad regime mutineers, but eventually they didn’t.
United Nations? Not a word from Mr. Gutteres. Just as he didn’t have anything to say when 70 Christians were murdered in a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo just a few weeks back. The old fart Gutteres didn’t find a way to blame Israel for that, I guess.
As far as I know, there has not been a word from any European country, as I write these lines. The European Union was quick to remove many of the sanctions imposed on Syria just because Jolani promised to behave. The EU has a strong incentive to pretend nothing is going on. If there’s no civil war in Syria, then the millions of refugees in Europe can safely go back home to Syria. Right?
USA? I have not seen any comment from the US State Department. God Bless America, I say it with all my heart, but no one knows what to expect from them these days.
Russia has let thousands take refuge at the Hmeimim airbase, but as they negotiate their ongoing military presence in Syria with the new regime, I doubt they’ll condemn any of it. Anyway, Russia had a huge part in the Assad’s regime war crimes. They would not dare open that Pandora’s box.
Arab country leaders pretend nothing happens. As always, they have oil in their mouths.
Israel’s defense minister, Mr.Israel Katz, released a statement:
“Al-Jolani took off his galabiya and put on a suit to appear moderate. Now he has taken off the mask and shown his true self — a jihadist terrorist from Al-Qaeda, committing atrocities against civilians.
Israel will defend itself against any threat from Syria. We will stay in the security zones and on Mount Hermon, protecting the communities of Galilee and the Golan Heights. We will ensure that southern Syria remains demilitarized and guarantee the protection of the Druze population living there. Anyone who attacks them will have to deal with us.”
In the recent months, we have witnessed a rapprochement between Israel and the Druze minority living in southern Syria as Israel is looking for a way to insulate itself from the mayhem in Syria and the Druze look for support and protection from this exact kind of savagery.
The new Israeli alliance with the Druze of the Middle East begins to take shape as both the Druze and Israel watch the massacre happen in this “new and wonderful Syria.”
Not a peep out of the anti-colonialist “free free Palestine” jihadists in my neck of the woods either… Perhaps there is an ancient parable somewhere that could explain the careful husbandry and judicious doling out of outrage.
Thanks for covering this, Hanan. Nothing in our media here in the UK. I recently read someone actually saying that good journalism is journalism that calls Israel out - and seemingly doesn't do anything else.