ALMOST A YEAR AGO ASSAD’S FORCES SLAUGHTERED 100 WOMEN & CHILDREN HERE. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Homs (Houla): May 16, 2013 - Only the weapon has changed. Instead of being slaughtered with knives and axes the women and children of Houla are being shelled every single day. This is just one family, an entire family, that was killed in an instant by Assad’s forces.
Thanks @SyriaDayofRage
What Do You Call People More Upset About an Israeli Airstrike than the Massacres in Houla, Darayya and Al-Bayda? … Fake Activists.
Thanks @SyriaDayofRage
WELCOME TO HOULA. COME SEE IT BEFORE IT’S ALL GONE. Homs (Houla): Apr 2, 2013 - It will have been almost a year since one of the worst massacres of the Syrian Revolution when Assad’s forces murdered close to 100 women and children in a vicious attack carried out over two days and using knives, axes, hammers and guns.
Today, almost a year later … this is what is happening in Houla. Assad does not have enough thugs to ‘finish off’ the rest of the town’s inhabitants, so he sends what few Russian jets he has to bomb them.
Thanks @PROM201
***LEAKED*** ASSAD’S FORCES LAUNCH 40 ROCKETS IN 30 SECONDS … THEN CHEER AND LAUGH AFTERWARDS. Homs (Houla): (Date Unknown) - They are not attacking the Israeli occupation forces trying to liberate the Golan Heights … they are attacking Syrians. They are attacking women, children and men … and they are happy about it.
This is Assad. These are his men. This is what they do.
Another video of Assad’s forces firing a massive rocket attack …. against Syrians.
Thanks @Press_Office00
Homs (Houla): Feb 14, 2013 - On may 25th, 2012, Assad’s forces and militia raided this small collection of villages, butchering 100 women and children in a matter of hours. The world feigned outrage … for a few days … then they moved on. More than 200 children have been killed in Houla since the massacre on May 25th. (see here).
Today’s martyrs included Farah Al-Abdullah,13yrs. Malak Al-Abdullah 2yrs. Moaz Qaddour, 4yrs and Yahya Ahmed Ibrahim, 5months old.
One of the dead children, a little girl
Dead and wounded children in the makeshift clinic.
More of the dead and wounded …
The dead are wrapped in white shrouds and prepared for burial
Thanks @EatingMyPeaz @samersniper
***GRAPHIC*** CAN YOU WATCH THIS ENTIRE SCENE? CAN YOU STAND THE 6MIN OF PAIN, TERROR, HORROR AND SADNESS? Homs (Houla): Jan 27, 2013 - It has been 8 months since the massacre of Houla (see here) where close to 100 women and children were butchered by Assad’s militia on May 25th, 2012. The world could not ignore that massacre, it was widely reported around the world, the UN even came to conduct an investigation (as if any was needed) and several magazines conducted in-depth reports on it.
The world was ‘horrified’ … then they moved on.
Since the massacre and only as of Jan 23, 2013, another 186 people have been killed in this tiny town by Assad’s forces. Many of them women and children. (see here). The world has decided to ignore them once again.
At one point in this video activists show us the body of a little boy, the top half of hid head is missing as his skull was blown off and his brain ejected from the shelling. A man in the video screams to the camera “Where is the world! Where are the Arabs! Where are the Muslims! …. only God will suffice us … only God!”
And ‘experts’ and ‘reporters’ talk about the ‘Talibanization’ of Syria while Assad’s massacres are only mentioned in passing and as a fact of life that Syrians should live with … or more accurately, die from.
Thanks @EatingMyPeaz
Jan 24, 2013 - Assad’s forces have bombed just about every inch of Syria in their quest to destroy every town and it’s residents for their ‘disobedience’ in demanding freedom. These attacks below are only a fraction of what happened on this day alone.
An Assadist Sukhoi jet drops bombs on the residents of Mleiha in the suburbs of Damascus.
Rockets continue to fall across Daraya
In addition to the ground-to-ground rockets, Assad’s forces stuck Daraya from the air
An air-strike in Kafrzeita, Hama
An air raid by Assad’s forces in Busr Al Harir, Daraa
Shelling in the city of Daraa
Assad’s forces shell Houla in Homs
The destruction of Jobar in Homs is still underway after almost a week of unrelenting air-raids, shelling and ground raids. Here we can see a massive explosion.
Thanks @Yallasouria
ASSADS AIR FORCE DROPS CLUSTER BOMBS OVER THE HEADS OF THESE PEOPLE.Homs (Talbiseh): Jan 15, 2013 - Watch as Assad’s airforce drops a cluster bomb on the town of Talbiseh, almost literally over the heads of the people filming.
Assad can use cluster bombs, white phosphorus, SCUD missiles, tank shells, artillery shells, barrels of TNT and any other ‘conventional weapon’ to kill Syrians, but the world draws it’s ‘red line’ if/when Assad uses chemical weapons, which by the way was recently confirmed as being used by Assad against Syrians (read here).
Below are some of the injured from the attack.
Thanks @tweets4peace
Homs (Houla): Jan 15, 2013 - Lost in the news of the massacre at the University of Aleppo was this massacre in the town of Houla, the town that became a part of history for all the wrong reasons on May 25th, 2012 when almost 100 people, mostly women and children were executed by Assad’s militia (see here).
Today Assad’s forces did not enter the town, however, they did shell it, killing 13 people, among them 8 children.
This is what the shelling sounded like as it was happening. Absolutely terrifying.
Moments after the attack a woman is screaming for help. She insists that in the pile of flesh and bones in front of her, god knows how many people that is, that there is a person that is alive and she pleads from someone to pick him up.
A terrifying scene. Moments after one of the shells hit people try to help the wounded and gather dead. Screaming, crying, mourning, shouting. Then another shell hits very close by. Assad’s forces are not done yet.
Dead babies, toddlers and children are collected in the back of a pickup truck
The man in this video (focus is on him) has his wife, his brother and his brothers children in the pickup truck, all of them are dead
Injured children at a local makeshift clinic
A little boy had his arm blown off in the attack
IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD TO SEE: This is where Assad’s tanks and artillery, clearly seen on the kill-top over looking the town, shell the town’s residents every single day. This video was shot today and the tanks you see firing are the ones that killed the people above.
Thanks @AbuBakrSaleh92
***EXTREMELY GRAPHIC*** HE WAS KILLED WHILE STILL EATING HIS FOOD. Homs (Houla): Dec 25, 2012 - Abdul-Salam Mahmoud is only 4 years old. He never had a chance to finish his last meal. The food still in his mouth after he was killed in a shell-strike by Assad’s forces.
The force of the blast was so violent, it ripped open his stomach and all of his internal organs are now spilling out. A truly agonizing and brutal way to die.
Thanks @eman_ciaption_
IT NEVER STOPPED. IT’S JUST THAT YOU STOPPED WATCHING. Homs (Houla): Dec 20, 2012 - Assad’s forces continue to shell this town day in and day out. This is just merely a glimpse of what daily ‘life’ or what resembles life is like. A shell lands, people are killed. More shells lands … more people are killed.
Thanks @THE_47th
On December 9, nearly 200 people were killed in the small Syrian village of Aqrab, which is about 40 kilometres west of Hama. The village has a population of 13,000 people, most of whom are Sunnis, with a minority of about 3,000 Alawites.
The causes of this massacre still need to be independently investigated, but what evidence exists has grim lessons for minority groups and the area as a whole.
The region around the village - a triangle between Hama, Homs and Tartus - represents an explosive sectarian mix. This is where Alawites, Sunnis and Ismailis have lived side by side for hundreds of years, but the regime has successfully pitted groups against each other since the start of the uprising, recruiting thousands of Alawite villagers into the Shabbiha militias.
There are a variety of reports, sometimes conflicting, emerging out of the area. One of the most telling videos shows an old Alawite woman speaking to the camera. In the video, she is talking to a group of armed young men who were from the nearby village of Houla - where in May, 108 civilians were killed by regime forces, most of whom were summarily executed at close range.
The woman, who identifies herself as Umm Ayham, speaks for over 14 minutes in great detail, some of which has been corroborated by a report by Alex Thomson, of the British broadcaster Channel 4. The news reportwas released three days after the Umm Ayham’s video was uploaded to YouTube.
By all accounts, anti-regime rebels had surrounded a building in Aqrab in which 500 people, including men, women and children, were trapped. It is unclear who had rounded up the civilians.
A day before the massacre, the rebels let go about 125 people, who fled to the nearby village of Taouna. The rebels assured the remaining hostages that they would not be hurt and - after mediation from two Sunni religious leaders from Aqrab, Sheikh Ali Sara and Sheikh Saadu Hammash - there was an agreement that more would be released.
Umm Ayham relates that two young men in the building refused to let any more people be released. She identifies the names of the men, who are cousins and both Alawites. The former told the other trapped Alawites that they would be tortured and killed by the rebel forces if they left the building.
Umm Ayham’s two daughters had already been released, and she pleaded with the cousins to let her go. By her account, the two Sunni sheikhs told the hostages they would travel with them for safety.
“I told him [one of the cousins] this is an opportunity that cannot be missed,” Umm Ayham tells the camera. “He said: those who were released had escaped, we will die here, I will not allow anyone to leave.” She adds that the cousins and other men in the building had guns and grenades, and threatened to kill everyone if rebels came in.
At some point, there was an exchange of shooting. One of the men inside, identified as Farzat, then shot several girls because, he said, they would be raped by rebels.
There appear to be two main questions that are still in dispute. How did the 500 people become trapped in the building in the first place, and who was threatening them? And after the violence described by Umm Ayham, what events then led to 200 people being killed?
If the people inside the building were hostages, why did the rebels allow some to leave? Did the men inside, such as the cousins, fear the rebels were after them and use the civilians as human shields? Alternatively, according to Thomson’s report, there has been speculation that the rebels planned to take the civilians to Houla, where they would be used as human shields.
An independent investigation could clear up a number of points, in particular whether those girls had been shot at close range, which might corroborate the charges against “Farzat”. Without that proof, the witness account remains open to dispute.
But Umm Ayham’s video also sends another important message to the Syrian opposition. Alawites are often portrayed as invariably sticking with the regime for survival. This is not accurate. Many Alawites are caught in the middle, just as are so many others in Syrian society. Twenty-one months into the violence, Alawites were still living alongside Sunnis in Aqrab - something worth considering. The mediators were also from the village.
In the video, Umm Ayham pleads with rebels to protect her from the pro-regime men, yet at the same time she fears the same men with whom she is pleading.
There have been other videos released documenting events after the massacre, mostly showing women and children taken to a field hospital, and rebels reassuring Alawites that they are all “brothers” equally victimised by the regime.
In one video recorded almost immediately after the massacre, another old woman and a young girl are taken by rebels to a field hospital. Although the rebels keep reassuring them, the old woman continues to plead with a bearded man to rescue her. The woman then seems scared as rebels shout “Allahu Akbar”, God is great.
It is noteworthy that neither the regime nor the political opposition has come forward to speak for the victims.
On Twitter: @hhassan140
***HORRIFIC*** A MAN FROZEN IN TIME. HE WAS STRUCK BY A SHELL AND STILL SITS ON THE CHAIR WHERE HE DIED. Homs (Houla): Dec 10, 2012 - Ahmed Dawood was sitting on this very same chair when a shell from Assad’s forces landed close by. The shell literally ripped his face of and killed him, yet his body stayed in the same place as he sat.
This is what life is like in Syria today. One moment you’re alive, and the next your gone …
Thanks @Guardian_Mario
THE CHILDREN OF HOULA CONTINUE TO DIE AS THE WORLD WATCHES. Homs (Houla): Dec 10, 2012 - In one of the worst massacres of of the Syrian Revolution, 32 children were butchered to death on May 25th of this year (video here) in the town of Houla. The world was ‘outraged’ …. and promptly forgot. Until this very day the children of Houla are still dying, just like this littler girl who had her skull cracked by a shell fired from Assad’s forces.
Thanks @samersniper
