“Read well this silly propaganda piece. It’s about Syria, but written by one great FT reporter in Abu dhabi and another in Beirut. They’re quoting as “analysts” some jokers based in the UK and US. And of course the inevitable Nadim Khoury of the US-funded “Human” rights watch in Beirut.
The story says pro-government communalist militiamen, dressed in army uniforms, went and killed over a hundred civilians, sunni muslims, in Houla near Homs, shooting at close range and knifing.
The regular military wouldn’t go around knifing and shooting at close range. Out of the 9 or so divisions in the Syrian army, all but one are of sunni muslim origin. And it’s tough to make believe that sunni regulars went and butchered other sunnis! That’s where “alawi shabiba” militia come in handy. So they government gave the “shabiba” military uniforms, and put them in white sports shoes to show they’re alawite killers!!! See, the syrian regime really wants the world to believe they themselves are killing their own people. Heard that one before?
Back to reality: most likely armed islamist and related thugs, funded by the Gulf emirates and endorsed by the US and allies, put on Syrian army uniforms, but tied on those “white shoes” as proof they’re not army but private sector. Remember the initial lie was that the Houla massacre was caused by artillery shelling by the regular army. But the UN Danish general came out saying the killing was at close range. so they had to take out the tanks and shells and supplant them with white sports shoes!! And when repeated by propaganda, white sports shoes stick in the mind!” By Salil Sarkar
Syrian opposition’s Shaam News Network shows UN observers at a hospital morgue before their burial in the central Syrian town of Houla on May 26, 2012. The head of a UN mission warned of “civil war” in Syria after his observers counted more than 92 bodies, 32 of them children, in Houla following reports of a massacre there©AFP
The men who stormed the Abdel Razzaks’ home while carrying out a massacre in the Houla district of Syria were dressed like soldiers except for one potentially crucial detail, said a ten-year-old family member: they wore white shoes.
Hidden in a nearby barn, the boy watched as the thugs left the house and shot dead his 13-year-old friend Shafiq, who was standing across the street.
Analysts say the white shoes are one of several indicators that the murder of more than 100 people in this central Syrian cluster of villages was more than just another killing spree by the army of Bashar al-Assad.
Nadim Houry, of Human Rights Watch, said the running shoes were one of the details cited by witnesses as evidence the people carrying out the attacks were not soldiers but members of the shadowy and much-feared grouping of pro-regime militiamen known as the shabbiha, who are playing an ever-growing role in the country’s deepening conflict.
From their roots as a Mafia-style crime gang in the home region of the Assad dynasty that has ruled Syria for more than four decades, the shabbiha have, say many observers, emerged as a increasingly deadly but deniable instrument in the regime’s efforts to crush a more than year long uprising against its rule.
“With the regime basically relinquishing control over some rural areas, it’s easier to send in the shabbiha than it is to send in the regular army,” said Emile Hokayem, an analyst at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. “They are a better tool for retribution – and you are going to see them operating in the country a lot more.”
While the world – including the Assad regime and its allies in Moscow – has deplored the Houla killings, there are sharp divisions over who is responsible. The Syrian government blames armed gangs for the murders, the vast majority apparently carried out at close range against victims that included 49 children.
However, the Syrian opposition, its international allies and rights groups say the atrocity was primarily the work of shabbiha, who they say poured into the town after the military shelled it.
Most observers agree the original shabbiha were allawite ganglords who ran drugs and hot money across the Lebanese border from the region of north-west Syria around the coastal town of Lattakia, the heartland of Mr Assad’s minority Allawite religious sect.
But much else about the group remains murky, even down to its etymology: while many say the name shabbiha has its roots in the Arabic word for ghost, others say “ghost” was actually the nickname not of the gang members, but of the stolen black Mercedes some used to drive.
In the 1990s, the group’s racketeering and extortion eventually caused sufficient anger that even Mr Assad – with the approval of his father Hafez, the then president – tried to curb its activities. But the popular uprising that began in March last year put the shabbiha – and, more significantly, the militia idea they represent – firmly back in favour with the regime.
Analysts say the term shabbiha has now become a catch-all term for irregular forces fighting on behalf of the government, ranging from hardcore loyalists bussed in to trouble spots, to poor farmers in central Syria given arms and told to defend themselves against the foreign-backed terrorists whom the government says are behind the revolt.
As the shabbiha’s ranks and violence have grown and widened, groups have sprung up to counter them. Analysts say shabbiha-style militias made up of the Sunni Muslims who represent the majority of the population have also started to emerge in regions like the province of Homs, where Houla is located and where Sunni and Allawite communities sit side by side, increasing the potential for sectarian violence.
Wissam Tarif, a researcher with the anti-Assad campaign group Avaaz, said there have been tit-for-tat cycles of kidnapping and violence between religious communities in Homs city because of the presence of local shabbiha. “That’s what made the sectarian cycle of violence in Homs higher,” Mr Tarif said.
Analysts say the Houla massacre is one of the most horrific and best-documented of many signs that Syria’s conflict, like other civil wars, is increasingly becoming the domain of militiamen operating under political licence but also with increasing autonomy.
Given rein to attack a civilian population and an opposition Free Syrian Army that is itself a loosely-linked confection of localised militarised groups, many observers see the likelihood of more and greater shabbiha atrocities such as the one in Houla.
“You are creating a monster here,” said Randa Slim, a researcher at the New America Foundation, a US-based thinktank. “We have a Frankenstein in the making.”
By Michael Peel in Abu Dhabi and Abigail Fielding-Smith in Beirut
30 May 2012
@ The Financial Times