Syria: 280 Dead, Houla Again Under Attack as ‘Diplomatic Efforts’ Continue
Even as former U.N. Chief Kofi Annan and his Arab League envoy met with Syrian leader Bashir Assad this week, and while the international diplomatic community expressed outrage over the massacre of 108 civilians in the village of Houla last Friday, the violence and murder of civilians and pro-democracy forces has continued with ferocity this week throughout the country.
In all, U.N. monitors and human rights groups are reporting more than 280 people killed since Friday – with the killings taking place despite a ceasefire that was part of Annan's six-point peace plan on April 12.
Just this morning, reports are coming in that Syrian army is again shelling the central area of Houla – which is a group of small farming villages near the city of Homs. There are reports coming over social media sites like Facebook and Yahoo messenger of heavy machinegun fire in the Houla region, with one young man killed by sniper fire.
In central Homs province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is reporting seven civilians killed overnight. Three of them died when the army shelled the outskirts of the quiet village of Qusayr, while four were killed by shelling in the city of Homs.
Among those killed in Homs was filmmaker and photography student Bassel Shehade, who had returned to Syria from the United States around three months ago, according to a Facebook page set up by activists.
His killing at the hands of regime forces was an act of "treason to humankind," the page said.
In northern Aleppo province, rebels and regime forces clashed on the edge of the town of Atarib Monday night, the Britain-based Observatory said.
In Damascus province, clashes broke out between rebels and regime forces after the army raided two areas – both Al-Halala and the outskirts of Qatna. The brother of a rebel fighter was killed, and dozens were badly wounded, reports say.
Also in Damascus province, a civilian was killed in Ain Tarma village by regime forces' gunfire.
In central Hama, two civilians were reportedly killed by sniper fire, while two regular army troops were killed in northeastern Raqqa.
Regime forces pounded the town using "heavy machinegun fire and shells," the Observatory said, saying five rebel fighters were also killed.
On Tuesday, at least 19 people are being reported killed in violence, where clashes between regime troops and rebels raged, U.N. monitors said.
Meanwhile, most neighborhoods and bazars in the suburbs of Damascus and Aleppo and many local neighborhoods continue to observe the call for general strike.
“Defections in Deir Ezzor City and surrounding areas have increased dramatically over the last few days,” said Ammar Abdulhamid in his daily Syrian Revolution Digest. “Most of the city and the larger province seems to have fallen under the control of the local resistance.”
Abdulhamid, who has been a leading pro-democracy activist in exile from his native Syria, also commented in an email, “Increased death and suffering with an end-game in sight is something most Syrians would accept at this stage, because by now the only choice we have is to get to the other side no matter how high the cost will be. It’s the combination of death and abandonment that fuels extremism and kills hope.”
Abdulhamid also reported that authorities and pro-Assad militias in Damascus prevented a funeral for the Christian activist Bassil Shahada in order to avoid what he called “an embarrassing show of anti-Assad sentiments” by the city’s large Christian community.
“Assad and his supporters are still trying to portray the revolution as an exclusively radical Sunni phenomenon, but, in truth, discontent with Assad rule is endemic to all communities in Syria,” Abdulhamid said.
The Associated Press is also reporting from Beirut that U.N. observers this week discovered 13 bound corpses, shot execution-style.
The bodies were found in the Deir el-Zour Province late Tuesday, all blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs. A video posted online by activists showed the men lying face down, with pools of dried blood under their heads.
The head of the U.N. observer team, Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, said he was "deeply disturbed by this appalling and inexcusable act."
U.N. investigators and survivors have blamed pro-regime gunmen for at least some of the carnage in Houla - a group of small farming villages in the central Homs province, saying men in civilian clothes gunned down people in the streets and stabbed women and children in their homes. The Syrian government denied its troops were behind the killings and blamed "armed terrorists."
The BBC had breaking news Thursday night with satellite photos showing what analysts believe was the believe was the firing point for Syrian artillery that shelled villages where the massacre took place.
All the images were taken on the morning of Saturday 26 May, within hours of the massacre.
Forbes McKenzie, a former British Army intelligence officer who now works for the commercial company who analyzed the images for the BBC, said: "These images display a prominent footprint by the Syrian military in the locality of the massacres.
"We assess that it shows where 122mm artillery rounds were fired from on to the site of the massacre."
They also show what analysts believe was the firing point for Syrian artillery that shelled villages where the massacre took place.
They do not prove conclusively that the Syrian regime was responsible for the deaths, said BBC correspondent Frank Gardner, but Gardner wrote, “they do provide further detail of what is being called the single worst atrocity since the Syrian uprising began last year.”
The BBC article by Gardner asserts that the Houla massacre was a revenge attack to "teach them a lesson" after Sunni rebels attacked a nearby government checkpoint.
One image shows a formation of five armored fighting vehicles plus a tank and a number of other vehicles, believed to belong to the paramilitary “shabiha” with whom they are accused of working in concert. Also visible are white trucks witnesses said belonged to the thug paramilitaries.
Another image shows what McKenzie believes are the caterpillar tracks left by a mobile artillery battery that fired on the civilian houses.
The former military intelligence officer told the BBC: "This would be standard Soviet bloc tactics, firing from woods and then withdrawing."
See BBC article: Satellite image clues to Houla massacre in Syria
Damascus had said it would conclude its own investigation into the Houla deaths by Wednesday but it was not clear if the findings would be made public. The U.N.'s top human rights body planned to hold a special session Friday to address the massacre.
In the wake of harsh criticize by GOP opponents and some members of Congress in both parties, The Obama administration added new sanctions on a Syrian bank Wednesday.
A top White House official said the U.S. wants to “economically throttle Assad's regime” and cut off salaries of pro-government thugs blamed for the grisly massacre in Houla.
"We are strangling the regime economically," White House deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough said.
A statement from the U.S. Treasury Department said that the Syria International Islamic Bank has been acting as a front for other Syrian financial institutions seeking to circumvent sanctions. The new penalties will prohibit the bank from engaging in transactions in the U.S. and will freeze any assets under U.S. jurisdiction, the statement said.
Some members of the international community have also called for possible military military intervention similar to last year's campaign in Libya to oust Moammar Gadhafi, however, the White House said this week that such an assault risks leading to "greater chaos, and greater carnage."
Speaking to Danish students yesterday in her trip to Copenhagen, U.S. secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued against armed intervention for now in contrast with Libya.
Clinton said Syria had a more diverse society “with greater ethnic divisions, no unified opposition, stronger air defenses and a much more capable military than Libya's.”
She said there was no international support because of Russian and Chinese opposition at the U.N. Security Council, where they have twice vetoed resolutions on Syria.
Speaking later at a news conference with the Danish foreign minister, Clinton said she was working to try and change Russia's stance.
"The Russians keep telling us they want to do everything they can to avoid a civil war because they believe that the violence would be catastrophic," she said.
"They often ... liken it to the equivalent of a very large Lebanese civil war and they are just vociferous in their claim that they are providing a stabilizing influence. I reject that.
"I think they are in effect propping up the regime at a time when we should be working on a political transition," she said.
However, for the time being, Syria can still count on the support of its allies China and Russia, which on Wednesday criticized the diplomatic moves.
"The banishment of Syrian ambassadors from the capitals of leading Western states seems to us to be a counterproductive step," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.
He said the move closes "important channels" to influence Syria.