Post by Teddy Bear on Jun 11, 2012 23:34:27 GMT
Anybody following events in Syria since the revolt as reported by the BBC would be under the illusion that Assad and his forces were responsible for the majority of the killings and violence against the 'democratic protesters'. Now I'm not a journalist, and I don't spend too much time researching the ins and outs of the Arab world, but I do get updates from a few sources that enables me to keep a broader picture of what is really happening in the area, than the BBC would have me be aware of.
I have already posted about how the BBC has totally ignored how Christians have been killed, persecuted, and living under continual threat by those the BBC want you to believe are moderate Muslims in an 'Arab Spring', since they avoid reporting how extreme and radical they are. Not only throughout the Arab world, but also specifically in Syria, with fresh reports coming in, but not by the BBC.
In recent weeks there have been other incidents and events which cast doubt about the narrative the BBC are giving about the uprising in Syria. There was their willingness to accept and post a picture, which supposedly was illustrating a massacre in Houla showing hundreds of bodies stretched out, except it turns out the picture was one from Iraq 9 years earlier. Not to say there wasn't a massacre, but now there is a question about who perpetrated it.
It would appear too that the extremist rebels in Syria have realized the media is willing to demonize Assad for the majority of the violence going on in the country, and are using it for the own devious ends. They may be slaughtering many of those they perceive as being outside of their mindset, and blaming it on the Syrian regime.
A few days ago, Alex Thomson, a Channel 4 reporter, stated that he himself had narrowly escaped being set up to be shot by rebels so that they could blame Assad, knowing it would make a big headline in the media. The BBC characteristically ignored the story, though they would have been well aware of it, which proves their bias in this arena is quite intentional.
Now it transpires that the Houla massacre might itself have been committed by the rebels themselves for the sole purpose of blaming Assad, while also getting rid of some of their enemies. The BBC has no mention of it, and I'm sure will avoid covering it unless it becomes more public than it is already.
Here's what the National Review has to say.
Report: Rebels Responsible for Houla Massacre
By John Rosenthal
It was, in the words of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan, the “tipping point” in the Syria conflict: a savage massacre of over 90 people, predominantly women and children, for which the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad was immediately blamed by virtually the entirety of the Western media. Within days of the first reports of the Houla massacre, the U.S., France, Great Britain, Germany, and several other Western countries announced that they were expelling Syria’s ambassadors in protest.
But according to a new report in Germany’s leading daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the Houla massacre was in fact committed by anti-Assad Sunni militants, and the bulk of the victims were member of the Alawi and Shia minorities, which have been largely supportive of Assad. For its account of the massacre, the report cites opponents of Assad, who, however, declined to have their names appear in print out of fear of reprisals from armed opposition groups.
According to the article’s sources, the massacre occurred after rebel forces attacked three army-controlled roadblocks outside of Houla. The roadblocks had been set up to protect nearby Alawi majority villages from attacks by Sunni militias. The rebel attacks provoked a call for reinforcements by the besieged army units. Syrian army and rebel forces are reported to have engaged in battle for some 90 minutes, during which time “dozens of soldiers and rebels” were killed.
“According to eyewitness accounts,” the FAZ report continues,
The FAZ report echoes eyewitness accounts collected from refugees from the Houla region by members of the Monastery of St. James in Qara, Syria. According to monastery sources cited by the Dutch Middle East expert Martin Janssen, armed rebels murdered “entire Alawi families” in the village of Taldo in the Houla region.
Already at the beginning of April, Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix of the St. James Monastery warned of rebel atrocities’ being repackaged in both Arab and Western media accounts as regime atrocities. She cited the case of a massacre in the Khalidiya neighborhood in Homs. According to an account published in French on the monastery’s website, rebels gathered Christian and Alawi hostages in a building in Khalidiya and blew up the building with dynamite. They then attributed the crime to the regular Syrian army. “Even though this act has been attributed to regular army forces . . . , the evidence and testimony are irrefutable: It was an operation undertaken by armed groups affiliated with the opposition,” Mother Agnès-Mariam wrote.
This certainly means taking future reports of incidents in that country with 'a pinch of salt'. Don't expect the truth from the BBC, or others with a selfish agenda. In fact, this is how you can recognise what might be their real purpose.
I have already posted about how the BBC has totally ignored how Christians have been killed, persecuted, and living under continual threat by those the BBC want you to believe are moderate Muslims in an 'Arab Spring', since they avoid reporting how extreme and radical they are. Not only throughout the Arab world, but also specifically in Syria, with fresh reports coming in, but not by the BBC.
In recent weeks there have been other incidents and events which cast doubt about the narrative the BBC are giving about the uprising in Syria. There was their willingness to accept and post a picture, which supposedly was illustrating a massacre in Houla showing hundreds of bodies stretched out, except it turns out the picture was one from Iraq 9 years earlier. Not to say there wasn't a massacre, but now there is a question about who perpetrated it.
It would appear too that the extremist rebels in Syria have realized the media is willing to demonize Assad for the majority of the violence going on in the country, and are using it for the own devious ends. They may be slaughtering many of those they perceive as being outside of their mindset, and blaming it on the Syrian regime.
A few days ago, Alex Thomson, a Channel 4 reporter, stated that he himself had narrowly escaped being set up to be shot by rebels so that they could blame Assad, knowing it would make a big headline in the media. The BBC characteristically ignored the story, though they would have been well aware of it, which proves their bias in this arena is quite intentional.
Now it transpires that the Houla massacre might itself have been committed by the rebels themselves for the sole purpose of blaming Assad, while also getting rid of some of their enemies. The BBC has no mention of it, and I'm sure will avoid covering it unless it becomes more public than it is already.
Here's what the National Review has to say.
Report: Rebels Responsible for Houla Massacre
By John Rosenthal
It was, in the words of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan, the “tipping point” in the Syria conflict: a savage massacre of over 90 people, predominantly women and children, for which the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad was immediately blamed by virtually the entirety of the Western media. Within days of the first reports of the Houla massacre, the U.S., France, Great Britain, Germany, and several other Western countries announced that they were expelling Syria’s ambassadors in protest.
But according to a new report in Germany’s leading daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the Houla massacre was in fact committed by anti-Assad Sunni militants, and the bulk of the victims were member of the Alawi and Shia minorities, which have been largely supportive of Assad. For its account of the massacre, the report cites opponents of Assad, who, however, declined to have their names appear in print out of fear of reprisals from armed opposition groups.
According to the article’s sources, the massacre occurred after rebel forces attacked three army-controlled roadblocks outside of Houla. The roadblocks had been set up to protect nearby Alawi majority villages from attacks by Sunni militias. The rebel attacks provoked a call for reinforcements by the besieged army units. Syrian army and rebel forces are reported to have engaged in battle for some 90 minutes, during which time “dozens of soldiers and rebels” were killed.
“According to eyewitness accounts,” the FAZ report continues,
the massacre occurred during this time. Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities. Over 90% of Houla’s population are Sunnis. Several dozen members of a family were slaughtered, which had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator. Immediately following the massacre, the perpetrators are supposed to have filmed their victims and then presented them as Sunni victims in videos posted on the internet.
The FAZ report echoes eyewitness accounts collected from refugees from the Houla region by members of the Monastery of St. James in Qara, Syria. According to monastery sources cited by the Dutch Middle East expert Martin Janssen, armed rebels murdered “entire Alawi families” in the village of Taldo in the Houla region.
Already at the beginning of April, Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix of the St. James Monastery warned of rebel atrocities’ being repackaged in both Arab and Western media accounts as regime atrocities. She cited the case of a massacre in the Khalidiya neighborhood in Homs. According to an account published in French on the monastery’s website, rebels gathered Christian and Alawi hostages in a building in Khalidiya and blew up the building with dynamite. They then attributed the crime to the regular Syrian army. “Even though this act has been attributed to regular army forces . . . , the evidence and testimony are irrefutable: It was an operation undertaken by armed groups affiliated with the opposition,” Mother Agnès-Mariam wrote.
This certainly means taking future reports of incidents in that country with 'a pinch of salt'. Don't expect the truth from the BBC, or others with a selfish agenda. In fact, this is how you can recognise what might be their real purpose.