The massacre of over 90 Syrians which caught the world’s attention and renewed calls for war against the regime of Bashar al-Assad may have been carried out by rebel fighters, according to a new report.
A new report in one of Germany’s leading newspapers, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the Houla massacre was in fact committed by anti-Assad Sunni militants, and most of the victims killed were members of the Alawi and Shia minorities, which have been largely supportive of Assad. The reports cites anonymous opponents of Assad who admitted their involvement in the massacre.
According to the report, rebel fighters attacked Syrian army road-blocks in a 90 minute battle, in which dozens were killed on both sides.
“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.”
The report continues: “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.”
Initial eyewitness accounts of the massacre, relayed by major western media outlets and Human Rights Watch, described the massacre as having been the work of Syrian forces and their heavy artillery. But other eyewitness accounts, like those from members of the Monastery of St. James in Qara, Syria, said the attack came from Sunni militants who then tried to frame it as a massacre by the regime, presumably in the hopes that it would provoke a foreign intervention to unseat Assad.
"to frame it as a massacre by the regime". Exactly what I havealways maintained before. Don't accept reports at face value. See my earlier comments on the conflict.
I'm so grateful Antiwar at last ventured the truth instead of framed-up evidence and propaganda. If you name the real criminals – the Anglo-Saxon world dictatorship – you will be even more heroes.
It is the zionist behind all of this and america must do their bidding a pity it has to come to this one hope though in order to maintain the status qo Iran must be nuclear capable or goodbye middle east………..they leave nuclear Nkorea alone dont they.
Anna,
How friggin' clueless are you?!! Anti-war reports the reports of others. It links to the news that is generated around the world from all the various sources. ***Complete with their native bias.*** Sometimes the editors at Anti-war, the folks who gather and present these materials for you, write their own summary — this with anti-war's bias — of the information they collect.
IT IS THEN UP TO YOU TO USE YOUR OWN PERSONAL BRAIN, AND TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS TRUE. THEY PROVIDE THE "RAW" INFO, YOU PROVIDE YOUR OWN THINKING.
Time to become a grown-up.
Jeff Davis: If You accept reports disseminated by the mainstream western corporate newsmedia mostly dominated by international Zionism AT FACE VALUE ….THAN YOU DO NOT HAVE TO USE YOUR BRAIN !!
Grow up and refuse to be brainwashed….
At last??? AntiWar dot com has been skeptical since the beginning. Are you kidding? Anglo Barack Obama is leading the liars' brigade, abetted by Anglo Kofi at the UN.
> Anglo-Saxon world dictatorship
Lolwhat? I haven't heard of any germanic tribes taking up settlements in Kent and the Angles lately.
And what does that have to do with Syria?
btw the english aristocracy was norman not anglo saxon
"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”.
We have said that from the beginning that this barbaric act is the work of Saudis supported terrorist groups whom are sent to Syria via Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. Syrian government not gaining anything by doing such atrocities toward its own nation, this is and has been the work outsiders from Libya. Hillary Clinton needs to start thinking about who she is supporting and who she truly need to support. This is a hallmark of England and US foreign policies. Since 1990 Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright and others alike started a new concept in dividing people by starting the Balkan wars and conquering and dividing a country in pieces by blaming a socialist government over a religious sect the Albanian Sunny Muslims making sure that all are bad but US and EU militarism regimes are good??, these acts are documented and well preserved which one day will show up in an unbiased ICC for prosecuting these people for warcrime and going to war by falsifying the reasons for wars, as it happens in Syria as we speak.
Clintomn perfectly knows who she is supporting and the fact that those people are pathological criminals is the quality that makes them so appealing to the USG.
What is really so appalling is that the liberal media in the west accept stories like this put out by so-called "activists" – these are unknown people they have virtually raised to the level of sainthood. If this goes on this could get us all into a very, very serious war. Again looking at who benefits, it is difficult not to see one particular ME country that will find this grist to the mill.
Exactly what many have been saying all along. Except that many more of killed were actually Sunni people who were killed in order to "send the message" that the militants expect support from "their" Sunni population in cash and other goods.
Some folks that know the history of Balkans, knew that Syrian militants visited Kosovo for an advice on how to fight the government. This was Kosovo's Liberation Army (KLA) specialty. Kosovo's Houla was named Rachak. This is the place where many Albanian civilians were killed. It also happened under identical circumstances — KLA was engaging Government troups in the area, and while the battle lasted, the Rachak massacre occured. Government was blamed, and NATO intervention ordered.
I reside on a tiny lsland in the Caribbean sea and knew that the Syrian Govt did not do this the only thing that can be said at this point "GOD BLESS AMERICA"for doing this all for the zionist
It was actually obvious from very first reports of massacre. I compared it to other well known massacres by fanatics in Sunni wing of Islam like "Bread line massacre" in Bosnia and "Racak incident" which the NATO used as a pretext for war with Yugoslavia. Houle massacre had exactly same reason behind it – to provoke "international community" to military attack on the government of Syria. It was essentialy an attempt by US proxies for a great chesslike castling, when the king would change its place with its proxy. It could have been also (judging by prematured orchestrated expulsion of Syrian diplomats by coutries who claim to be an "international community") prescripted massacre to create immense propaganda push to overcome Russian and China unwillingness to follow the "leader" in regime change in Syria.
Same style massacre happened in Qubeir on the eve of UN Security Council (how convient) and I think the goal of this massacre was the same as in case of Houle massacre – to sway outcome of UNSC favorably to "rebels" thus enabling (so called) "international community" to attack Syria legally. Since the main goal of these massacres has not been attained we can expect further massacres with ever growing number of attrocities in them to put UNSC and "international community" under ever growing stress.
my favorite part about all this syria propaganda is the funny way in which every major news outlet does not talks about, witnesses claim.
but rather "activist claim "
who came up with this and when did it become the new standard of evidence of all mainstream news outlets
Common horse sense
Three cheers for me, as I have for over a week been posting comments here that support this good article and Glaser’s good logic. An easy call, for a pro-government militia just does not go around shooting pro-government civilians.
Anna
“The Anglo-Saxon world dictatorship”
A truth most profound, so maybe Anna could enlighten us as to why so many people from that part of the world have such a war-hawk nature and aggressive killing instinct?
For my ancestral parents came to America in a sailboat from England, as bond slaves even, a peaceful laboring-class ancestry without the slightest aggression or desire to be rich.
When the report of this massacre first appeared in Anti-war.com I commented that it was a lie, and that publishing it would make the site appear as a propaganda tool for the terrorists, to which Thomas of Anti-war got pissed off and called me a terrorist.
It's not nice to lie about people, Nathan.
It's also not smart to lie about people who are actually there to call you out as a liar.
How nice that Netanyahu wants to give aid to Syria while executing humanitarian aid workers on flotillas for trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians. That the U.S. media would print this Israeli hypocrisy shows how controlled the U.S. media is by Zionists. Now we find out the massacre was by the radical al Qaeda fighters in Syria.
Netanyahu calls the Syrian civil war in genocide, but what does he call the slaughter of Palestinian children? It is so nice to see Netanyahu speak against the killing of Sunnis in sectarian violence with Syrain Shiite Allawites. It must be that he has a soft spot in his heart for al Qaeda. I only wonder why he never said a word as Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians, or why he never spoke up for the five-hundred thousand Iraqi children that died from lack of antibiotics, of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis that were slaughtered as the result of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He also never mentions the thousands of civilians killed by the Israeli slaughter in Operation Cast Lead. Yet, now he wants U.S. intervention because some Syrian Sunnis are killed as part of a civil war and he feigns concern because he wants to stir up things between the U.S. and Iran by having the U.S. and Iran fight a proxy war in Lebanon. The most despicable part of this is I will some be called an anti-Semite and Jew-haters for pointing out this Zionist hypocrisy. It is getting easier and easier to discern Zionist motives and media.
The Saudis would also like to pit us against their enemy Iran, but Americans should remember it was Iran's enemy, the Saudis, who knocked down the Twin Towers. They all were Saudi Sunnis and none were Iranian Shiites. The Saudis oppress their huge Shiite population and justice demands that a revolution begin under the oppression by Sunni monarchs. Also, the Sunnis were fine with the massacre of Shiites by Bahrain and Yemen. Why the queasy stomach now?
So-called "activists" seem to be accorded some kind of sainthood. Their word is never doubted it seems.
Depends on which side these "activists" are in the first place. The media doesn't accord such credulity to the statements of, say, Occupy "activists" or Ron Paul "activists."
The Washington Post, three days ago before any investigation, said that the Syrian government in fact did it. They must be very very good or very very evil to be able to make such statement with out facts. How that paper has deteriorated and has reached Fox news(?) level.