Just hours after Syrian President Bashar Assad’s statement on the nation being in a “real state of war” was broadcast, Syria’s al-Ikhbariya TV station was in ruins. The newsroom burnt, the walls sprayed with bullets and blood, and at least seven employees killed.
The grisly scene was just one of many atrocities seen already in Syria’s nascent civil war, this time the result of a rebel faction storming the station overnight on accusations of being pro-regime.
Employees of the station say that several people were wounded in addition to the slain and that a number of the guards working for the station were kidnapped during the attack.
Syria’s information ministry condemned it as a “massacre against the freedom of the press.” Rebel commanders denied responsibility, saying it was unrelated to their ongoing civil war.
