Syria Massacre: No Bodies Seen, But Villagers Claim Alawite Militia Slaughter

Militia 'Stabbed Everyone and Everything'

Claims of a huge massacre in the tiny farming village of Qubair took a turn toward the confusing today, when a journalist who went to the village found considerable blood strewn all over the place, but no bodies.

The journalist said residents from nearby villages told him that an Alawite militia had attacked the town and massacred everybody with knives, saying they “stabbed everybody and everything,” including the livestock.

But what happened to the bodies of the estimated 80 killed? The residents say that people in a “pickup truck” loaded all the corpses up and drove them off to an unknown site, odd behavior for a group of kill-crazy militia members.

The claims of an Alawite militia would jibe with rebel claims of a pro-regime group trying to carve out a Sunni-free region. The disappearance of all the bodies makes it impossible to confirm the toll however, and is a puzzling turn of events.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.