London-based Syrian rebel group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll for the last 24 hours at 52 people, with reports of heavy fighting in the north and multiple car bombings in Damascus and Idlib.
The rebel group focused on regime killings, and Amnesty International issued a report corroborating some of them, saying they had evidence of crimes against humanity. The killings today appear to have been split pretty evenly between rebel and regime attacks.
In addition to civilian deaths in regime offensives, several were killed in a car bombing in Idlib, while a number of people were wounded in Damascus when a rebel bombing damaged a Shi’ite shrine.
UN monitors also finally reached the town of Haffah, the site of heavy fighting last week. The monitors reported that the coastal city was deserted and badly charred, with signs that government buildings were “set on fire from within.” They also reported signs of looting and remnants of heavy weapons.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is a one-man operation and a mouthpiece operating in a home-office for the mercenary terrorists in Syria; you might just as well have quoted my old gardner Jose, except that the poor guy is actually reliable.
Hi Jason
I wonder why you are still pushing the discredited Syrian Observatory for Human Rights? It is a Saudi/Qatari funded propaganda outlet.
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.es/2011/12/syri… http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/14/us-syri… http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA05Ak03… http://www.rt.com/news/syrian-observatory-human-r… http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/17/hypocrisy-…
Dave,
"Pushing?" Really?
Ditz points out that the group is based in London, not Syria.
He points out that it resolutely focuses on killing that it attributes to the regime and not to the side it supports.
And he cites reports from other sources regarding violence by the side the Observatory supports.
Many news outlets use "data" from the Observatory. Antiwar.com is one of the few news outlets which places that "data" in its proper context as at least biased and possibly completely manufacture propaganda.
That's no more "pushing" the Observatory than is a New England Patriots fan noticing that Buffalo, New York also has an NFL franchise.
Yes pushing. Jason Ditz regularly ignores any news that is submitted by the Syrian government, but permanently reports the lies of this psychological operations tool of US ARMY in their unconventional warfare with their proxy Jihadi-fighters from all over the middle-east.
Not only that they can not proof the information, the do not want to proof, but intentionally deliver news to blame the government and create hate to get more fighters.
We have seen the leaked videos of them and their front reporters: During waiting on the phone with BBC he advises the "fighters" on what sign of him, they should begin to shoot and to throw granates. When he was on air he gave the signs and shooting and bombing began and the poor boy cried for help because they are under heavy attacks. Very dramatic, convincing and touching emotionally. It switches your brain off,because those "poor freedom-fighters" seem to be under attack.
The only problem: it was totally calm there – only during ON AIR his friends played war for the NATO couch potatoes urging them to bomb those no existing attackers.
"Jason Ditz regularly ignores any news that is submitted by the Syrian government"
How ridiculous is that claim? Well … in this very article he not only notes, but links to, a report from the Syrian government via its official news agency, SANA.
Nathan,
Let's start with the easy part:
"Also, the reader gets the impression that the regime has killed or is guilty of killing because there’s nothing in that statement that the Observatory may simply be lying or that the regime may not really have killed anyone."
Bashar al-Assad's regime is a Ba'athist-dominated "United Front" — which makes it both murderous and totalitarian. The idea that it "has not really killed anyone" is, pardon my French, fucking silly. Read your Afleq.
That does not mean that the rebels are not backed and funded by foreign interests (they are), or that they are not terrorists (at least some of them appear to be). But your line the entire time has been that unless Antiwar.com supports a neo-fascist, fuhrer-prinzip-based regime with a decades-long record of political murder as official state policy, and treats that regime's pronouncements as scripture, Antiwar.com is allied with that regime's current opponents. And that is, once again, fucking silly.
The truth is the truth. Antiwar.com attempts, as best it can, to get at the truth, while Naive Nathan tries to manufacture the truth he wants by stamping his feet and holding his breath until he turns blue while reciting SANA press releases as scripture. One of these approaches is as sound as the real world allows for. The other is, for the third time, fucking silly.