According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, heavy airstrikes and artillery shelling in the area around Eastern Ghouta and Douma, a rebel-held area on the outskirts of Damascus, left at least 56 civilians dead, including a number of children.
The observatory reported the strikes were carried out by the Syrian military, though the local rebel factions accused the Russian military of being behind the attacks, saying they deliberately targeted civilians in the attacks.
The Eastern Ghouta region has been rebel-held for years, and is regularly targeted by deadly airstrikes. Though surrounded by the Syrian military for a long time, they’ve never made any serious effort to move into the area and retake it.
The rebels in Eastern Ghouta have been implicated in using human shields in the past to increase the civilian death toll of airstrikes, famously keeping Shi’ites in cages and rolling them around to potential targets.
So says MI6, uh, aka SOHR. C'mon, its a one person operation in Coventry England, so who the heck do you think this is? I mean, everyone in Coventry knows everything about Syria. My money would be on MI6. They tend to be rather inaccurate, and frankly I'd never read a word from this group except this site heavily promotes this MI6 branch, uh, sorry, SOHR.
I do not understand why the author once again seems to find it so surprising that civilians in what he himself refers to as a "rebel held area" have been killed. Could they be civilians who support the terrorists or are they desperate to fl;ee. We don't know. Then the writer states the terrorists use civilians as "human shields"! How are the Syrian pilots meant to avoid these civilians? I'm pretty sure that the US, not now, in Iraq, or in WW2 or Vietnam, was ever concerned about civilian casualties. So I don't know why Mr Ditz employs such double standards. I am also mystified why he again chooses to draw on the so-called Syrian Observatory which is UK based, has nothing to do with Syrian human rights, is a propaganda outfit for the terrorists and is ignored by anybody with common sense. The latter, of course, excludes the US and UK governments who need this bogus outfit to lend a fig leaf to their malicious actions.
I note the attempt to divert attention from the civilian casualties by referring to the video purporting to show Shi'ites in cages, which Reuters said was unverified, and in any event, how can you tell if they're Shi'ites? If a US air strike had killed 56 civilians, including a number of children, we'd be told it was a war crime.
I'm not naive, but I still am amazed that the media gets so troubled about civilian deaths in Syria, ignoring the real human shield dynamic there, while showing very little grief over the deaths of civilians in Gaza, Yemen, and other places not named Syria, all while playing up the notion of human shields in these places.
If the revolt against Bashar Al-Assad continues to follow this trend, Bashare with the Western Democratic World will have no problem emptying Syria from its inhabitants and continue to rule for ever and ever.