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Syrian forces renew Homs assault, kill 35: activists
Syrian residents carry the bodies of people whom protesters say were killed by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, during their funeral in Deraa June 9, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Ali Abu Salahh/Handout
AMMAN |
AMMAN (Reuters) - At least 35 people have been killed in a renewed Syrian army effort to regain control of the province of Homs, epicenter of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, opposition activists said on Sunday.
The army bombarded opposition strongholds in the city of Homs and the towns of Qusair, Talbiseh and Rastan. Free Syrian Army rebels had been intensifying attacks on army patrols, roadblocks and missile batteries in the area, the Syrian Network for Human Rights and other opposition campaigners said.
Abu Qassem, an activist in Rastan, 25 km (15 miles) north of Homs, said at least 500 rockets and shells had fallen on the town since Saturday, and army helicopters were firing machineguns into the area.
"The Free Syrian Army is far outgunned, but it is responding by mounting guerrilla attacks while trying to avoid direct exchange of fire," he said.
He said among the rebels' targets had been an army missile battery in the area of Ghanto near Rastan. Most members of the missile squadron defected and the battery fell under rebel control.
Rastan was once a reservoir of Sunni Muslim recruits for the military, whose senior ranks are dominated by members of Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
After Syria's revolt broke out in March last year and pro-democracy demonstrators in Rastan were killed, Sunni officers from the town began defecting.
Talbiseh to the south came under shelling and heavy mortar fire from loyalist troops after some soldiers from surrounding roadblocks defected on Saturday and drove two armored personnel carriers into the town, according to opposition sources there.
"Five people have been killed, including a woman and her one-year-old daughter. They were among the few civilians who had not fled Talbiseh," activist Abu Mohammad said by satellite phone.
In Homs, the army shelling was concentrated on the neighborhood of al Khalidiya, inhabited mostly by Sunni tribal families from the desert to the southeast of Homs, activists said.
(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Andrew Roche)
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The family is preparing for a move.
No doubt about it, the rumour is becoming reality. Assad has moved at least six billion U.S. dollars to Russia, hopefully he will find a nice little palace in Siberia to raise his children. Poor wife.
The assault is not against Homs but against insurgent combattants and terrorists who have rejected peace plans and who have been killing at least 20 army and police personnels per day and massacring civiian populations including score of childen under the age of 10.
The West and rebels took advantage of Anan truce to reorganize and rearm, and now armed with westren sophisticaed communication equipments and weapons including anti-tank and missiles, they decided to increase their attacks with heavy equipment weapons and killing many security forces(lightly armed) and civilians(unarmed) just during the Annan truce alone.
So Reuters and “activists” who are actually insurgent combattants should not shed crocodile tears here. When these radical islamists launch unprovoked attacks and kill security forces at checkpoints, Reuters tells us who died. It needs to do the same and announce the death of islamist insurgents and not lie that security forces are shelling a town and killing civilians.
It’s a war opposing groups of paid foreign mercenaries(trained by Blackwater) and local islamic fanatics aginst the Syrian state. These terrorist groups are fighing on behalf of the West(mainly the US and UK) and Israel, and the Syria state is responding to their unprovoked attacks and defending itself as any responsible state MUST do. It’s fightng suicidal terrorists who have been given one way tickets to Syria and “islamic paradise”.
So this is war between Syria and ennemies combattants. Reuters needs to report it like a war, not like a humanitarian catstrophe to arise public opinion’s emotion and sympathy on behalf of these islamic armed gangs/deathsquads/rebels/mercenaries/terrorists.
This escalation of hostility by the west and rebels is intended to hide the real authors of these massacres.
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