What of the ‘moderate rebels’? Before the rise of ISIS, back in late 2011, the largest FSA brigade, Farouk, the original ‘poster boys’ of the ‘Syrian Revolution’, took over parts of Homs city. One US report called them ‘legitimate nationalists… pious rather than Islamists and not motivated by sectarianism’. TheInternational Crisis Group suggested that Farouk might be ‘pious’ rather than Islamist. The Wall Street Journal also called them‘pious Sunnis’ rather than Islamists. The BBC called them ‘moderately Islamist’.All this was quite false. Syrians in Homs said Farouk went into the citywith the genocidal slogan: ‘Alawis tothe grave, Christians to Beirut’. Shouting ‘God is Great’ they blew upHoms hospital, because it had beentreating soldiers. The churches blamed Farouk for the ethnic cleansing of more than 50,000 Christians from the city, and for theimposition of an Islamist tax. Journalist Radwan Mortada says most Farouk members were sectarian Salafis, armed and fundedby Saudi Arabia. They later happily worked with the various al Qaeda groups, and were first to blame their own atrocities on the Army.Let’s consider some key accusationsagainst the Syrian Arab Army. In May 2012, days before a UN Security Council meeting set to debate possible intervention in Syria, there was a terrible massacreof over 100 villagers at Houla. Western governments immediatelyblamed the Syrian Government, which in turn accused the foreign-backed terrorists. Western officials at first blamed Army shelling, changing their story when it was found most had died from close quarter injuries. One UN report (UNSMIS) was shelved while another (CoI), co-chaired by US diplomat Karen Koning AbuZayd, blamed un-named pro-government‘thugs’. No motive was given.Although the Houla massacre did not result in a Libyan-styled intervention, because of oppositionat the UN from Russia and China, controversy raged over the authors of this atrocity. German and Russian journalists, along with the Mother Superior of a Monastery, managed to interview survivors who said that a large Farouk battalion, led by Abdul Razzaq Tlass,had overwhelmed five small army posts and slaughtered the villagers. The gang had sought out pro-government and Alawi families,along with some Sunni families whohad taken part in recent elections.One year later a detailed, independent report (by Correggia, Embid, Hauben and Larson) documented how the second UN Houla investigation (the CoI) was tainted. Rather than visiting Syria they had relied on Farouk leaders and associates to link them to witnesses. They ignored another dozen direct witnesses who contradicted the ‘rebel’ story. In short, they tried to bury a real crime with identified perpetrators and a clear motive. As Adam Larsonlater wrote, the ‘official’ Houla massacre story was shown to be ‘extremely ambiguous at best and at worst a fairly obvious crime of the US-supported Contras’.Houla set the tone for a series of similar ‘false flag’ massacre claims. When 245 people were murdered in Daraya (August 2012), media reports citing ‘opposition’ activists’ said that ‘Assad’s army has committed a massacre’. This was contradicted by British journalist Robert Fisk, who wrote that the FSAhad slaughtered kidnapped civilian and off-duty soldier hostages, after a failed attempt to swap them for prisoners held by the army. Similarly, when 120 villagers were slaughtered at Aqrab (December 2013) the New York Times headlineread ‘Members of Assad’s Sect Blamed in Syria Killings’. In fact, as British journalist Alex Thompson discovered, it was the victims who were from the President’s Alawi community. Five hundred Alawis had been held by FSA groups for nine days before the fleeing gangs murdered a quarter of them. Yet, without close examination, each accusation seemed to add to the crimes of the Syrian Army, at least to those outside Syria.Another line of attack was that there had been ‘indiscriminate’ bombing of rebel held areas, resulting in civilian casualties. The relevant question was, how did theydislodge armed groups from urban centres? Those interested can see some detail of this in the liberationof Qusayr, a town near the Lebanese border which had been occupied by Farouk and other salafi groups, including foreigners. The Army carried out ‘surgical attacks’ but, in May 2013, after the failure of negotiations, decided on all-out assault. They dropped leaflets fromplanes, calling on civilians to evacuate. Anti-government groups were said to have stopped many from leaving, while an ‘activist’ spokesman claimed there was ‘no safe exit for civilians’. In opportunistic criticism, the US StateDepartment expressed ‘deep concern’ over the leafleting, claiming that ‘ordering the displacement of the civilian population’ showed ‘the regime’s ongoing brutality’.As it happened, on June 5 the Armybacked by Hezbollah, liberated Qusayr, driving the remnants of Farouk FSA and their al Qaeda partners into Lebanon. This operation, in principle at least, was what one would have expected of any army facing terrorist groups embedded in civilian areas. At this point the war began turning decisively in Syria’s favour.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 15:32:32 +0000
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