Tagged: Bayda Libya

Al-Bayda: anatomy of a war crime

At least 169 people, including women and children, were killed in a massacre in the Syrian town of al-Bayda earlier this year. Warning: this exclusive video contains extremely distressing footage.

Warning: the video below contains extremely distressing footage from the beginning

At seven in the morning of 2 May this year, Syrian government forces entered the village of al-Bayda, an opposition enclave nestled in the hills by the Mediterranean coast in the western governorate of Tartus, writes James Brabazon.

Al-Bayda was a sleepy place. Not much happened there, and until this spring was unremarkable except for one defining fact: it was a predominantly Sunni village, entirely surrounded by pro-regime Alawite and Christian territory.

The Syrian government didn’t consider al-Bayda to be a threat. In May 2011 they rounded up all the men in the village square and beat many of them up to remind them President Assad was in charge – and then more or less left it alone.

There was no permanent Syrian army force there, no big checkpoint and no fighting. Regime forces came and went as they pleased. No-one attacked them.

Shootout

The only function that al-Bayda played for the opposition was to help smuggle out individual deserting government soldiers who’d run away from their bases on the coast and were trying to reach rebel-held territory.

So when the Syrian army arrived in May – to arrest a group of three Syrian army deserters who were being hidden in the outskirts village by supporters of the opposition to President Assad – no-one could have guessed what would happen.

First, there was a shootout. The deserters and a group of around a dozen opposition fighters who went to their assistance – local men with light weapons – opened fire on the army. Residents said that later they saw the bodies of at least a dozen dead Syrian Army soldiers, their corpses trapped in the burned-out remains of their ambushed vehicle.

Taking no chances, the regime forces called in reinforcements. By 1pm the firefight was over. The deserters were either killed, or fled along with the opposition fighters up into the caves far outside the village.

Massacre

Now government fighters massed around al-Bayda: regular Syrian Arab army units; uniformed national defence force paramilitaries (the so-called shabiha); and Syrian army special forces operators.

From the outskirts where the skirmish had taken place, the army and paramilitaries moved in. From three axis, in coordinated deployments, they swept through al-Bayda, moving from house to house.

The world should pay attention about what is happening in al-Bayda. Why is everyone asleep? Why don’t they do something?‘Sara’

At 1.30pm the killing began. Men and women were separated in the houses. The “men” – which included teenage boys – were either executed immediately, or marched to the village square to be killed en masse. Most were shot. Some were hacked to death with long knives or cleavers. At least one young boy, Luqman al-Hiris, was beheaded – in front of his mother.

In the house of Mustafa Biyasi, 30 women and children were herded into one room and then executed – shot at point blank. Saffa Biyasi cuddled her baby boy, Hamza Biyasi. They lay dead next to each other, serene despite their injuries. Afnan Biyasi and another small child spooned each other on the bed they were shot on, perhaps holding each other for comfort in the last moments before the bullets ripped through their tiny bodies.

By 5pm the massacre was over. The Syrian army had killed at least 169 civilians in four hours. The verified final death toll is likely to reach beyond 250.

Burned

Bodies were stacked up in the local cellphone shop and burned, making them hard to identify. Um Mohammed, an eye witness to the massacre, was able to identify the charred remains of her son only by the chipped fingernail he’d broken earlier.

The next day government forces returned and burned al-Bayda. The sleepy village which once had a population of around 5,000 people was empty. Refugees fled to rebel-held areas of Syria and then on to Turkey and Lebanon.

It used to be called al-Bayda – the white village. Now they call it al-Sawda – the black village.‘Sara’

If the government’s strategy has been to cleanse al-Bayda of its Sunni Muslim residents then they were successful: with the exception of a few elderly people too old to leave, only the Christian quarter remains inhabited.

Thirteen members of Fattou family, who did try to return were wiped out in their home by Syrian security forces on 21 July.

‘The Black Village’

While the investigation into the regime’s alleged use of nerve gas continues, the 2 May massacre in al-Bayda remains the single, most extensive verified act of the killing of civilians carried out by government forces since the war began.

But what perhaps is as shocking as the eyewitness accounts of murder by uniformed government troops is that the massacre at al-Bayda was almost entirely unreported in the mainstream media: a few short news pieces, a lot of web traffic and a report and brief overview at the time in the western press is really all the attention that al-Bayda received.

“Sara” – a 12-year-old girl who survived the massacre and who was interviewed for this programme, found the body of her tortured and murdered father. When asked if there was anything she’d like to say to the people abroad who might see this film she replied:

“The world should pay attention about what is happening in al-Bayda. Why is everyone asleep? Why don’t they do something?

“We had one nursing baby who died in his mother’s lap. What has he done? Did he overthrow the president? People should stand up to them, to our enemies.

“You cannot just keep quiet. This is not right. They have slaughtered all of us. They have emptied al-Bayda. There is no-one there any more. It used to be called al-Bayda – the white village. Now they call it al-Sawda – the black village.”

source: 4 NEWS

 

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Syrian troops ‘kill 13 members of the same family, some of whom were burned alive’

Assad speech, through tanks

Assad speech, through tanks (Photo credit: FreedomHouse)

 The Fatouh family were at their home in Bayda, on the coast, when attacked

  • Six children, four women and three men killed, human rights group says
  • Group blames massacre on pro-Assad National Defense Force militia

Thirteen members of the same family, including six children, have been killed by pro-governmentforces in Syria, a human rights group says.

Some of the Fatouh family were burned alive at their home in Bayda, north-west Syria, some reports say, while others suggest they were shot first before the house was set on fire.

Three men were shot dead before four women and six children were gathered in one room and killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Fatalities in Banias, Syria. Baniyas is a Sunni Muslim pocket in the middle of a large Alawite enclave on Syria’s Mediterranean coast

Fighters from the Free Syrian Army targets one of the bastions of the regimeís forces in Aleppo, Syria

Syrian rebels seized a strategic village on the edge of the northern city of Aleppo on Monday, activists said

 The family was fasting at the time of the attack at their home near the coastal city of Baniyas, the scene of a previous massacre where more than 140 died in May.

 ‘The three men, unarmed, were shot dead outside their home. The militiamen then broke in, and killed the women and the children,’ the Observatory’s director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Mr Abdel Rahman said the family was killed by the National Defense Force and that his organisation had heard conflicting reports as to how the women and children died.

Columns of smoke billowing as a result of heavy bombing, in the countryside outside of Aleppo Syria

Heavy bombing in Damascus has led to countless fatalities. Britain has sent help to the Free Syrian Army, including communications equipment, but has not taken a decision on sending weapons

The UK-based Observatory relies activists on the ground in Syria for news.

Mr Abdel Rahman said the slaughter was a revenge attack for the deaths of four Alawite members of the NDF.

Tensions between members of the Alawite faith, who count President Bashar Al-Assad among their number, and Sunni Muslims are long held.

Baniyas is a Sunni Muslim pocket in the middle of a large Alawite enclave on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, and activists in the area accuse militias loyal to Assad of ethnic cleansing.

‘The Baniyas area is home to a mixture of Sunnis and Alawites. On Saturday, four Alawite members of the National Defense Force were killed in fighting there,’ he told AFP.

‘The pro-regime militiamen took revenge for their deaths by killing this family.’

The news of the massacre comes as the Prime Minister told the BBC that opposition efforts to overthrow Assad, supported by Britain, were at a ‘stalemate’.

Elsewhere, bodies of rebel fighters were pictured after an ambush yesterday by President Assad’s forces in Adra, near Damascus. The picture was issued by the state-run news agency Sana

Thirteen members of the Fatouh family were killed at their house in Bayda, near the coastal city Baniyas, according to a human rights group

 Britain has sent help to the Free Syrian Army, including communications equipment, but has not taken a decision on sending weapons amid growing fears over some of the rebels’ Al Qaeda links.

David Cameron told the Andrew Marr Show that Syria, which plunged into civil war more than two years ago, was ‘on a depressing trajectory’ and President Bashar Al Assad is ‘stronger than he was a few months ago’.

Mr Cameron said it was right to continue to support the opposition. ‘You do have problems with part of the opposition which is extreme, that we should have nothing to do with,’ he said.

‘But that is not a reason for pulling up the drawbridge, putting our head in the sand and doing nothing’.

The slaughter of the family was said to be revenge for the deaths of four members of the National Defense Force, which supports President Bashar Al Assad

The slaughter of the family was said to be revenge for the deaths of four members of the National Defense Force, which supports President Bashar Al Assad

In May, about 140 people died over two days of sectarian massacres by pro-Assad militias in Bayda and Baniyas.

Meanwhile, in and around Damascus, government troops killed at least 75 rebels over 24 hours, the Observatory said. It was one of the deadliest single-day tolls for opposition fighters in recent months.

The death toll included 49 rebels killed in an ambush in Damascus’ northeastern suburb of Adra early Sunday.

An elite Republican Guard unit attacked the rebels as they were trying to push into the capital, and that the government commander leading the operation also died in the ensuing gunbattle, the Observatory said.

The Syrian state news agency SANA also reported the ambush, without giving a casualty figure.

Damascus and its suburbs have been a key battlefield for over a year, with rebels trying to push into its center from strongholds in the suburbs.

Some of President Bashar Assad’s most reliable units, including the Republican Guard and the 4th Division commanded by his younger brother Maher, are charged with its defense and have been trying to flush out rebels from the enclaves.

The Observatory reported that another 17 rebels died in fighting Sunday in clashes in Damascus neighborhoods of Qaboun and Jobar, while another nine were killed in clashes that have raged in the suburbs of Daraya, Harasta and Douma.

Syrian rebels seized a strategic village on the edge of the northern city of Aleppo today, the Observatory said, just hours after other opposition fighters sustained some of their heaviest losses in months.

The capture of Khan al-Assal is a rare bright spot in recent months for Syria’s rebels, who have been battered by government forces on several fronts since June.

The Observatory says opposition fighters took full control of Khan al-Assal on the western outskirts of Aleppo today.

Clashes were ongoing near the village, including inside Aleppo, and several rebel-held districts were hit by airstrikes, according to the Observatory, an anti-regime activists group that relies on reports from activists on the ground.

Britain is supporting the Free Syrian Army, with one of the force’s fighters seen inside a burned-out house in Deir al-Zor yesterday

 Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, has been a major front in the nation’s 2-year-old conflict. 

Rebels seized control of much of the city, and swaths of the surrounding territory, during an offensive one year ago. Khan al-Assal has been a major front in the fight for the city.

In March, chemical weapons were allegedly used in the village, killing more 31 people. The Syrian government and the rebels blame each other for the attack, and both have demanded an international investigation.

More than 93,000 people have died in Syria’s conflict, which started in largely peaceful protests against Assad but turned into a civil war.

It has taken on an increasingly sectarian tone, pitting mostly Sunni Muslim rebels against a regime dominated by Alawites, an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam.

Assad’s troops have in recent weeks seized the momentum in the conflict, attacking rebels in Damascus and also in the north.

source: Mail Online

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