Syrian rebels have massacred Christians on at least three different occasions during the latter part of 2013, in a story that went unreported by the corporate media. On at least one of those occasions, the "moderate" Free Syrian Army was present.
The first occasion happened in September 2013 near Ma'loula.
"I am a Christian, and if you want to kill me for this, I do not object to it" - such were the last words of one of three Christians, killed by extremists after their refusal to accept Islam in Ma'loula, which has already become famous among the faithful as "a land of Martyrs".
The website Pravoslavie, a Russian Orthodox church, cites agencia fides, a Roman Catholic site, one of the few sites that has covered these massacres.
The Vatican news agency Fides has made an attempt to reconstruct the course of events that led to the killing of three Christians in Ma'loula, with the help of a woman-eyewitness, whose name is concealed for security reasons. At the present time this woman is undergoing medical treatment in one of the hospitals of the Syrian capital.
According to her, on September 7, a group of individuals belonging to the armed groups that had entered the town, burst into homes of the civilian population, intimidating their residents and vandalizing their domestic sacred objects. The woman has told how the militants burst into the house where she was staying together with her relatives: Michael Taalyab, his cousin Anton Taalyab, and his grandson, Sarkis Al-Zajim. The extremists said to those present that they would be forced to accept Islam, at which Sarkis answered: "I am a Christian, and if you want to kill me for this, I do not object to it!" After this the islamists cold-bloodedly killed the young man together with two other men and inflicted several injuries upon the woman. The injured woman was eventually evacuated to Damascus for treatment.
The second massacre, in Sadad, happened between October 21st and 28th, 2013. It was extensively documented by Human Rights Watch, who was able to get permission from the Syrian government to go in and interview townspeople after Assad's troops had retaken Sadad.
During the offensive against government forces in Sadad, 100 kilometers northeast of Damascus, rebel fighters refused to allow residents of the village to leave their homes in areas with active fighting, residents told Human Rights Watch. In at least one case, fighters allegedly used a resident as a human shield. Residents also said that opposition fighters also stole personal items, and vandalized, stole, and damaged property in at least three churches of local and historical significance.
This is the incident in which units of the Free Syrian Army were present.
Opposition groups referred to the Sadad operation as part of the “Battle of God’s Doors Do Not Shut” on social media sites, where several groups also announced their participation in the operation and released footage apparently showing their members fighting in Sadad. The groups involved in the operation include al-Maghaweer of the Dera’ al-Islam battalion of the Free Syrian Army (FSA),Ahel al-Athar battalion of the FSA, Liwa al-Huq, Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Khadra’ battalion, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS). According to a post by al-Khadra’ battalion on Twitter, al-Khadra’’s leader commanded al-Khadra’, ISIS, and Jabhat al-Nusra forces during the operation. Abu Ayham is the field commander of Dera’ al-Islam.
Since then, the ISIS has split off from the other two, leading to in-fighting between the FSA and Al-Nursa on one side and the ISIS on the other. Human Rights Watch conducted interviews without any Syrian government officials present. This is what they found:
Human Rights Watch identified the names of 46 people from Sadad killed in the village during the weeklong operation. Forty-one of the dead were civilians, residents told Human Rights Watch, including 14 women and two children. Three of the dead were police officers, one a soldier in the reserves who was not currently serving, and another an off-duty soldier on home leave from his service, residents said. If correct, only the soldier on home leave and police - if participating in counterinsurgency operations- would have been combatants. In 22 of the 46 cases, Human Rights Watch spoke to residents who described how the other residents were killed. In the remaining cases, Human Rights Watch received the names of the dead from local church officials who coordinated the burials. Human Rights Watch received reports that Syrian government and opposition fighters also died in the course of fighting, but has not confirmed the number of those killed.
Rebels also damaged and looted churches. At least four were shot execution style. Six others were thrown in a well and were only found two and a half weeks later when residents detected an odor and found the bodies.
Fides posted a statement by the local Orthodox archbishop:
"What happened in Sadad is the most serious and biggest massacre of Christians in Syria in the past two years and a half": this was stressed by Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan of Homs and Hama, in illustrating to Fides the tragic death toll in the Christian town of Sadad, invaded by Islamist militias a week ago and then re-conquered by the Syrian army. "45 innocent civilians were martyred for no reason, and among them several women and children, many thrown into mass graves. Other civilians were threatened and terrorized. 30 were wounded and 10 are still missing. For one week, 1,500 families were held as hostages and human shields. Among them children, the elderly, the young, men and women. Some of them fled on foot travelling 8 km from Sadad to Al-Hafer to find refuge. About 2,500 families fled from Sadad, taking only their clothes, due to the irruption of armed groups and today they are refugees scattered between Damascus, Homs, Fayrouza, Zaydal, Maskane, and Al-Fhayle".
The archbishop continues showing all his bitterness: "There is no electricity, water and telephone in the city. All the houses of Sadad were robbed and property looted. The churches are damaged and desecrated, deprived of old books and precious furniture. Schools, government buildings, municipal buildings have been destroyed, along with the post office, the hospital and the clinic".
"What happened in Sadad - he says – is the largest massacre of Christians in Syria and the second in the Middle East, after the one in the Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Iraq, in 2010".
Alnemeh also posted to The Orthodox Church.info, one of the largest sources of news about that faith:
3000 people were held hostage, and we cried out to world, and no-one heard us, except for the minority which came to our aid, and stood in solidarity with us. Where is the Christian conscience? Where, the Syriac conscience? Where is the human conscience? Where are my brothers, the metropolitans, priests, and friends? Where… where? And no-one answers… except for a few. There is a lump in the throat and burning in the heart for all that’s happened in my metropolitanate and its poor suffering people which no sooner did it flee to a place of refuge, then left from there empty-handed, and after all this, to where, I don’t know…
In Adra, RT alleges that rebels massacred 80 civilians outside Damascus:
What the Islamist rebels did when they entered Adra on Wednesday morning was a “massacre,” one a local resident told RT.
“The situation was terrible - with killing, atrocities, and fear as the background. Unidentified armed men came into town, but it was obvious that they were Jabhat al-Nusra militants,” Muhammad Al-Said said.
“The worst crime they committed was that they toasted people in ovens used to bake bread when those people came to buy it. They kidnapped and beat up many,” he added.
Quoting the Iraqi TV station Al-Ahd, RT says that rebels took Christian, Druze, and Alawite hostages.
Together, these three stories undermine the claim by the Obama administration and the corporate media that there are moderate forces within the rebel command. Given that Christians were targeted in all three of these incidents, it gives insight into why Putin is supporting Assad -- he is seeking to play a "Big Brother" role, trying to cast himself as protector for the Orthodox churches as well as ethnic Russians. And Russia has historically played this role with the Serbs as well, even going to war over it in 1914.
None of this should be construed as support for Assad and his barbaric practices, including the use of chemical weapons against civilians. But it is obvious that the rebels fighting him would commit their own barbaric human rights abuses if they were placed in power. This conflict should be none of our business, seeing that there are no good actors within Syria that we can legitimately support. The only thing we can do is shelter as many refugees as possible and work diplomatically with Russia to find a solution for this conflict that will stop the bloodshed.