Shelling rips life out of #Syrian town near Aleppo

09/08/23

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

ANADAN, Syria | Thu Aug 9, 2012 10:24am EDT

(Reuters) - In this town near Aleppo, “Freedom Square” has been renamed “Destruction Square” by a young Syrian activist who once sang to protesters gathered for peaceful pro-democracy rallies.

The square in Anadan, along with the rest of what resembles a ghost town, bears the scars from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of military force to crush an opposition movement that has spawned an armed insurgency against his rule.

The 20-year-old anti-Assad singer, Hamza Ali Bin Ahmed, says thousands of protesters often packed the square. The microphone he used now lies in pieces, like many of the nearby buildings.

“They silenced us by shelling us,” said Bin Ahmed, wearing a blue T-shirt and sports shoes. Only an occasional passing car or motorcycle broke the eerie quiet in the once-bustling town.

Some 30,000 people, or most of the population, have fled Anadan because of shelling and helicopter strikes, opposition sources said. Many headed towards the border with Turkey, some crossing over to join nearly 50,000 refugees already there.

Anadan appears to have come under very heavy artillery bombardment, according to satellite images released this week by London-based human rights group Amnesty International.

It said the images, obtained from commercial satellites over the July 23-Aug 1 period, showed more than 600 craters, probably from artillery shelling, dotting Aleppo’s surrounding areas. The craters were represented with yellow dots in the images.

One snapshot, from July 31, showed craters next to what looked like a residential housing complex in Anadan, it said.

Aleppo, a few km (miles) from Anadan and Syria’s largest city, has become a frontline in the struggle between Assad’s forces and insurgents. Amnesty said both sides could be held criminally responsible for failing to protect civilians.

“As far as Assad is concerned, Anadan is a legitimate target,” said Omar Hashoum, a rebel brandishing an AK-47 rifle as he stood by a green-domed mosque damaged by bombardment.

“ASSAD FOREVER”

Nearby, an unexploded mortar round lay on a street littered with spent bullet casings.

“Inside the town there is only the Free Syrian Army but it cannot guard against tank and artillery shelling or from air bombardment,” said Hashoum as an air force jet flew overhead.

Assad’s troops have overrun Anadan several times in recent weeks, but with bigger battles to fight in Aleppo they were nowhere to be seen when a Reuters team visited the town - a sign of the difficulty the overstretched Syrian military may be facing in keeping full control over restive areas.

Loyalist forces had left their mark on one wall, with the scrawled message “Assad forever or we will burn the country”.

Abu Salameh, who identified himself as a rebel commander, said many of Anadan’s fighters had joined the battle in Aleppo, helping provide supplies and take wounded fighters to Turkey.

“Anadan is the fountain of resistance,” said Ismail Nassif, another insurgent. “We started in the hundreds, and then the whole of the province joined,” he said.

Like many fighters, Nassif was a demonstrator who said he had taken up arms only after Assad used force on protesters.

“The revolution has changed a lot of people here,” said Abdullah al-Arab, another rebel. “There were a lot of people who were spitting on us during early demonstrations but who are now with us and are joining the armed resistance.”

Yet Bin Ahmed, the singer, recalls the days of peaceful protest fondly. “I will always regard myself as a singer of the revolution. God willing, I will get to sing again.”

Source: reuters.com

Lone survivor’s horrific account of latest alleged massacre at hands of #Syria regime

Mahmoud, a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of Syria, rests in a field hospital after he was found, Aug. 6, 2012, having been blindfolded, beaten and sprayed with bullets. (AP)


07/08/2012

(AP) ANADAN, Syria — The guards pulled him from his cell before dawn on Monday, bound his hands, blindfolded him and drove him to an empty lot in the Syrian city of Aleppo. They sat him in a row with 10 other captives, he said, then cocked their guns and opened fire.

“They sprayed us,” recalled 21-year-old Mahmoud, the lone survivor of the latest mass killing of Syria’s civil war. “The first bullet hit my chest, then one hit my foot, then my head. As soon as my head got hit, I thought, `I’m dead.”’

Reports of such killings have surfaced frequently during the 17 months of deadly violence that activists seeking to topple President Bashar Assad say has killed more than 19,000 people. But details are usually scarce — no more than activist reports or amateur videos of bloodied bodies or mass graves posted on YouTube.

Mahmoud related his grisly ordeal to The Associated Press hours after it happened. Struggling to speak, he lay in a bed in a makeshift rebel-run field hospital set up in a wedding hall in this town 13 miles north of Aleppo. Bandages covered his foot, head and chest. Plastic vines and colored lights adorned the walls of the darkened building, and two red velvet chairs once used by brides and grooms sat on a small stage.

Mahmoud gave only his first name to protect his family who still live in the area.

While his story could not be independently confirmed, Mahmoud’s wounds matched his story and residents who found him and his dead colleagues corroborated certain details.

Together, they painted a picture of the summary slaying of 10 men, at least some of whom had only loose links to the armed rebels seeking to topple the regime. That story jibes with activist claims of the increasingly brutal tactics regime forces are using to try to crush the rebellion that has spread to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Syria’s uprising started in March 2011 with peaceful protests calling for political reforms that were met with a fierce regime crackdown. Government brutality grew as dissent spread, and many in the opposition took up arms as the conflict morphed into a civil war.

Aleppo has been a stronghold of government support throughout the uprising, with a wealthy business class and many minority communities who fear they’ll suffer if Assad falls. Until recently, the city of some 4 million people had been spared the violence that has ravaged other Syrian cities.

But during the last two weeks, rebels have been pushing into Aleppo’s neighborhoods, clashing with security forces and torching police stations in a push to “liberate” the city. Syrian media has vowed the army is gearing up for a “decisive battle,” while anti-regime activists have reported swelling numbers of troops and tanks on the city’s edges.

The Syrian government blames the uprising on armed gangs and terrorists backed by foreign powers that seek to weaken Syria.

Mahmoud receives treatment

Mahmoud receives treatment in a field hospital after he was found Aug. 6, 2012, with three gunshot wounds in the town of Anadan

 (Credit: AP)

It was amid these tensions that Mahmoud, a Palestinian resident of Aleppo, had his fateful brush with Syrian security. On Thursday, Mahmoud said, he and a friend went to collect their paychecks from the thread factory where they work and heard clashes nearby. Soon eight men in civilian clothes stopped them and asked for their IDs and cell phones.

On Mahmoud’s phone they found videos of anti-government demonstrations and messages he sent to rebels from the Free Syrian Army, asking God to protect them and make them victorious. The men threw Mahmoud and his friend in the trunk of a car and drove them to a trash dump, where they were blindfolded, bound and beaten with sticks and large rocks before being taken to a security office.

Mahmoud was locked in a crowded cell with about a dozen other men, he said. Each day, some were taken out and new ones brought in.

“We were there for four days and they only gave us water to drink once. They never fed us,” he said. “They never asked us anything. Every day it was beating, beating, beating.”

Before dawn on Monday, guards pulled Mahmoud and 10 others from their cells and told they were going to see a judge. They were bound at the wrists, blindfolded and driven to Aleppo’s Khaldiyeh neighborhood, where they were lined up on a patch of rocky soil.

“They sat us all down next to each other, `You here, you here, you here,”’ Mahmoud said. “Then each one cocked his weapon and the shooting started.”

Mahmoud was shot three times. Bullets pierced his chest and foot and one grazed his skull. Minutes later, silence returned, and he realized he was still alive.

“I breathed, I said the shehada,” he said, referring to the Muslim declaration of faith meant to put him right with God. “I tried to get up then started screaming because blood was coming out of me.”

He scraped his face on a rock to remove the blindfold and crawled to where some nearby residents found him.

Among them was a 22-year-old electrician who said he heard the gunfire early Monday and worried that people were being killed because he had discovered six bodies in the same spot a day earlier. He showed videos of the victims on his cell phone, their bodies piled atop each other covered in blood, some bearing large bruises that appeared to be from beatings. He said all had been shot dead.

He and others asked not to have their names published because they have to pass through government checkpoints to get home.

The killings shocked residents of Khaldiyeh, a working-class neighborhood on Aleppo’s northwest side that has seen little violence until now. While many residents support the rebels, they have not established a foothold in the area, and the relative quiet has drawn thousands of people fleeing violence in other Aleppo neighborhoods or nearby villages.

As Mahmoud spoke, a white pickup pulled up outside the field hospital with the bodies of nine of the men killed Monday. The body of the tenth victim had been taken away by his family. All still had their hands bound and two still wore blindfolds. Two had bullet wounds to their heads, and others had blood on their faces and chests or coming out of their ears. None wore shoes.

Those killings convinced one Khaldiyeh resident who helped collect the bodies that the neighborhood needs arms.

“We want the Free Army to come to our neighborhood to protect us,” he said. “If they can’t come, then they need to give us weapons so we can defend ourselves.”

The field hospital’s doctor, Mohammed Ajaj, said he is no longer shocked when the dead and wounded pass through town on their way to burial in nearby villages or for treatment across the northern border in Turkey.

“We’ve gotten used to it,” he said.

An 18-year-old activist who helped collect the bodies said none of them had IDs.

“We really know nothing about them,” he said, adding that he would stop in neighboring villages to see if anyone recognized them before delivering them to a morgue further north.

“If nobody claims them, we’ll take their photos and put them on our Facebook page so their families can find out that they’re dead,” he said. 

Source: cbsnews.com

Humanitarian problems worsen in besieged #Syria city of Aleppo as refugees flee

31/07/2012

BEIRUT (AP) — Humanitarian conditions have grown even more dire in the besieged Syria city of Aleppo with activists reporting on Tuesday dwindling stocks of food and cooking gas and only intermittent electricity supplies as droves of residents flee 11 days of intense clashes between rebels and regime forces.

Government helicopters pounded rebel neighborhoods across Syria’s largest city and main commercial hub. Activists said the random shelling has forced many civilians to flee to other neighborhoods or even escape the city altogether. The U.N. said late Sunday that about 200,000 had fled the city of about 3 million.

“The humanitarian situation here is very bad,” Mohammed Saeed, an activist living in the city, told The Associated Press by Skype. “There is not enough food and people are trying to leave. We really need support from the outside. There is random shelling against civilians,” he added. “The city has pretty much run out of cooking gas, so people are cooking on open flames or with electricity, which cuts out a lot.”

He said shells were falling on the southwestern neighborhoods of Salaheddine and Seif al-Dawla, rebel strongholds since the rebel Free Syrian Army began its assault on Aleppo 11 days ago.


The United Nations has expressed concern over the use of heavy weapons, especially in Aleppo, while the Syria’s neighbors in the Arab League have issued even stronger denunciations.

“The massacres that are happening in Aleppo and other places in Syria amount to war crimes that are punishable under international law,” Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said following a meeting in Cairo at the League’s headquarters.

The official Syrian news agency said government forces were pursuing the “remnants of armed terrorist groups” in Salaheddine and inflicting heavy losses. President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime regularly refers to opposition fighters as terrorists.

But the rebels denied that the government has succeeded in penetrating the neighborhood with its tanks.

Rebels have captured a number of government tanks in operations against army positions outside the city, including the town of al-Bab and the village of Anand. Saeed said they planned to use them in future operations.

The taking of Anand has also opened the road to the Turkish border, where the rebels get many of their supplies and manpower. It also the main escape route for refugees streaming out of Aleppo.

Many of those who have fled may be taking refuge with relatives in the countryside, remaining inside Syria, while others reached the camps inside the Turkey.

“The helicopters were hurting people because the regime couldn’t enter the neighborhoods, so they were shelling from a distance with helicopters and artillery,” said Mohammed Nabehan, who had fled Aleppo for the Kilis refugee camp just across the border.

He said the humanitarian situation in the city was serious and there was little food.

According Turkish prime minister’s office, there are some 44,000 Syrian refugees being sheltered in tent cities and temporary housing in camps along the border. While Turkish authorities say they have yet to see a massive upsurge in refugees from Aleppo, they are prepared to house up to 100,000.

Jordan, for its part, has also begun building a tent camp to house refugees along the border — something it was initially reluctant to do for fear of embarrassing Syria by calling attention to its refugee problem. But with 142,000 Syrians having already fled across the border, according to the Jordanian government, they needed to create the facilities to house them all. Jordan said this week that up to 2,000 new refugees are arriving daily.

While there had initially been speculation that Assad’s regime might be in serious danger from the rebels, especially after a bomb killed four top security officials in Damascus on July 18, the core of the army has remained intact and the fight looks set to be prolonged.

A high-ranking Western diplomat familiar with the intelligence assessments on Syria said most expected the civil war to be a drawn-out affair.

There is also a great deal of concern in the West over the flow of foreign militants into Syria to fight a jihad, or holy war, against Assad’s regime, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss such matters.

Militants from Chechnya, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been joining the rebels in significant numbers entering by way of Iraq and Lebanon and bringing along skills gleaned from battling the Americans and Russians, the diplomat added.

Syria has long branded the opposition as being foreign-funded “terrorist mercenaries” even when the anti-government movement was overwhelmingly peaceful and Syrian. Now, however, it appears that elements involved in militant jihads are increasingly joining the fight.

In the past month, the rebels have demonstrated greater capabilities and have mounted the biggest challenges to the regime so far in the 17-month-old uprising. They have been fielding more effective forces with better weaponry.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have both expressed a willingness to fund the rebellion and are believed to be sending money to rebels to purchase weapons. On Tuesday, the official Saudi Press Agency said a week-long national campaign to support “our brothers in Syria” had collected $117 million dollars in cash donations to outfit relief convoys for Syrian refugees.

Source: orlandosentinel.com

#Syria: United rebels gain ground as slow war comes to Aleppo

In the rolling countryside north of Syria’s second largest city of Aleppo, the rebels of the Free Syrian Army reign. Ruth Sherlock reports. 

By Ruth Sherlock, Anadan

7:51PM BST 06 Jul 2012

Growing in size and increasingly coordinated, they control territory that lies on the doorstep of President Bashar al-Assad’s heartland.

The towns of Anadan and Hraytan lying on the northern periphery of Aleppo city have become the front line in the fight between government forces and FSA rebel groups.

Sheltering in a building in the deserted town of Anadan, rebel fighters in military fatigues train binoculars on the Aleppo highway below on the lookout for government tanks. Residents have fled Anadan. The town is bombarded daily with mortars and artillery. Almost every one of the grey buildings is marked with shell holes and shrapnel litters the roads.

A mother and child sheltering from shelling in Aleppo province (Alessio Romenzi)


FSA fighters move swiftly down silent streets that fall within sight of enemy positions to point out the dangers. “There are tanks at our flank and in front of us,” warned a rebel. “There is an Assad tank pointing its barrel at us and sometimes there are snipers.”

The FSA fighters launch frequent attacks on checkpoints and Syrian army military bases that defend the city. It is a slow war.

With Mr Assad’s security forces working to maintain control of Aleppo, the rebels acknowlege that it could be months before the city falls to the opposition.

Aleppo is an economic powerhouse. Many of its population are wealthy Sunni businessmen who benefited from the president’s economic liberalisation policies and remain loyal to the regime.

But slowly the opposition is encroaching. Their most forward position of Hraytan lies only three miles from the city’s fringes and the effects are being felt.

“We can get inside Aleppo now, and we are supplying guns to FSA units in the city centre. They are lying dormant; hiding, preparing and waiting for the right moment to strike,” said Wassim, 23, a fighter in Anadan.

Sheikh Tawfiq, the rebel leader who cuts a distinctive figure in long grey jalabiya robes; thick, dark beard and red Kuffiyeh scarf, has gained the command of a band of villagers who look to his leadership to deliver them from the threat posed by the regime.

Sheikh Tawfiq, who controls 15 villages in the province and has the power of life and death (Alessio Romenzi)


Vulnerable to air attacks and still within shelling range, the countryside is not yet the “safe zone” that opposition activists need.

As he drove freely across FSA terrain, fighters manning checkpoints rushed to kiss his cheeks, a mark of respect in Arab culture, others begged to be sent on the next battle. Civilians sought his help to resolve problems.

“My brother was arrested by Assad forces at a checkpoint. He was going to buy bread, he is not FSA. Please help him,” said an elderly man.

Free Syrian Army units, which until recently had largely been made up of disparate militias protecting their own territories, are joining forces to form a common front.

Sheikh Tawfiq explains how the new alliances are working and how they hope to expand into the city. “I am one of nine members of the military council of Aleppo military province,” he said. “We have left some seats free for Aleppo city.”

The council meets in towns across the province to discuss military strategies. Increasingly, rebel units are moving across the countryside to support fighters in different areas.

“I have fought in 10 towns across Aleppo,” said Sinan, 35, an FSA fighter based in Anadan. Counting on their fingers, he and his comrades listed the names of towns for which they had fought.

“We have been promised money, weapons and telecommunications by FSA military commanders in Turkey,” said the commander from Der Tezzeh, the region neighbouring the territory under the Sheikh’s control.

The increased coordination is bringing the rebels more military success. Last week, fighters in Der Tazzeh supported by other units in the region attacked a Syrian army operation room on a nearby hilltop. “The base was giving helicopters coordinates of where to fire missiles,” said the commander. “We found some anti-aircraft guns and ammunition too.”

An FSA fighter at the entrance to a bunker near Aleppo (Alessio Romenzi)


Video footage of the attack showed two large mobile communications towers in flames, the area deserted.

The fighters’ weapons appear still largely limited to small arms; mainly Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades. But offensive operations in this increasingly united area are often successful because of growing defections in military ranks.

“Almost every attack we make, we already know that many soldiers in the target will defect,” said the commander of Der Tezzah.

In the string of villages visited by The Daily Telegraph in northern Aleppo province, defectors held the key to military success.

The rebels are even finding improbable allies with ethnic Kurdish fighters who had previously been sheltered by the regime.

Sitting in the old police station in the village of Qaptan, 14 miles from Aleppo, Sheikh Tawfiq spoke animatedly with representatives of the PKK, the Kurdish separationist movement, present in the area.

Over sweet tea and Turkish coffee, the men discussed the future strategy for Aleppo province. “The PKK has decided to form a union with the FSA,” said Sheikh Tawfiq. “They will not help us fight Assad, but there is a cold peace.”

Driving across the undulating hills past olive groves and agricultural lands with a rebel unit, the car was stopped at a PKK checkpoint.

Warily, the men peered into the car, nodded severely and opened the way. 

Source: telegraph.co.uk

#Syria troops pound flashpoint city of Homs

The Syrian flashpoint city of Homs was pounded by regime troops amid reports more than a dozen people were killed across the country.
Amateur video posted on YouTube by anti-regime activists showed widespread destruction, deserted streets and parts of a building shelled and on fire Photo: AP

3:26PM BST 17 Jun 2012

A civilian was killed in the rebel stronghold of Khalidiyeh, which, like other parts of the central city, was “being shelled since this morning and shot at by regime forces who have been trying to take control of these districts,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A rebel fighter was killed in a clash with regime troops in the Karm Shamsham neighbourhood of Homs, while another man was shot dead by a sniper in the Old City.

Speaking to the AFP news agency via Skype from the Old City neighbourhood, activist Abu Bilal said the regime siege of several parts of the city was “suffocating.”

“They are shelling us all the time. There’s very little food and water, and we’re running out of medication.”

Video posted on YouTube by activists showed clouds of black and grey smoke rising over buildings in the Old City, as the sound of shelling and shooting ripped through the silence of what appeared to be a ghost town.

Abu Bilal, reiterated warnings by the opposition and rights watchdogs, said people trapped in the city “will be massacred” if regime forces enter the encircled districts.

Amateur video posted on YouTube by anti-regime activists in the surrounded Homs district of Jourat al-Shiah showed widespread destruction, deserted streets and parts of a building shelled and on fire.

“We don’t have any milk for the children, nor water, nor electricity,” a woman whose house was destroyed tells the unidentified cameraman.

“We are not scared. We don’t want weapons or money. We just want a way to get our children out of here,” says the mother of two.

The Observatory has said that more than 1,000 families were trapped in Homs, adding that there was a lack of medical staff and equipment.

Home to several rebel hideouts, Homs has been under intermittent attack by regime forces ever since its Baba Amr neighbourhood was relentlessly pounded for a month earlier this year and retaken by the regime.

Elsewhere in the country, a civilian was shot dead by a sniper at Khan Sheikhun in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Observatory said.

Regime forces, meanwhile, shelled the village of Abyan in the northern province of Aleppo, killing a man, while another man died in the town of Andan.

Regime forces have been trying to take over Andan from rebel fighters, who are in turn “resisting fiercely,” the Observatory said.

Violence also hit other areas of Syria, including the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, where clashes between regime troops and rebels killed two people, one of them a rebel fighter, the Observatory said.

In the central province of Hama – one of the first to rise up against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad – at least three regime troops were killed in fighting on Sunday morning, the watchdog said.

In Damascus, a young man was shot dead while another was gunned down in the suburbs of the capital, it added.

Regime forces also shelled the rebel bastion of Douma, on the outskirts of the capital, for the fourth day in a row, killing a man while another was shot dead by a sniper in the same area, it said.

Sixty-nine people were killed across the country on Saturday – 51 civilians, 16 troops and two rebels – according to the Observatory which says more than 14,400 people have died in the 15-month uprising.

Source: AFP

Source: telegraph.co.uk