Eyewitness: Only Pro-Assad Families Killed by Terrorists in Houla (2)

Two eyewitnesses recounting the events which happened in Houla area in Syria late last month said that the massacre of civilians was carried out by terrorists who only killed supporters of President Bashar Assad’s government.

The two witnesses whose names and pictures were not revealed due to security reasons told the Syrian state-run TV that the terrorists who carried out the May 25 massacre killed those families who refused to attend anti-government rallies or carry weapons and support terrorists financially.

One of the two eyewitnesses who is a woman said one of such Houla families, namely the Abdolrazzaqs, were all butchered by the terrorists.

“I know them in person. All of them were supporters of the government.”

She said that Abdolrazzaq’s progenies comprise four families who all live next to a house which belongs to an armed family who opposes Bashar Assad’s government and the terrorists only killed Abdolrazzaq’s children, ignored the armed family.

Earlier, another female eyewitness who was in Houla and saw the terrorist events in the town on May 25 said the attacks were started by a terrorist named Saeed Talha al-Aksh who was injured and is now in the custody of the Syrian government.

The woman, who refrained from revealing her name and identity due to her deep fear of terrorist reprisal, disclosed that the terrorists wore Army uniforms, attacked the city and massacred the women and children of those families who support President Assad’s government.

She further stated that the terrorists even raped a Lebanese woman whose husband was one of the residents of Houla area.

“They kidnapped their opponents and injected fuel oil into their bodies, using syringes they had earlier stolen from a local hospital,” the eyewitness added.

The May 25 assault on the central area of Houla was one of the bloodiest single events in Syria’s 15-month-old unrests, and gruesome images of dozens of children killed in the attacks prompted a wave of international outrage.

The UN said 32 children under the age of 10 were among the dead.

While investigations into massacres and terrorist bombings prove opponents of Bashar al-Assad government are to be blamed for these crimes, the western media outlets always rush to accuse Damascus for all crimes in Syria without presenting substantiating evidence. In few cases when they release a supportive image or footage, it always later comes to be known that the evidence has been fake and distorted.

This has caused deep suspicion among not just political observers and analysts, but also the people, specially those in the Middle-East.

Middle-East analyst and Tehran University Professor Mohammad Marandi said the West and the Saudis are responsible for continued crimes and killings in Syria.

“Every time there is a terrorist attack in Syria, a suicide bombing or any other atrocity the western media and western governments immediately put the blame on the Syrian government, thus encouraging western and Saudi-backed terrorists to carry out such attacks because they will not be held accountable,” Marandi told FNA late May.

“Therefore, in addition to the fact that they support terrorist organizations at all levels, they have additional blood on their hands for blindly attributing all violence to President Bashar al-Assad government, thus white-washing the crimes or terrorist organizations,” he added.

In a clear case of forgery which turned into a scandal for the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC used a photo taken from Iraq in 2003, showing the corpses of Shiite Iraqi children killed during the Saddam era, atop a report on the events in the Syrian city of Houla.

Marco Di Lauro, an Italian photographer who took the shocking photo announced that he was shocked to see the photo on BBC website atop a report from the recent massacre in Syria.

“Somebody is using illegally one of my images for anti Syrian propaganda on the BBC website front page,” Di Lauro said.

“Today Sunday May 27 at 0700 am London time the attached image which I took in Al Mussayyib in Iraq on March 27, 2003 was front page on BBC website illustrating the massacre that happen in Houla the Syrian town and the caption and the web site was stating that the image was showing the bodies of all the people that have been killed in the massacre and that the image was received by the BBC by an unknown activist. Somebody is using my images as a propaganda against the Syrian government to prove the massacre,” he added.

The picture taken from Iraq shows an Iraqi child jumping over a line of hundreds of bodies, in a school where they have been transported from a mass grave, to be identified. They were discovered in the desert in the outskirts of Al Musayyib, 40 km south of Baghdad. It has been estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 Iraqis had been reported missing in the region south of Baghdad. People have been searching for days for identity cards or other clues among the skeletons to try to find the remains of brothers, fathers, mothers, sisters and even children who disappeared when Saddam’s government crushed a Shiite uprising following the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Marco di Lauro had published the image on his website as part of his story “Iraq, the Aftermath of Saddam”.

He is a photographer for Getty Images picture agency and his works have been published across the US and Europe. However, di Lauro thinks that the BBC got his image from the Internet and not from official stock, which worries him.

He told the Daily Telegraph, “What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn’t check the sources and it’s willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That’s all.”

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.

In October, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Ankara, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of increasing unrests in Syria.

The US daily, Washington Post, reported that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups battling the President Bashar al-Assad’s government have received significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United States.

The newspaper, quoting opposition activists and US and foreign officials, reported that Obama administration officials emphasized the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the Persian Gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.

According to the report, material is being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border.

Opposition activists who two months ago said the rebels were running out of ammunition said in May that the flow of weapons – most bought on the black market in neighboring countries or from elements of the Syrian military in the past – has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding each month.