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June 8th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
UN patrols in Syria have on several instances been deliberately targeted with
heavy weapons, armor-piercing ammunition and a surveillance drone, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council, according to a
senior UN official. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because
Thursday’s council meeting was private, said Ban also reported repeated
incidents of firing close to UN patrols, apparently to get them to withdraw.
International envoy Kofi Annan, whose peace plan brokered in April has not
been implemented, warned against allowing “mass killings to become part
of everyday reality in Syria.”
“If things do not change, the future is likely to be one of brutal
repression, massacres, sectarian violence, and even all-out civil war,”
Annan told the U.N. General Assembly in New York. “All Syrians will
lose.”
UN diplomats said Annan was proposing that world powers and key regional
players, including Iran, come up with a new strategy to end the 15-month
conflict at a closed meeting of the Security Council that took place
Thursday.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Annan highlighted the urgency of
taking action to diffuse the situation.
Standing alongside Annan and League of Arab States Secretary General Nabil
Elaraby, Ban echoed the sense of urgency.
“The three of us agree: Syria can quickly go from a tipping point to a
breaking point. The danger of full-scale civil war is imminent and real,
with catastrophic consequences for Syria and the region,” Ban warned.
Any proposal to resolve the situation, however, must be acceptable to Russia
and China, which have protected ally from past U.N. sanctions, as well as
the U.S. and its European allies, they said, speaking on condition of
anonymity because consultations have been private.
The latest violence centered on Mazraat al-Qubair, a small farming community
of 160 people, mostly Bedouins, in central Hama province. Activists said the
Sunni village is surrounded by Alawite villages. Alawites are an offshoot of
Shiite Islam and Assad is a member of the sect, while the opposition is
dominated by Sunnis.
A resident said troops shelled the area for five hours Wednesday before
government-aligned militiamen known as “shabiha” entered the area
that is known to shelter army defectors, “killing and hacking everyone
they could find.”
Leith Al-Hamwy told The Associated Press by telephone that he survived by
hiding in an olive grove about 800 meters (yards) from the farms as the
killings took place. But he said his mother and six siblings, the youngest
10-year-old twins, did not.
“When I came out of hiding and went inside the houses, I saw bodies
everywhere. Entire families either shot or killed with sharp sticks and
knives,” he said.
Al-Hamwy would not give his exact location or real name, fearing for his
safety, but said he was waiting for U.N. observers to come to the farm.
Al-Hamwy’s account could not be independently confirmed or corroborated by
other eyewitnesses.
He said the gunmen set his family home on fire and his family burned to death,
huddled in a concrete attic above their bathroom, where they stored food
provisions. Around 80 people in total died, he said, many of them children,
and that most of the villages 20 homes were either destroyed by the shelling
or burned down.
“There’s flesh of animals and humans scattered, the smell of smoke from
burning houses and bodies,” al-Hamwy said.
Syria’s main opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Council, also said
78 people were killed in Mazraat al-Qubair when government-aligned
militiamen converged on the village from neighboring pro-regime villages.
Some of the dead were shot in the head, others were slain with knives, the
SNC said. It said 35 of the dead were from the same family and more than
half of them were women and children.
“Women and children were burned inside their homes in al-Qubair,”
said Mousab Alhamadee, an activist based in Hama.
Syria denied the opposition claims as “absolutely baseless.” The
exact death toll and circumstances of the killings reported overnight in
Mazraat al-Qubair were impossible to confirm.
One YouTube video purported to show the bodies of babies, children and two
women wrapped in blankets and lined with frozen bottles of water to slow
decomposition.
Another row of bodies lay elsewhere: a grandmother, a mother, and five
siblings and two cousins, according to the video narrator. All the corpses
were neatly wrapped in white sheets, more frozen water bottles tucked among
them. One toddler’s arm covered her face. Their names were scrawled on
pieces of paper and tucked into their shrouds.
In another video were four blackened objects that the narrator said were the
remains of a mother and two children who were shelled in their home.
The authenticity of the videos could not be independently verified. Attempts
to reach more witnesses and residents of the area were difficult. The Syrian
government keeps tight restrictions on journalists.
A government statement published on the state-run news agency SANA said “an
armed terrorist group committed an appalling crime” in Mazraat
al-Qubair, killing nine women and children. It said residents appealed for
protection from Hama authorities, who went to the farm and stormed a hideout
of the group and clashed with them.
The statement said all members of the armed group were killed in clashes,
adding that the incident was meant to pressure the Syrian regime ahead of
the UN meeting.
Secretary-General Ban said UN observers were initially denied access to the
scene in central Hama and “were shot at with small arms” while
trying to get there.
The observers were forced to turn back and were not injured, although one
vehicle was hit and slightly damaged, said Kieran Dwyer, spokesman for the
UN peacekeeping department. They were not able to enter Mazraat al-Qubair,
he added. It was not clear who was behind the shooting.
On May 25, more than 100 people were killed in one day in a cluster of
villages known as Houla in central Homs province, many of them children and
women gunned down in their homes. U.N. investigators blamed pro-government
gunmen for at least some of the killings, but the Syrian regime denied
responsibility and blamed rebels for the deaths.
On May 30, 13 bound corpses in Deir el-Zour province, while on June 1, 11
workers were found shot to death near the town of Qusair in Homs province.
The Houla massacre brought international outrage and a coordinated expulsion
of Syrian diplomats from world capitals.
Ban called the latest reported mass killing “shocking and sickening,”
saying “each day seems to bring new additions to the grim catalog of
atrocities.”
He said it has been evident for months that Assad and his government “have
lost all legitimacy,” adding that “any regime or leader that
tolerates such killing of innocents has lost its fundamental humanity.”
The White House issued a strong condemnation.
“Assad’s continued abdication of responsibility for these horrific acts
has no credibility and only further underscores the illegitimate and immoral
nature of his rule,” press secretary Jay Carney said.
Speaking in Turkey after meeting foreign ministers and envoys from 16
European, Turkish and Arab partners, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton outlined principles that included Assad’s eventual ouster and
departure from Syria.
“Assad has doubled down on his brutality and duplicity, and Syria will
not, cannot be peaceful, stable or certainly democratic until Assad goes,”
she said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron insisted more must be done to isolate
Assad’s regime and show that “the whole world” wants to see
political transition in Syria and condemns “absolutely” the Syrian
regime.
Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, who also addressed the UN General Assembly,
urged all Arab states to recall their ambassadors and halt all diplomatic
contact with the Syrian government.
Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said an unjustifiable massacre was
taking place in his country, but the government is not responsible. He also
said “the government of Syria has spared no efforts to implement its
part of the Kofi Annan plan.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Security Council would not
support a military intervention in Syria. “There will be no mandate for
foreign intervention. I guarantee it,” he was quoted by Russian news
agencies as saying in Kazakhstan.
In Paris, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said ministers from
the so-called “Friends of Syria” countries – many European and
Arab nations – would meet in the French capital July 6 to help support the
Annan plan.
Source: agencies
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