Battling for Maaloula
Maaloula is a Syrian city that occupies a strategic spot overlooking Damascus. It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it’s one of the last places on Earth where Aramaic is still spoken. Naturally, it’s a largely Christian city. Last week, Syrian rebels moved into the city and immediately began terrorizing the citizenry. From the Huffington Post;
One resident said the rebels – many of them wearing beards and shouting, “God is great!” – attacked Christian homes and churches shortly after seizing the village.
“They shot and killed people. I heard gunshots and then I saw three bodies lying in the middle of a street in the old quarters of the village,” the resident said by telephone. “So many people fled the village for safety.”
Now, he said, Maaloula “is a ghost town.”
“Where is President Obama to see what befallen on us?” asked the man, who fled the village on Sunday. He declined to give his name out of fear for his safety.
Another resident who escaped earlier in the day said Assad’s forces were deployed on the outskirts of the village, while gunmen inside refused to allow anybody in. He said that one of the churches, called Demyanos, had been torched and that gunmen stormed into two other churches and robbed them.
A third resident reached by phone said he saw militants forcing some Christian residents to convert to Islam.
“I saw the militants grabbing five villagers Wednesday and threatening them: `Either you convert to Islam or you will be beheaded,'” he said.
The Associated Press reports that the Syrian Army is encircling the city in preparation to “liberate” it.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra Front and the Qalamon Liberation Front still control Maaloula, an ancient village that is home to two of the oldest surviving monasteries in Syria.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said troops attacked the hills around Maaloula early Monday under the cover of heavy shelling.
The UK’s Independent reports that government forces entered the city on Saturday morning but were forced back by the 1500 rebels occupying the city.
Category: Terror War
And the people who are descerating this town are the ones Obumbles is going to go on television tomorrow night and tell us we need to support.
YGBSM.
“Where is President Obama to see what befallen on us?”
He’s on the golf course, pal.
1500 of the around 5000 fighters the AQ backed group has total fighting in Syria…
I feel for those people in that village. This is why we need to stay out of this Civil War though! Too many different factions involved. The Christians in Syria, overwhelmingly back Assad. A man who I have no doubt has gassed his own people, but as well has been murdering them wholesale for the past two years as the word did nothing to stop it.
The number of AQ backed rebels is relatively small, and not in control of the major opposition group. Well one of them at least, which holds the most territory, and the largest number of fighters (as well as being actual Syrians). These are the people Obama had pledged to support, and never did.
Now it is to muddy there, too confusing on who is who, and we have a greater chance of drawing the Russians into a shooting War now, than we ever did.
The “calculus” on this one should be damned clear to Obama, but he is a fucking amateur and that is the biggest factor in my opposing military action. It is not AQ being there, and maybe getting some form of relief as they are in the minority… It is that our CiC is so blinded by trying to rebuild his credibility (that he never really had anyhow), and the credibility of the United States itself that he will do something really stupid and make matters worse.
Obamaman is relying on POLLS to make his decision. Polls. All ready, a substantial number of polled people are supporting a strike. Damned dunderheads. They couldn’t find Syria on a map if the map included only three countries and the capital city of each–with one of the countries Canada and the other the USA. So, today, Rice makes her case and tomorrow it’s Mr. Red Line’s turn. I am sick about this.
One wrong action, once = mistake. (Iraq)
Same wrong action, twice = incompetence. (Afghanistan)
Same wrong action, third time = intention. (SYRIA)
Russia just offered up Syria having their WMDs under “International Control”… right. I trust Putin a little less than I do Obama.
Baracka’s chief of staff, McDonaugh said that the administration does not have “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that the Syrian Government used chemical weapons, but that “common sense” says they did? Excuse me, you can’t prove that Assad used chemical warfare, but we should proceed to bomb him?
I would opt for the beheading before I would ever convert to Islam.
We are assisting Al Qaeda in overthrowing an-until-recently peaceful-ish regime because it didn’t follow their standards of what a Muslim Nation was supposed to be like. So, yeah, let’s help Al Qaeda, Mr. President and members of Congress. It’s not like they have ever done anything bad to us (like the Beirut Marine Barracks, 9/11, the U.S.S. Cole, etc.).
@9, direct linked Al Qaeda fighters in Syria number around 5 thousand. The main opposition group of actual Syrians numbers around 50,000 fighters. Not defending a US Attack or assisting the rebels, but to say we would be “aiding” Al Qaeda is kind of silly… also, I have go to say that your definition of a “peaceful regime” and mine might be somewhat different.
I will cry no tears if Assad is deposed and killed by the Syrian opposition. Assad and his father both supported (and still do) terrorist organisations in the middle east fighting Israel. Hamas, you may have heard of them…
No Bashir Assad is not a peaceful or benevolent man, he is a mass murdering scum bag like his father before him, who hold onto power by shear brutality and oppression of his people.
The Civil War now, is one we probably should have supported last year like we should have supported the Iranian uprisings early in Obamas first term. We didn’t though, and now the situation on the ground is a little more confusing than it was on who is who. Does not change for one second that Assad is a butcher, but it makes involving ourselves in it a lot trickier,especially considering Russia nad Irans involvment there more than some small number of AQ.
To be clear; I do oppose involvment there, just not because of 5,000 or so Al Qaeda fighters.
I get a little peeved when I see idiots in the media mistranslating “allahu akbar” as “God is great” – because that’s quite different from “allah is greater”. But I guess they really don’t want us to see the supremacist totalitarian nature of their favourite “religion”…