Mazraat al-Qubeir massacre

This massacre occurred on June 6, 2012, in the small village of Mazraat Al-Qubeir, pop. ap.. 160, near Hama. The most common reported death toll is 78, but smaller numbers (and no larger ones) have been cited, and the number and identity of victims remains disputed and uncertain. Of course, the government blamed the rebels and vice-versa, as usual.

Echoes of Houla
Like the Houla massacre less than two weeks earlier and a few miles south, the Qubeir incident appears to have involved some pretty serious firepower blowing up homes, mass killings of whole families, aiming for total decimation, from the elderly to the newborn, and widespread arson of homes and crops. Both massacres occurred in the afternoon or evening, following an initial assault starting about 2pm. Qubeir is said to be ringed by Alawite villages, as Al-Houla is, and both also neighbor areas dominated by rebels with small units that could be bolstered at any time by the larger forces available in rebel-heavy Homs, Rastan, and Hama (see map below). Both towns were left vacated by the shelling/fighting/massacres. Both feature illogical and/or vague and deeply conflicting accounts from the government and the opposition, with the Western consensus both times siding against the government.

The June massacre Followed the pattern established at Houla to an eerie degree. As Reuters reported: ''Several activists told Reuters that up to 40 women and children were among the dead when the village in central Syria was shelled on Wednesday before fighters moved in and shot and stabbed dozens of people to death."

Time passed on the SNC account that "the militiamen converged on Qubair from neighboring pro-regime villages. It said some of the dead were killed execution-style, others were slain with knives. "Women and children were burned inside their homes in al-Qubair," said Mousab Alhamadee, an activist based in the central province of Hama."

The timing too was to similar effect, and even more acutely suggesting someone intent on harming the Syrian government's standing in the world. Reuters reported:
 * U.N. monitors tried on Thursday to reach a village where activists say Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad massacred at least 78 villagers, hours before a divided U.N. Security Council discusses Syria.


 * If confirmed, the killings at Mazraat al-Qubeir, near Hama, will pile pressure on world powers to act, but they have been paralysed by divisions pitting Western and most Arab states against Assad's defenders in Russia, China and Iran.

The visuals from Qubeir are eerily similar in spots to those from Taldou, Al-Houla. The violated homes and other buildings in Taldou show marks of horizontal blasts, opening walls, and widespread arson (also of fields and crops). At Qubeir, UN monitor video shows some homes have whole walls blown away, some were torched intensely enough the building cracked like an eggshell, heavy anti-aircraft munitions were used scooped up for the investigation) and what seems to be stored grains are still smoldering. Consider also this scene of a family massacre in Houla (bodies present) and this one (also shown below) of a scene from Qubeir. In both cases, the people were seated in their living rooms and machine gunned there, leaving the marks on the wall near a corner. In Houla, the bodies were left behind, and the added graffiti seems to translate "from here on out, Free (Syrian) Army."

Location and Demographics
The location does little to mute the parallels with the Al-Houla massacre. Reported as 20km west of Hama, it would be roughly the same distance north of there. The precise location is however hard to pin down. It seems to be a smaller village near the larger town of "Mazraf", shown by the BBC on satellite. Mazraf is locatable on Google maps. It's not clear if this is really the same as Mazra'at, or Mazra'at Al-Qubeir, but they seem related. "The nearby village of Maarizab" where the dead were buried by some accounts, could be the place we're seeing. Wikipedia's entry for Al-Qubeir, the tiny site of the massacre, cites a nearby larger town Maazraf. Note the switch in the position of the R, making a fit with Maarizab possible.

Wikipedia cites a few sources to explain Qubeir is "a settlement in the Hama Governorate of Syria, near the larger village of Maarzaf." comprised of around 30 homes, with a population around 160. 78 dead from 160 inhabitants, if true, would mean half the town was killed off in this attack. Little wonder it's been described as a ghost town afterwards. There are a few areas around Mazraf/Maarzaf with about 30 houses or what would seem like that, according to Google maps. The visuals in the UNSMIS video might help set the location, but unique details seem to be scarce. It seems to be a hilltop village, fairly barren land seen up-close, mountains in the distance (0:15), perhaps to the south-southwest.

Therefore, the exact location hasn't been decided. But all this helps set the basic area, as shown on the inset map. The larger area shows Al-Houla as well, about 35-40 km south. The smaller Alawite villages surrounding both red-dot-massacre-villages are not shown but do exist. Qubeir, given as Kubeir in a Now Lebanon piece, was described as "a Sunni farming enclave surrounded by Alawite villages." The larger cities of Homs and Hama are shown for comparison, along with Rastan, all with populous rebel-dominated areas, and Kafr-Laha and Mazraf, both of which seemed to be sources of possible rebel attackers against the nearby towns.

Government Narrative
The exact position of the government, especially on the death toll, isn't entirely clear. It seems they acknowledge only nine massacre deaths, and apparently a larger number of rebel fighters killed when the government responded. If this is so, this similarity is more with the Tremseh "massacre" than with Houla -a small rebel massacre, then armed clashes killing fighters and maybe soldiers.

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported the day after the massacre: "Several people from Mazraat al-Qubeir and Marzaf villages in Hama countryside narrated the horror and crimes which were committed by the armed terrorist groups against them, revealing the reality of the horrific crime which took place in their village last night as 9 citizens were killed [in] cold blood." They cited local Abu Hawash from Mazraat al-Qubeir village, speaking to SANA by phone. He said "terrorists" armed with RPG launchers and "PKC machineguns" had attacked, and he welcomed government protection. Another local called Abu Mohammad "said an armed terrorist group infiltrated to Mazraat al-Qubeir and killed 9 citizens, adding that after the crime took place, the residents called the authorities to protect them.''

Syria's permanent representative to the UN, Dr. Bashar Al-Jafari, clarified the government's position at the United Nations, also on June 7. This can be seen on video and summarized in an article from Al Manara. That reads in part:
 * Concerning the latest massacre in Al-Qubeir, Al-Jaafari said that killing innocent civilians in al-Qubeir took place 5 hours before any clashes happened, adding that the images broadcast by al-Jazeera and al-Arabia are not those of the massacre victims. The Syrian TVs will air the true images of the massacre…The instigative media channels have taken to airing such fabrications before the UN Security Council meetings, added al-Jaafari.

Manara also passed on Jaafari's explanation that, according to locals, "the gunmen who committed the crime came from another village called Jreijes which led the locals to call for the help of the law-enforcement members.'' The location of this town is not clear. What Jaafari means about the videos isn't certain; at Tremseh, the bodies of dozens of slain fighters were shown as massacre victims, when really they were casualties of a lost battle. Here, it's said there are videos showing "at least a dozen" women and children dead and wrapped. Jaafari and SANA cited only nine, but apparently based on partial information of what they say is a rebel crime with rebels controlling the evidence.

Rebel Narrative
Reuters:
 * A Hama-based activist using the name Abu Ghazi, citing survivors in Mazraat al-Qubeir, said nine Syrian army T-72 tanks had surrounded the hamlet of 20 houses northwest of Hama at 2 p.m. (1100 GMT) and started bombarding it. An hour later the tanks drove in, accompanied by plain-clothes fighters carrying guns, knives and heavy sticks, he said, who started killing men, women and children. He listed more than 50 names of victims, many from a single family called al-Yateem, but said some bodies could not be identified because they were so badly burned. The bodies of between 25 and 30 men were taken away by the killers, he said.

The Victims
The largest death toll of 78 is also the most widely cited, but not necessarily the most accurate. An early list on Shaam News' Facebook page gave only 59 victims, some not even identified. As listed, the dead were overwhelmingly (75%) from one family, Al-Yatim; 44 of the listed 59 names are Al-Yatim, with a few each from Ulwan and Faris families, and a few other names plus the unknowns. (see the discussion page for that full listing) The Syrian National Congress reported that only 35 of the dead "were from the same Al-Yatim family" among that family "more than half of them women and children."

The Syrian government's initial claim of only nine massacre victims and promises to show them, as well as their full death toll and explanation of the discrepancies, will be covered here when and if that information is located.

Star Witness: Laith/Leith Al-Hamwy/Hemary
One name that doesn't appear on the list, seven times or even once, is Al-Hamwy/Hemary. But one alleged survivor giving that name has spoken at least three times to the outside media, giving the same story and once specifying that despite the name, he and his lost kin were member of the targeted Yatim family.

The UK Telegraph reported:
 * "Laith al-Hemary's brother whispered on the mobile phone: "There are shouts and screams coming from outside," he said. "They are killing everyone they find." Then the line went dead. At 5.10pm, three hours after the attack began, Mr Hemary's brother's voice died away and he stopped answering his calls. Pushing open the door of his home several hours later, Mr Hemary found the bodies of his mother, three sisters and three brothers lying bloodied on the ground. "They had been beaten on the head by sticks and stabbed with knives," he said. "I went to other homes. I saw family after family slaughtered by knives."

Canadian CBC passed on an AP report from a survivor of that family who says he lost seven members of his household.
 * Leith Al-Hamwy told The Associated Press by telephone that he survived by hiding in an olive grove about 800 metres from the farms as the killings were taking place. But he said his mother and six siblings, the youngest 10-year-old twins, did not.

Reuters reported on a man giving all the same details as Mr. Hamwy/Hemary, but no name. It's also the one spot he claims membership in the primary target family, suggesting his name would be Yatim/Yateem:
 * a Syrian farmer said ... "There was smoke rising from the buildings and a horrible smell of human flesh burning," [as he] watched Syrian troops and "shabbiha" gunmen attack his village as he hid in his family olive grove. "It was like a ghost town," he told Reuters by telephone, asking not to be named because he feared for his safety. ... "After the army fired on one area, security forces and shabbiha would go inside the houses. I heard gunshots inside three houses, then I saw them come out and burn them," the witness said. "Most of the time I couldn't hear anything over the artillery fire ... By 8 p.m., they were finished."
 * [...]
 * ''The witness, who claimed he was a Yateem family member, said he had spoken to his brother on a cellphone as gunmen rampaged through the town.
 * "The last conversation we had, I told him I saw the forces coming to our house," he said. "After the shabbiha and tanks left, the first thing I did was run to my house. It was burned. All seven people from my house were killed. I saw bodies on the stairs, the bathroom and bedroom. They were all burned."''

Investigators Obstructed and Shot At
UN observers with UNSMIS who tried to visit the site on June 7 came under fire from what they described as "small arms", fired by unseen gunmen, leaving it unclear who was trying to keep them away. No one was injured in the shooting. They were later able to visit, the following day, taking notes and releasing some valuable video footage.

UK Channel 4's chief correspondent Alex Thomson made it in close enough to try and report from the scene, but he too was shot at. As he wrote on his Channel 4 blog, "I’m quite clear the rebels deliberately set us up to be shot by the Syrian Army. Dead journos are bad for Damascus." Interestingly, Thomson notes his unusual reporter status and the reaction of some:
 * really irritating guy who claims to be from “rebel intelligence” and won’t quite accept that we have a visa from the government. In his book foreign journos are people smuggled in from Lebanon illegally and that’s that. We don’t fit his profile. He and his mates are making things difficult for our driver and translator too – their Damascus IDs and our Damascus van reg are not helping. This is new. Different. Hostile. 

This hostility had them decide to turn back. A black car with four men offered to lead them back out of town, but led them to a different place in "no-man's land." Gunfire opened on the car. Their escort "roared off as soon as we re-appeared" from a dead-end alley. Apparently no one was injured as the driver sped them back to safety on his own.

Thomson reported a member of the Arab League observers affirming to him "I read your piece “set up to be shot in no mans land”, I can relate as I had that same experience in Al Zabadani during our tour.”

The Bodies
No bodies were seen by the time investigators arrived; only some parts of mutilated and burnt victims and a fair amount of their blood remained. The bodies had been removed by disputed parties for different reasons. Reuters heard "the bodies of between 25 and 30 men were taken away by the killers," according to "activist" Abu Ghazi. (more forthcoming)