Haswiyeh Massacre

On January 15/16, 2013, a reported 100-106 people were killed in the farming town of Haswiyeh (Arabic الحصوية, meaning gravel). On the northern edge of the central Syrian city of Homs (locatable here on Wikimapia and here on Google maps), it's dominated by orchards and small fields, with about 1,500 people.

As the story was first announced by opposition sources via the world media, the massacre was of "whole families," as many as 13, including 32 from one specific (Sunni) family. Not surprisingly, the killers are reported as Alawites and Shi'ites from surrounding villages. For the first time, it's being alleged this is part of a strategy of creating an Alawite/Shi'ite/Christian breakaway state, purified of Sunnis in advance.

Activists Speak
Telegraph cited "opposition sources from Homs" who blamed "loyalist militiamen backed by government troops" for the attack, which featured "torching houses and slashing victims to death with knives." UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "whole families were executed", with one family losing up to 32 members, including women and children.''

CNN heard, from "anti-government activist Abu Rami," that "13 families," all of them Sunni, were killed in "Husweyeh." "Rami feels that the lack of military action by the international community has given al-Assad "the green light...to do whatever to end" the uprising against him. Thousands of "Syrian souls" will pay for that, he said.''

Telegraph: "Haswiyeh is not far from the region of Houla, where 108 people were killed over two days last May. The UN described the Houla killings as a war crime perpetrated by the government forces and shabiha militia backing Assad's regime." The town's proximity to Al-Houla, site of the Houla massacre is often mentioned as helping to suggest the government is responsible. Clicking that link might be instructive.

James Miller at Enduring America has assembled a collection of news items and analysis on this incident. One feature is a tweet from the 17th by Zaid Benjamin saying "#BREAKING: Over 180 people killed during 3 days of Assad troops operations in Hasawayah town in Homs - Syrian Activist Abu Ja'afar." Another is detailed Facebook post, same day, from "Homs Up-To-Date," fciting 105 victims. In part:
 * Reports emerging from Husweyeh massacre behold such intolerable pain of an extremely appalling massacre committed against 13 families according to eyewitnesses. ... On Tuesday, 15/1/2013, the regime's military security forces entered the village 12:00 p.m. [Syria time] and arbitrarily arrested a number of men, amongst them martyr Abdul Haseeb Deyab, Imam of Al Tayyar mosque in Husweyyeh village. At 1:00 p.m. [Syria time], some of the detainees got released. At 2:00 p.m. [Syria time], 2 buses {well-known by civilians for being used to drive Shabiha (thugs)}, 4 other security forces buses, and 2 armoured vehicles arrived to the area and parked near Al Boushi factory for ceramics.

[...] ''Afterwards, some young men were extrajudicially executed in these houses then burnt in one house, which is the house of Abu Mashhour Shehab Deyab. They then moved into Al Ghaloul orchards and executed all the men, women, and children their found there from Al Ghaloul family. Third station was Al Deyab farmlands, where they also executed the whole family and burnt their corpses. Their last station was the farmlands right beside Al Deyab farmlands, where they killed more than 17 members of Al Mahbani family there.''


 * Few of the young men were able to escape as they climbed on trees and hid in orchards. But the regime's Shabiha (thugs) caught them, executed them and tied them to trees. Most of the eyewitnesses recounts said that the gold women were wearing was robbed after they were disgustingly humiliated whilst others were kidnapped/arrested and no one know anything about them nor about how many are they.

Locals Blame Al-Nusrah
Not one, but two British news teams swiftly brought some questions into the mix a-la Alex Thomson's pioneering approach. Most journalists gather their reports by phone from activists, and from available sources, note that they can'tverify anything, and use th standard fallacies to explain that it's the Syrian government's fault. In contrast, ITV's Bill Neely, International Editor, and a team visited the town just as news broke on Thursday, January 17. BBC's Lyse Doucet, Chief International Correspondent, headed a team that arrived on Friday, the 18th. What they heard from soldiers, authorities, and most importantly presumably genuine local civilians, was completely at odds with what activists had been saying.

(content forthcoming)

The Reported Victims
(forthcoming)

Sectarian Claims
The Telegraph reported:
 * Waleed al-Fares, an activist in the area said that most of the victims were Sunnis and that many of the attackers came from the nearby village of Mazraa, which he said is predominantly Shia.

Homs Up-to-Date: "The village includes Sunnis, Christians, and Alawties, but the massacre is proven to be purely driven by sectarianism since all the families massacred are Sunni families only...."

CNN: :''Rami said the families killed were Sunnis, suggesting that the killers were motivated by sect differences. Sunnis, Christians and Alawites in the village were spared, he said.''

AP: Sweep of majority Sunni village could pave way for Alawite enclave
 * The opposition believes the mass killings that have occurred, mostly in overwhelmingly Sunni villages that lie near main routes into the Alawite sect's coastal strip, are meant to lay the groundwork for a breakaway enclave.

By combined implication, this breakaway state will not be just a greater Latakia for the Alawites, but for other Shia, Christians, and apparently everyone but Sunnis. But to get it, they need to liquidate the local Sunnis, in the same kind of fits and spurts country-based rebels could pull off, if they wanted. The implications are clearly troubling, and also troubling in less clear ways.