Baniyas massacre

"The Baniyas massacre" apparently occurred on May 3, 2013 in the coastal city of Baniyas/Banias in Syria's Tartous province. This massacre is closely related to and somewhat confused with the previous day’s Al-Bayda Massacre just south of there. Of note is that both are Sunni majority (but not so far pro-rebel) in an Alawi-majority province, leading to prominent accusations, especially in Turkey, that the Assad regime has genocidal designs there. The killings were reportedly in the Ras al-Nabe' / al-Nabi' / al-Naba' Quarter, and reportedly started a mass exodus of Sunnis estimated at 4,000 by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Initial death tolls claimed around 70 civilians killed, but the SOHR eventually settled on "145 civilians (34 children, 40 women, 71 men) killed in the Banias massacre." Other "activists" estimated there were at least 400 total dead, implicitly all civilians.

There are horrible photos and videos proving extremely violent deaths by men, women, and numerous children, as small as they come. Hacked open faces and heads are more common than usual here. Someone wanted to upset someone. Rebels took all those photos, at crime scenes that could access just fine. Official sources initially mentioned only a battle with rebels that led to the rebels running away. How they would explain the photos rebels have is not hard to predict, and they could be right.

It's clearly worth an attempt at sorting out. To start with, as usual this will happen on the discussion page.