Talk:Karaj al-Hajez

Location
This might be worth establishing, both just where it is and how it's laid out, so visual evidence could be understood better. Everything says Bustan al-Qasr is on the rebel side, and that the crossing is a bridge over the puny Queiq river. Both Reuters/TRUST and Zaman Alwasl say the crossing separates the rebel hotbed from Al-Masharqa. That's a passage then on the north edge of Bustan al_Qasr over the E-W stretch of the river. I did look at some photos of the bus-enclosed market square and surroundings, but wasn't "in the zone" to get a spatial reading that matched the area around either bridge in the it could be presumably near. But it seemed the square is longer running north-south, with the busses parked e-w at either end. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


 * As some snippets you posted below also call it the "Garage crossing", I suspect it is here, next to the "Reserve Car Garage", crossing the canal. The Zaman Alwasl pic could be taken from the crossing looking south at what would be a right-curved road with the "garage" to the right of the pic. Multi-story buildings in the background could fit, didn't find the minarets, though. Not conclusive yet. The Edward Dark story is kind of strange. Why would the "regime snipers" pick out random civilians but leave the "rebels" who control the checkpoint and harass the passers alone? Anyway, interesting topic. --CE (talk) 19:03, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Cool, thanks. Minarets come down in rebel-held areas, due to whatever, so that's no clincher. That is the most likely crossing anyway, I thought. It just looked like the main one. I disregarded garage as poorly-rendered Karaj, but maybe Karaj means garage. In fact, Google translate says yes garage = ,كراج = kraj. You've got a good eye, so probably right. But I'll double check as soon as I have some "zone" time. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:40, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Here is one minaret that could fit, maybe this is the other. --CE (talk) 14:42, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oops, I had that mixed up. On the map you couldn't find them. Still not up to immersing in the visuals today (weird week), but I clicked the wm links - the second spot didn't seem to have a minaret at all, when the shadow would be clear. I don't know what line to look on now, but I'll add that they can be seen pretty far off, and there are bound to be more of them along whatever line. These two spot maybe unnecessarily close. I don't know. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:50, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Came across an excellent Channel 4 report about the crossing, already from July 2013. Will add it to the front page. We have had the location right. --CE (talk) 03:41, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

SOHR
Sporadic Sample Cases: Facebook posts from September: Sept. 4: "Reports that an old man was shot by sniper at the Karaj al-Hajz crossing of Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood." Sept. 5: "Aleppo province: 1 man from the Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood was shot by sniper at the Karaj al-Hajz crossing, 1 man was also wounded by sniper fire at the crossing."

CDV
The Center for Documentation of Violations in Syria (CDV) usually cites "Aleppo: Booking Garage" as the martyrdom location for victims at the crossing. All with this martyrdom location: 21 total, all between July 10 and October 20, 2013. Only three are listed under "Aleppo: Karaj Hagz" from earlier, two men in December, 2012, and a woman shot April 2. Other entries will note it other ways or not at all and some cases may not be documented here at all. 33 martyrs with "garage" in the notes: These have one November 9, 2012 entry, "By a sniper's gunfire in the garage of Bustan Al-Kasser" and otherwise run from March 10 to November 3, 2013. One sample from October 8 with a photo, unidentified but aged 45. Most are given names, presumably their own. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Nearly all entries, the fatalities, are adult men. This is interesting next to the reports that most of the victims are children. It's also said most victims are only injured but survive, if maimed; perhaps the adults are being killed and the kids just injured? It's nothing for a skilled sniper to kill all the men he aims for, but to non-fatally shoot a larger number of children with his powerful bullets and their smaller bodies would be a lot trickier. More than likely, one or more parts of this collective reportage is incorrect. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Regime Sniper Heart Attacks
The Sheer Terror of it is taking its toll, by some reports. The CDV database lists a number of heart attack victims, strangely clustered in late October, whose panic was brought on, their sources decided, from fear of the regime snipers. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


 * October 11 Unidentified: "The cause of his death, myocardial infarction in the result of the intense fear of crossing sniper."
 * October 20 Mohammad Abdullah Naser 50, from Marja, "martyred of a heart attack as a result of panic when the sniper shot at the people walking through the crossing."
 * Oct. 26 Ahmad Zakour al-Shamo, 55, from Izaz, Occupation: English Language Teacher. "Martyred due to a heart attack after that two men were killed by the Regime army Sniper's gunfire stationed at the Garage crossing"
 * Oct. 28 Mohammad Jundieh, age 50, Bustan el-Qassr "Martyred due to a heart attack caused by fear of the Regime army Sniper's gunfire stationed at the Garage crossing"

Presumably unrelated: Oct. 22 a man in Tal Aaran, Aleppo, died Oct. 22 by "heart attack from fear due to shelling in the town." On November 2, they record, a 9-year-old girl in al-Bab, north of Aleppo, was "Martyred due to fear when a missiles fall near of her house." --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Who the Snipers Aren't Shooting
Is it only because they operate behind the bus shields?
 * Photo: A fighter from the Islamist Syrian rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra searches a boy at the Karaj al-Hajez crossing in Aleppo, Nov. 7, 2013
 * Photo: Free Syrian Army fighters holding weapons walk at the Karaj al-Hajez crossing... (Oct. 31)
 * Etc... --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Unincorporated Sources

 * L.A. Times, Aug. 21, 2013: Syria divided: Crossing a bridge where a sniper waits
 * The Karaj al Hajez crossing that spans Aleppo's Queiq River is a no man's land where Syrian residents are picked off daily by a government sniper.


 * SNHR report: PDF, no text copying. It says FSA closed the crossing briefly on June 3 "because the government troops and Shabiha steal all relief aids that arrived to the eastern areas, which is the poorest and exposed to shelling and destruction" and "because the spread of government troops' snipers near the crossing and targeting everyone who comes close." They list 74 citizens killed (12 women, 2 children, 60 men), with 398 injured and taken to field hospitals. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Zaman Alwsl.net: Aleppo: Karaj al-Hajez crossing, path of death and misery
 * The last image of Reuters showing Syrian people running from a fire at a gasoline and oil shop in Aleppo's Bustan Al-Qasr neighborhood October 20, 2013, might be the nearest photo-Story about what is really happening in the most controversial crossing point between rebels and Assad army in Aleppo.
 * Witnesses said the fire was caused by a bullet fired by a sniper loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the Karaj al-Hajez crossing, a passageway separating Aleppo's Bustan al-Qasr, which is under the rebels' control and Al-Masharqa neighborhood, an area controlled by the regime.
 * Activists for many times have described Karaj al-Hajez crossing as Rafah, in reference to the Palestinian-Egyptian crossing, where the misery and suffering are sweeping the crossing.