Talk:Queiq River Massacre

Reuters has the main report so far, NPR links us to the/a video. Haven't watched it. Reuters says:
 * At least 65 people, apparently shot in the head, were found dead with their hands bound in a district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, activists said. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which says it provides objective information about casualties on both sides of Syria's war from a network of monitors, said the death toll could rise as high as 80. It was not clear who had carried out the killings.


 * Opposition activists posted a video of a man filming at least 51 muddied male bodies alongside what they said was the Queiq River in the rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood of Aleppo. The bodies had gunshot wounds to their heads, and their hands were bound. Blood was seeping from their heads and some of them appeared to be young, possibly teenagers, and dressed in jeans, shirts and sneakers.


 * The Queiq River rises in Turkey and travels through government-held districts of Aleppo before it reaches Bustan al-Qasr.

Implication, they were killed in the government-controlled (last we heard) area, where all river banks are inaccessible to rebel trucks. Regime thugs dumped the bodies to hide them, forgetting the river flows right into rebel camera land next door. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:43, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The Lede: Boring
The Lede adds:
 * Gunfire echoed in the distance, and at the end of the clip the cameraman broke into a run. “A sniper is firing at us,” he said.
 * [SOHR] said 65 bodies were recovered from the river. The group estimated that 15 more remained in the water but could not be retrieved because of a threat posed by government snipers.
 * The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper whose correspondent, Ruth Sherlock, was on the scene of the grim discovery, reported that residents pulled 79 bodies out of the river. A rebel fighter interviewed by Ms. Sherlock estimated that as many as 30 more bodies could remain in the water, but said they were impossible to retrieve because of nearby government sniper positions.
 * Snipers with a range of up to the river, from one side or another of this frontier flanked by both side. Please note that.

In short: "Piecing Together Accounts ... The rebels and the government have blamed each other for the mass killing, but Ms. Sherlock, of The Daily Telegraph, reported ... A rebel fighter interviewed ... taken to the riverbank by Free Syrian Army fighters ... They thought they had nothing to fear from the government, so they went to renew their identity cards..." Some detective work here. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:54, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Images and Location

 * Have not followed the story. Only saw one photo, river and bodies in the front, Aleppo in in the background, in what appears to be north. I thought areas south of Aleppo were in government control. Were the bodies found by rebels or by the government? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 19:54, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Me neither. Quick Google image search shows quite a few people talking about it, even visually. Here are some --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:56, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Syria 360 Foreign Ministry Calls on Security council to Condemn Jabhat al-Nusra’s mass Execution against Scores of Abducted citizens in Aleppo
 * More likely to condemn the reported Syrian air strike on children playing in the river, all of them Sunni. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:56, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Images - river is at low flow - I don't think they'd be likely to float far or fast.


 * image 1
 * image 2
 * image 3
 * image 4

Makes the link to the rebels' Orontes river body dump last year.
 * Friends of Syria Update on the Bodies in The River
 * image


 * The Lede (Liam Stack,not Robert Mackey: Piecing Together Accounts of a Massacre in Syria
 * The rebels and the government have blamed each other for the mass killing, but Ms. Sherlock, of The Daily Telegraph, reported that many of the dead were residents of rebel-held areas whose families said they disappeared after traveling to government-held areas.


 * video


 * ITV News (no scene report): Pro-opposition group reports 'massacre' in Aleppo
 * The location (?) on the map

here is the area on Gmaps, SW part of Aleppo. I thought it would be afternoon, but there's no clear spot fit if so low building near the bank north of/after the bend). this could be it, if it's instead early morning and the sun comes from that far north. It doesn't, rising already south of 90 degrees in winter. so no spot located yet. --Caustic Logic (talk) 00:47, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I guess this must be it then, and its afternoon as usual. --Caustic Logic (talk) 00:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the last one is it. It explains all the images.� Here is the minaret visible at hard left in image "Aleppo river massacre.jpg." That one is shot around 11:25 am, +/- 17 min. The line drawn by that long, straight stretch of river is app. 294 degrees on the compass, and points buildings northwest, catching the late morning sun obliquely.The other photos are later, early afternoon, not timed yet. The earlier time is more important - by then at latest. they're on the bank opposite the Bustan Al-Qasr side. This is all downstream from whatever normal (gov.-held) districts the rebels cite, as well as downstream from a one-kilometer stretch that runs alongside the rest of this rebel-held district. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:43, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

River Questions
Also note, for whatever it's worth, the neat row of bodies raises the question if they all stopped at the basic spot, then why? In the image at right, it seems there might be a wall, net, grate, or block across the river here, disrupting the surface just short of the last of the bodies. This is likely some kind of screen that maight be placed so often. Surely the loyalist murderers would know about these and realize there was a grate right at Bustan Al-Qasr. And apparently there were no others along the long float down here that stopped the bodies short of rebel cameras? Or, alternately, this is an unusual screen rebels set (to fairly precise measurements, apparently) to catch the bodies they set loose a little north of the bridge the night before. Then, they piled up like logs more or less end-to-end, and were pulled out like so. The fighters and their families stepped in with the right words and identity claims, the other activists swallowed their suspicions again and pushed that version, the media complied, etc. --Caustic Logic (talk) 15:01, 1 February 2013 (UTC) I wish there was a city planning guide available for Aleppo explaining how their river screens are spaced. Also, do we know which district the rebel fighters suspect the bodies were dumped from? (I'll be looking around more soon) I traced the river back a bit.Heavily managed, it is. Part of it goes completely under the city just north of there. Did the bodies make it all the way through that passage? How do they know there were only 30-ish still in the water? How far up river did they look? How many stuck underground? Or did they have the tally to start with? --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:20, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


 * These are fresh bodies. They don't float. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 15:32, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

At left now is the map I made tracing the river north on Google Earth. Note that it's not one km but two km of the river running around Al-Qasr prior to the pile-up point near the edge of their turf. The loyalist butchers must have been just north of the hood, or north of the underground segment. (note-this map covers most of western Aleppo aside from outskirts north and south). The bodies didn't get stuck anywhere in these sometimes 90-degree turns and hard-to-clean underground passages, or the periodic filtration screens I think we see at work. And that is less than one km from the dump point, I suspect. One km might be a good spacing, in fact. One just south of the sharp bend would be the no-further-north-than point. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:56, 2 February 2013 (UTC) and --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

As a hitch in my little theory, I still don't have the scene mapped out, haven't watched any videos yet, etc. this image shows several bodies south of that possible screen. Dragged south? Or drifted further south? --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:38, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Context: rebel withdrawal?
From the sources I have been following, I have been getting the impression, that the rebels are losing in Aleppo and slowly being annihilated or withdrawing from the neighborhoods. The rebels executing their captives before leaving Bustan Al-Qasr would easily explain this pile of bodies.

One of the most deailed sources of information on the war is "Dave," who hosts Verified News channel on YouTube. I do not know how he gets his news, he does not seem to know Arabic, not even the script. I guess he relies on rebel sources: YouTube videos, Facebook, and maybe embedded journalists. He finds the location on the map, and determines whether is it rebel held or government held and if there is fighting going on. Putting all these peaces together on the map enables him to form the big picture.

His latest report from Aleppo is posted on January 30th, meaning it would cover the events of January 29th and some days before:
 * WWIII Syria Aleppo FSA Pockets Break Out Syrian Army Clears Western Aleppo Heavy Fighting

Verified News claims that the SAA has cleared western Aleppo. There is still a rebel flag over Bustan Al-Qasr, but he specifically states there has been a break-out attempt from Bustan Al-Qasr to the west. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:14, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Interesting. If they can be shown to be gone soon (taking down their flags might help), that's verification and a decent reason to massacre hostages, as happened when rebels were pushed out of Daraya. Too bad Dave doesn't share more of how the news was verified. I'm not eager to cite him as having verified things. I don't even know what the green and yellow are supposed to represent. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:55, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Al-Tunisiya newspaper blames "Hafs Abu Islam"
From SANA, Jan 31, 2013:


 * Tunisian Terrorist Participated in Massacre in Aleppo, Tunisian Newspapers Says


 * TUNIS, (SANA)- A Tunisian newspaper revealed that a Tunisian terrorist from Jabhat al-Nusra group was responsible for the killing of scores of Syrian civilians from Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood in Aleppo.
 * In its issue on Thursday, al-Tunisiya newspaper quoted source as saying that a Tunisian terrorist nicknamed Hafs Abu Islam, who is a member of Jabhat al-Nusra, participated in a massacre against scores of Syrian civilians who were shot dead and thrown in Queiq River in Bustan al-Qasr in Aleppo.
 * The newspaper said the bodies of the killed were found in the neighborhood which is under the control of Jabhat al-Nusra, with hands and mouths tied and bearing signs of torture, including burns.
 * The newspaper noted that the dead bodies included children, men and young people, adding that information confirmed that the bodies belonged to citizens from Bustan al-Qasr who had been kidnapped by terrorist groups on charge of supporting the regime.
 * Terrorist groups from Jabhat al-Nusra in Aleppo carried out an mass execution against tens of abducted persons and threw their bodies in Queiq River in Bustan al-Qasr area.
 * The inhabitants identified a number of the dead people and stressed that they were executed because they had rejected to cooperate with Jabhat al-Nusra and demanded the departure of its members from their neighborhoods.

SyrPer also mentions the story, giving the killer as Hafs al-Islam. I guess the original must be in Arabic. Could not even find the newspaper.

There is someone in Britain with a similar name, here quoted as Abu Hafs al-Islam. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 02:16, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * British Muslim Salafi Abu Hafs: We Will Destroy America... We Will Destroy Britain!


 * Cannot even find the newspaper. It should be listed here. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 06:09, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Here:
 * جهادي تونسي متهم بقتل قرابة 80 سوريا


 * ذكرت مصادر امنية سورية ان جهاديا تونسيا يدعى "حفص ابو اسلام" من عناصر جبهة النصرة قام بارتكاب مجزرة راح ضحيتها قرابة 80 مواطن سوري مكبلي الايدي حيث تم اعدامهم برصاصات في الرأس.


 * كما أشار نفس المصدر إلى أن جميع الشباب الذين تم العثور على جثثهم وانتشالها من نهر قويق هم من احدى المناطق الريفية في ريف حلب تدعى بستان القصر.

وأكدت بعض وسائل الإعلام السورية أن ضحايا تلك المجزرة تم اختطافهم وإعدامهم من قبل حفص أبو إسلام بتهمة الموالاة لنظام بشار الأسد.


 * أسماء بن مسعود

Translation:


 * Tunisian jihadist accused of killing nearly 80 Syria
 * Syrian security sources said that Tunisian jihadist called "Hafs Abu Islam" elements Front victory has committed a massacre claimed the lives of nearly 80 Syrian citizen handcuffed were executed, shot in the head.
 * As the same source pointed out that all the young people who found their bodies were recovered from the river قويق are from one of the rural areas in Aleppo called Bustan Palace. And confirmed some Syrian media that the victims of the massacre were abducted and executed by Hafs Abu Islam on charges of loyalty to the regime of Bashar al-Assad.


 * Names bin Masood

حفص أبو إسلام = Hafs Abu Islam