Talk:Abdul Basset al-Saroot

Questions from the 60 Minutes Report
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/syrian-civil-war-60-minutes-bob-simon/

''Talal Derki: (Sarout had) No fear at all. Like the day Basset stood above the crowd and started taunting the regime's snipers who had him in their crosshairs.''
 * How did they know that? --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:23, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

''Talal Derki: He start to shout, "Listen, sniper, this is my head and this is my neck, that I am a clear target if you want to-- to-- to-- to-- to shoot me, but I will not be afraid." The snipers didn't shoot Basset that day...''
 * How do we know they existed and were actually against him? Were the soldiers just so frightened by his courage they couldn't pull the trigger? Or were they rebel snipers working with him to encourage "bravery" like that and discourage "cowardly" support of the Syrian government? --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:23, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Basset became a marked man but try as they might, they couldn't get him...
 * Or didn't want to because they were his friends, depending. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:23, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

...So they took out his brother, his cousins, his friends.
 * How do we know these weren't pro-government family members Sarout or someone else ordered killed for refusing to join the rebellion, as is often the case with targeted families? --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:23, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Orwa Nyrabia: "They were all killed in his own-- in-- in his family's apartment. It was a very difficult moment." Orwa Nyrabia, the documentary's producer also filmed parts of it.
 * I suppose he has an explanation that makes that sound less shady. But indeed, rebel types are usually right there after every massacre to record the effects. One suspects they're usually there before and during as well. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:23, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

''We met him near the Syrian border in Turkey. Orwa Nyrabia: So his mother was forced to make tea to the soldiers while they were killing her son. And that was moment when he said, "Peace is not going to work." Basset was soon transformed from protester to armed revolutionary.''
 * Ah, just then and no earlier. Hand was forced, by the same "regime" with the snipers that could just never kill him, just rile him up. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:23, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

''His small band of fighters began taking neighborhoods controlled by the regime. Assad's soldiers struck back slaughtering thousands.''
 * And that, I think, is where our research on these "thousands" killed in the Homs Massacres becomes the proper antidote. Or would, if it was all developed. I'm pretty sure that's him hosting the Feb. 4, 2012 videos of Khalidiya Massacre victims, apparently gender-segregated hostage executed and sometimes mutilated to look like the shelling victims they were passed off as. This was the biggest massacre yet, about 150 but promoted at twice that size, as usual timed to coincide with a UNSC session on Syria and be used as fodder for the Western powers to push for war. The show uses footage from the massive funeral-protest after when making their point here. AbdulBaset (at right, from this video) makes a special point to show off a boy's flattened and unrecognizable head. He strikes me there as being strung out on meth, and somewhere deep inside horrified at the Islamo-nihilist scum he'd irreversibly hooked up with. But that's pretty subjective I suppose. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:23, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * A comment at that article from SusanDirgham. In (most relevant) part it says:


 * There is a lot to be troubled about in regards to this report.


 * 1. For example, we are presented with the claims of individuals who support a bloody 'revolution' against their government and army. However, we do not see the faces or hear the views of the general public in Syria, that is millions of people who don't support a militarised opposition.

...


 * 4. On a visit back to Damascus in 2009, I met and interviewed Orwa Nyrabia. I had heard that his father had been a political prisoner, but I admired Orwa for being a documentary film maker and someone who brought foreign films to Syria. I believed he supported evolutionary change for Syria, not 'revolutionary' terror. I was wrong.  Last year, I had a Twitter conversation with him and he made it clear he doesn't support peace for Syria now.  That is something for the future, in his mind. But will Syria have to be destroyed for his future peace? And who benefits from its destruction?


 * (5 and 6 focus on persection of Christians and the story of Sari Saoud, whose mother the commentator claims to have also interviewed)
 * I checked the videos again briefly, and I'm not sure on the timeline of Abdulbasit's involvement, but ... that happened in the Bayada district in the north, November 26, 2011. And al-Saroot's kin at least (see below seem to mostly hail from Bayada, at least the ones who shoot people. So it seems likely he - or at least his people - was involved in this, although I didn't see him anywhere yet that I recognize. Would be a couple weeks after the "difficult" offing of some of Abdelbaset's family "in his own-- in-- in his family's apartment" that his producer was there to record... --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:42, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * 7. In regards to Simav's contribution, she is a Kurdish (Syrian?) woman who supports the 'revolution', but we do not know what motivates her.  I was at a press conference in Damascus in 2013 for a delegation of international peace activists.  Yara Abbas, a young female reporter asked a question. A few weeks later Yara was killed by a sniper.  Simav and Yara are two very different women.  Who would we feel most empathy for: the young woman risking her life in support of armed men who are most likely motivated by an extremist ideology, or the young woman who reported on regular Syrian soldiers who went into battle against those armed men?


 * 60 Minutes would be able to present a truer picture of Syria if it reported on Syrian women who are prepared to risk their lives every day simply to go to work, to the local market, or to university, and then back home.  Tell us about the mortars fired from rebel-occupied areas into suburbs and towns.  In 2013, one of my good friends was killed in Damascus by a rebel mortar as she made her way home.

--Caustic Logic (talk) 13:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

How Islamist How Early?
This seems to be an issue people are making that the poor fellow only became an ISIS-type because he was abandoned despite his clean-shaven chin of yesteryear. But I'm guessing there are troubling signs from day one that he was working on the same sectarian Islamist script all these Shabiha-blaming "where are you Arabs?" baby-shakers seem to operate on. Lots of material to sift, no promises, not a top priority for me. But for me or anyone else, here's a good space to gather quotes and other clues that can be dated and considered. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:06, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

VDC Sarout Records
With the two main spellings (Saroot and Sarout) I get only seven death records, on the martyr's side. (Regime forces list doesn't let you search by name) First, fighters taking Abdulbasit's lead, in reverse chronological order.
 * Abdullah al-Sarout non-civilian, from Bayada, Homs. FSA. Died of "shooting" Jan. 9, 2014 in "A massacre of more than sixty people from the Free Syrian Army while trying to break the siege on the city of Homs"
 * Ahmad al-Sarout from same, FSA brother/cousin, died same day and same way as the above, same "massacre." The entry has a photo of him on a (previous?) hospital visit with serious injuries.
 * Mohammad Waleed Mamdouh al-Saroot, FSA, from Bayada as well. Died by shooting, 2013-07-08 "during the clashes with the regime's army forces." One photo looks exactly like Andulbasit, and the other looks a bit different.
 * Hamad al-Sarout Non-civilian, from Jabla, Latakia. Displaced by the law and order and peace that prevails there, he was forced to be a militant elsewhere, and died in Raqqah, October 25, 2012. Unless... he's listed as "Defected Soldier" and on the "martyrs" list, but he didn't make it far enough to get the FSA stamp. In fact, he was "martyred by the regimes' army after trying to defect from the 17th Division in Raqqa." Sometimes this seems to mean he was killed by FSA in an attack there, killed by the regime that hired him, for failing to defect on time. He did try, though, and was Sunni, we can presume. He was claimed for the rebelling portion of Syria's Sarouts.

Civilians, chronological. Sarout's brother should be in this list
 * Waleed Al saroot from Bayada, like the above, but he didn't take up fighting. Somehow, he died from "shooting" anyway, back on November 11, 2011. No details given. Did he turn down a family recruitment drive?
 * Mohii Aldeen Al saroot Two days later, they wouldn't likely be scraping the bottom enough to shoot down this man of 60 for refusing to fight. This time, it must only have been to make the "regime" look bad. Not from Bayada, but Cairo street, nearer city center. " Uncle of Abdel Baset Saroot." Died of shooting November 13, 2011.
 * Nour al-Huda Husain al-Saroot al-Noaemi Child, female, age 2. Died December 23, 2013 in (or from Ezzedine - not sure where that is) from "warplane shelling." A photo is there suggesting these are the common mystery shells that leave the body intact as far as can be seen. Her throat can't be seen, but lost of blood above and below it can be. All Sarouts so far seem Sunni, but what about this al-Noaemi clan some married into? --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:39, 6 January 2015 (UTC)