Khunayfis Massacre

On November 8 2013, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported from its activist network that eight Alawite civilians - four adults and four children - were murdered by Islamists during an attack on the previously peaceful village of Khneifees or Khanafis (Arabic: خنيفس ). This is near Salamiya in Hama province, apparently here on Wikimapia). (note: the page title here is erred; Khunayfis is a different village to the southwest.) No more precise details were given, then or ever as far as ACLOS knows.

Rebels acknowledge attacking the town this day, but normally, opposition records wouldn't report or confirm such a killing. This time, it seems they might have. ACLOS traces the victims' possible laundering as four adults and four children killed by army shelling in Harbinafsa, easy driving distance from Khunayfis (34 km west). To prove the government crime, two or perhaps three of the children are shown, but all oddly with their faces covered by gauze, ostensibly from shelling injuries to the head (almost exclusively). Rather, that might be to obscure their faces so they aren't recognized as the Alawite kids from Khunayfis.